The only bits of Les Miz that I've heard are passing phrases from commercials or stories about the show. I've never heard any of the songs all the way through. I guess I'll fix that some day.

My boss, who claims to have hated the Broadway show, went to see the movie and hated that too. Um, did you go to see it just so that you had first-person evidence that you hated that as well?

Which brings me to the concept that I've heard about here and there (maybe mostly here) about musicial theatre buffs not considering Les Miz to be good, or a worthy musical, or a real musical, or whatnot, and I'm curious as to the what and why and wherefore. Especially since I feel like it's a golden standard.

Is it too serious and pretty? Is it not weird or experimental enough? /spent a weekend with anarchists who think it's perfectly natural to sit in a bar for a band called Snacks serving inedible snacks and playing dissonant and unharmonious music and enjoying the humor of the horror of the situation (they hated the music, but appreciated the experience. I am a heathen, because bwuh?). //can of worms

Sound like Dadaists.

From my perspective, it isn't musical theatre buffs considering les mis to be sub par, it is theatre people thinking musical theatre/popular theatre is lesser than srs bizness theatre, evidenced by liking Les Mis.

Okay, but why does Les Miz seem to be the example? Why not by liking Phantom, or Spamalot, or Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat?

I usually see either Phantom or Cats used as the example of over-the-top eighties musicals.

I think Phantom would have the same reaction, because I think the reaction is to the earnestness of the love, and not really doing "new" things other than spectacle. Spam a lot ( and Jiseph) don't take themselves so seriously

Yeah, Andrew Lloyd Weber musicals are generally not actually taken seriously (Phantom does well when when the tourists are in town). And Spamalot is too self-aware of its ridiculousness to be the exemplar. Les Mis is just traditional enough to be accessible (as opposed to Sunday in the Park with George), but also has enough depth to not be fluff, and its earnestness is intensely mockable, if your tendencies lean that way.

I also cry during Phantom.

Not Spamalot so much.

Also, I was in college for theatre when Les Mis was super-popular, and I personally quickly learned that liking it put you in the same camp as people who did theatre for a "hobby". I am not claiming that college theatre students aren't often pretentious twats.