Did you know that many musicals discuss medicine and medical procedures? Here we list several notable numbers from stage musicals, movie musicals, and even a television series! Musicals not only entertain us but can also provide a lens through which to explore the complexities of health, identity, and the human experience.
- “Who’s Crazy / My Psychopharmacologist and I” (Next to Normal)
In Next to Normal, main character Diana struggles with bipolar disorder and delusional episodes. This Act I number takes us through several of Diana’s appointments with her doctor as he prescribes her a host of different medications. A chorus recites the various medicines Diana has tried: “Zoloft and Paxil and Buspar and Xanax / Depakote, Klonopin, Ambien, Prozac / Ativan calms me when I see the bills / These are a few of my favorite pills!”
At the end of the song, now placed on yet another new regimen, Diana tells her doctor: “I don’t feel like myself. I mean, I don’t feel anything.”
“Patient stable,” the doctor concludes.
- “Our Disease” (Kimberly Akimbo)
In 2023, when Kimberly Akimbo won the Tony for Best Musical, The Rotation featured a blog post about the fictional disease central to the show’s narrative and its similarities to the actual disease progeria. In the musical, Kim’s disease causes her to age at a hyper-accelerated rate, so that as a high schooler, she appears to be a 72-year-old woman.
In the song “Our Disease,” Kim presents information about her unnamed illness for a biology class project. It’s “an incredibly rare genetic disorder” with symptoms including “wrinkled skin, stiff joints, hip dislocation, atherosclerosis, macular degeneration, hypertension, presbycusis, [and] cardiac issues.” But Kim’s classmates present on scurvy and “fasciolosis” (aka fascioliasis) – diseases that don’t directly affect them. As the song progresses, Kim becomes resentful of her classmates as she realizes that she’s the only one who feels like a scientific curiosity, a specimen.
- “La Vaginoplastia” (Emilia Pérez)
Emilia Pérez is a unique movie: a musical about a drug cartel leader’s journey through gender transition. The movie received a staggering 13 Academy Award nominations this year.
The movie is a complex and emotional portrait of main character Emilia, but you wouldn’t know it from this bizarre number in which a surgeon lists the various gender-affirming surgeries available for transgender women, including vaginoplasty, rhinoplasty, laryngoplasty, mammoplasty, and chondrolaryngoplasty. Rita (Zoe Saldaña), who is organizing the surgeries on behalf of Emilia (Karla Sofía Gascón), is eager to learn more about these procedures.
This movie has received criticism for its depiction of transgender people (among other issues), and this song is one of the more insensitive moments. The surgeon himself describes his work as changing “a man to [a] woman,” thus misgendering his patient and emphasizing a misconception that surgery is necessary to be transgender. Gender-affirming surgeries are important to some transgender individuals, but they are by no means universal to the transgender experience.
- “Miracle” (Matilda the Musical)
The opening number of this musical based on Roald Dahl’s book starts at the very beginning: birth. The song features an obstetrician who absolutely loves his job: “Every life I bring into this world / Restores my faith in humankind,” he sings.
This leads to a hilarious juxtaposition with Matilda Wormwood’s parents, who couldn’t care less about their daughter. When the doctor says, “Your wife has just given birth to a beautiful, healthy, happy little girl. She’s perfect. This is fantastic news,” the parents completely disagree: “Why, when we’ve done nothing wrong / Should this disaster come along?” Though the doctor is not a major character in the rest of the show, his appearance at the beginning is important because it contrasts so strongly with the emotional neglect that will shape Matilda’s childhood.
- “Anti-Depressants Are So Not A Big Deal” (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend)
Our last entry is a song from a musical television series that offers a candid exploration of mental health. When main character Rebecca (Rachel Bloom) is hesitant to start taking antidepressants, her psychiatrist (Michael Hyatt) reminds her that taking such medication is very common and should not carry stigma. A tap-dancing chorus appears to tell Rebecca that all sorts of people get help from antidepressants: “The butcher, the baker, the grocery clerk / They’re all on 20 milligrams or so!” Fluoxetine, paroxetine, and citalopram receive shout-outs.
This relentlessly cheery tune encourages Rebecca to accept the help she needs for her mental health without shame, singing “Why should I feel crappy / About something that makes me happy?”
