Les Miserables

About

Les Miserables is a novel written by French novelist Victor Hugo and published in 1862. Often considered one of the most influential novels of the 19th century, the story has been adapted into numerous musical productions, feature films and even a musical drama film, the last of which led to the establishment of an online fandom upon its release in December 2013.

History

Musical Adaptations

The musical adaptation of Les Miserables premiered on Broadway on March 12th, 1987, and closed on May 18th, 2003, giving it the fourth longest Broadway run.^[5][6] It won 9 Tony Awards in 1987 including Best Musical. The songs “I Dreamed a Dream” and “On My Own” from the musical became popular staples of singing competition reality shows and pop culture, with the former sung by Susan Boyle on Britain’s Got Talent and the latter sung by Lea Michelle in the pilot episode of Glee.

Film Adaptations

There had been seven film adaptations of Les Miserable before a film adaptation of the musical was released on December 25, 2012.^[1] The film starred Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean, Anne Hathaway as Fantine, Amanda Seyfried as Cosette, and Eddie Redmayne as Marius. It grossed $148.8M.^[3]

Reception

The 2012 musical film received mixed reviews, earning a 70% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 63% on Metacritic.^[4] It was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won three, including Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role for Anne Hathaway.

Fandom

As of January 2014 the official Les Miserables Twitter account^[8] has over 82.9 followers and its Facebook page^[9] has over likes 1.6 million likes. Popular Tumblr blogs for the film include lesmisconfessions^[10], fuckyeslesmismovie^[11], and fylesmiserables.^[12] Fanfiction.net^[13] has over 2,600 Les Miserables submissions.

Related Memes

Les Mean Girls

Les Mean Girls is a meme that involves taking quotes (or slightly altered quotes) from the 2004 comedy Mean Girls and putting them on film stills from Les Miserables. The LesMeanGirls Tumblr^[16] uploaded it’s first imaged on January 2nd, 2013. On January 31st Buzzfeed^[17] published a post titled "Les Mean Girls Is “Mean Girls” Meets “Les Miserables” And It’s Glorious" that compiled the best photos from the Tumblr. The meme was also covered by sites likes Mashable^[18], UpRoxx^[19], and TheJaneDough.^[20]

Hark! a Vagrent Tackles Javert

On November, 21st, 2010, illustrator Kate Beaton posted a series of comics under the heading “Javert” on her website “Hark! A Vagrant!”^[7] The comics poked fun at the police officer and anti-hero of Les Miserables, Inspector Javert. The comics quickly became popular on Tumblr.

On November 6th, 2011, YouTube Channel The Online Musical uploaded the first video in their dubstep Les Miserables series. The video featured singer Rachel Dady singing “I Dreamed a Dream” over a dubstep beat.^[14] The video was followed by a dubstep version of “One Day More” on November 8th and “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables” on November 11th. The highest performing video of the three, “One Day More,” had gained over 110,000 views as of January 2014.

On August 30th, 2012, popular YouTube singer Nick Pitera uploaded a video to his channel titled “One Man Les Miserables Nick Pitera Medley” that featured him singing multiple roles in a Les Miserables medley.^[15] As of January 2014 the video has over 4.5 million views.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References