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Plandemic the Musical: Can We Choose Faith Over Fear in How We Disagree?

Writer's picture: Rebecca BurnhamRebecca Burnham

Updated: Jan 30


Jimmy Levy sings "United We Stand" in Plandemic: The Musical
Jimmy Levy sings "United We Stand" in Plandemic: The Musical

This week, I am visiting my daughter with a two-year-old and a two-week-old baby girl. I worried about whether I would even be able to get here because a new wave of COVID seemed to be surging through my part of the world, everybody around me was getting sick, and there was no way I wanted to expose my newborn grandbaby if I got hit with it too. But I’ve been well. And I’ve been masking while I hold that precious gift from Heaven. 


Speaking of masks, today I’m reviewing Plandemic: The Musical produced by Mikki Willis, and released online last Saturday. I expect there will be many responses to this latest of Willis’ offerings that challenge the mainstream narrative about COVID-19 and raise the specter of a conspiracy to divide and conquer us. Unlike those, my goal here is not to evaluate the validity of Willis’ claims. Instead, it’s to look at how effective the musical is at telling a story that lifts and unites, as it promises to do. In order to do that, I’m going to start with a spoiler-filled summary of the entire show. 


Plandemic: The Musical is set in 2021. It features Jerry, a security guard with an optimistic outlook, a great voice, and a penchant for singing “Gloria” at the top of his voice, including into the police radio in his car. While driving to work, he pokes fun at the drivers beside him who are wearing masks while alone in their vehicles and he shakes his head at the masked joggers running by. We’ve already seen that Jerry has an intensely personal reason for his frustration with social distancing protocols – his sister informed him this morning that, despite his clear COVID test, he’s going to have to zoom in to a family gathering. Mom and Dad are high risk and Jerry is not vaccinated. 


When he gets to work, we understand why Jerry sings “Gloria.” That’s the name of the beautiful cashier at the grocery store where he works. It appears the two have only made eyes at each other, but the eyes are speaking. Their boss, a double-masked grumpy man who’s posted a “No Mask, No Food” sign at the entrance, orders Jerry to adjust his mask so that it covers his nose. 


Jerry looks at the shoppers, staying six feet apart and shuffling through the store in depressed compliance with instructions from the loudspeaker to follow CDC protocols. It’s too much. He pulls down his mask and speaks into the intercom at Gloria’s checkout, “Attention shoppers.”  When the boss calls out a reprimand, he continues, “I quit. Right here, right now” then takes Gloria’s hand and starts to sing to her. But the boss barks a warning, and Gloria turns away to finish ringing up the groceries on her conveyor belt. 


Discouraged but determined, Jerry strides into the middle of the aisle, throws away his mask, and starts singing:

WELCOME TO THE GREAT AWAKENING

EVERYBODY BREATHE IT IN

IT’S THE MOMENT WE’VE BEEN PRAYING FOR. 


Now, he walks through the aisles, touching the shoppers he passes.


LIKE TREES 

ROOTS WOVEN UNDERGROUND

GROWING SO STRONG

NO STORM WILL EVER BREAK US DOWN.

AS SEEDS TURN TO TREASURE

CREATING LIFE FOREVER

WE WERE BORN FOR THIS MOMENT.

STANDING STRONG TOGETHER

WE STAND IN ANY WEATHER

WE REMEMBER WHO WE ARE.

LIFE IS INFINITE BLOOMING WITHOUT END.

WHEN IT’S GOD WE TRUST

LOVE ALWAYS WINS.


By now, Jerry has arrived in the produce section with the shoppers he has gathered as he sang. He takes off his cowboy hat and gives an impassioned speech, telling them, “This is not going to end. This will never end… until we end it.” He urges them to stop living in fear and take off their masks because “they lied to every last one of us.”


Hesitantly, one by one, the shoppers do and a party starts in all the aisles. They guzzle wine straight from the bottle, pour potato chips over their heads, and chase each other with nerf guns. Meanwhile, Hi-Rez raps about how social distancing didn’t stop any sickness but efforts to divide us brought us together instead; Jimmy Levy sings, “United we stand; divided we fall,” and a troupe of leggy line dancers get down to a song by DPAK (who composed the soundtrack): 

“NOW WE KNOW WE’VE ALWAYS BEEN FREE 

LOVE EACH OTHER EVEN IF WE DISAGREE

IT’S ALL INSIDE, SHINE THE LIGHT AND SING

LET THE FREEDOM RING. “


There’s a fantasy sequence, where we see Jerry and Gloria wealthy, expecting a baby, and reprising THE GREAT AWAKENING.


Then we return to the present. Jerry goes to the front of the store, gives Gloria a rose, and takes off her mask while the bagger sings in Spanish about all the pain of the past being forgotten in the love of the moment. The boss is momentarily touched and starts to take off his mask, but changes his mind.


The store intercom plays excerpts from Charlie Chaplin’s final speech in The Great Dictator. We see fireworks, then Jerry and Gloria lying in bed with their baby. Jerry lifts the baby into the air, THE CIRCLE OF LIFE begins to play, and the musical ends. 


It’s an entertaining show. The music, especially “The Great Awakening,” is stirring. Willis is wise to use a lighter touch on this film, compared to the previous three documentaries in his Plandemic series that suggest COVID-19 was either engineered or seized upon by powerful people who want to divide us, control us, and take our money. But it does not live up to its marketing as something different from the “divisive and demoralizing doom” that has “hijacked” the arts. It doesn’t even live up to its own lyrics, like “Love each other, even if we disagree.” 


In this show, “unity” is achieved when everybody (except the lost-cause, grumpy boss) agrees to abandon social distancing protocols. There’s no room for anybody of good will or intelligence to keep wearing their masks or to get vaccinated. This is just more divisive rhetoric that masquerades as unifying while telling its target audience that the folks who see things differently are ignorant and driven by fear. You have to convince them to see things your way so they can stop being part of the problem and we can stand strong together. That’s how you build alienation, not unity. So, if there are powerful people trying to divide and control us, this is media that forwards their cause instead of thwarting it. 


What we need instead is to practice faith over fear when we disagree. We need to help each other find a way to embrace across our differences of belief and practice, including those differences as they relate to COVID-19. This show could have done that with a few significant changes. Here’s how. 


First, you’d need to add a question mark to the title – Plandemic?:The Musical. The opening scenes could stay as is until after Jerry arrives at work and his boss orders him to adjust his mask. A moment later, the boss could motion Jerry over and order him to remove an unmasked grandmother from the premises.


Jerry would refuse. He could say something like, “No way. I’m here to deal with crime. She’s not hurting anybody. She just wants to breathe.” 


The boss could then tell Jerry that he’s implementing a new store policy: all personnel have to be vaccinated. That’s when Jerry quits and sings THE GREAT AWAKENING up and down the aisles. 


The impassioned speech in the produce section convinces some, not everybody, to remove their masks. Then Gloria’s voice comes over the loudspeaker, asking shoppers to please abide by CDC protocols for everybody’s well-being. 


The grandmother storms to the front of the store and tells Gloria that people who support masking are like the citizens of Nazi Germany who upheld Hitler.


JERRY (hurrying over): No, Ma’am. This is Gloria. She’s a good woman. I don’t like what she just did but I can tell you she had a good reason for it. You want to tell us about it, Gloria?”


GLORIA: My brother’s an emergency room physician. It’s like a warzone in there. They’re running out of beds, working over-time. Everybody’s burning out. Masking is miserable, I know it. But we’ve got to slow the spread. 


BOSS (arrives at checkout, out of breath): Get… off… my… premises, Jerry. 


GLORIA: But he’s security. 


BOSS: He’s not immunized. He refuses. I’m done with him. 


GLORIA: “If you're firing him for that, I quit too.” 


BOSS: “I thought you were vaccinated.”


GLORIA: “I am. I did the research. It was right for me. But the vaccines are experimental. He has a choice. You can’t force him to take a vaccine he’s not comfortable with. It’s not right and I’m not going to have anything to do with it. 


BOSS: They are not experimental. They are FDA-approved. 


GLORIA: Yeah, on an emergency basis because of the pandemic. But look it up, They’re still experimental. There hasn’t been time to monitor for long-term effects. 


BOSS: I’m done with you talking back. You’re fired. Get out of my store. 


GLORIA (leaving): No, I’m not. I already quit. 


(Walks out with JERRY and all the shoppers, masked and unmasked except the one at the checkout, where BOSS is trying to ring up the groceries. JERRY reaches up to take off GLORIA’S mask. She stops him). 


GLORIA: I decide when to take off my mask. (Removes it and smiles). We’re outside, so it’s good.  Thanks for having my back, back there.


JERRY: Thanks for having mine. 


(Everyone dances to LET FREEDOM RING. There are still a couple people wearing masks, getting down with everyone else. Hi-Rez and another rapper give competing views on COVID while supporters of each view laugh and try to show each other up in a dance off. Grinning SHOPPER leaves the store.) 


SHOPPER: He couldn’t work the register. Had to give me the rest of my groceries for free.


(JERRY and GLORIA sing THE GREAT AWAKENING. They end holding hands, face to face,  when BOSS enters meekly from the store.) 


BOSS: Gloria! You were right about the vaccines. I looked it up. So, I’m not making anyone get them. Come back. Please. I can’t run this store without you. (beat. Looks at Jerry) You too. 


(GLORIA hands JERRY a mask and dons her own, then returns to her checkout as shoppers re-enter the store. JERRY stands outside the door, looking from GLORIA to the mask in his hand and back again. She looks over and beckons him.)


JERRY: You’re off at eight?  I’ll be back. (Waves and walks away).


(Excerpts from The Great Dictator’s final speech play over the store’s intercom while we see JERRY zooming in to his family event, walking with a masked friend, returning to meet GLORIA after work. There are fireworks. JERRY and GLORIA lie in bed with their baby. JERRY lifts the baby into the air. THE CIRCLE OF LIFE begins to play )


What do you think? Do those tweaks do justice to people on both sides of the issue and give us reason enough to stand together? Would a musical like this manage to lift and unite? 

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