Viva la vie Bohème

In this scene from the Broadway musical RENT, Maureen has just performed at a benefit protesting Benny's expulsion of the nearly-homeless bohemians from buildings in East Village, NYC, and the homeless from a nearby lot so that he can build a state-of-the-art cyber studio. When the main friends (Maureen, Joanne, Mimi, Roger, Mark, Angel, and Collins) end up dining at the same café as Benny and his business partner, Benny antagonizes them by saying that "Bohemia is dead." In mockery of Benny, the friends toast to all the "children" of Bohemia in honor of her death.

In so doing, Mark, Mimi, Angel, etc. honor several artists, events, and objects that are typically rejected my mainstream America. To dildos, faggots, marijuana, playing hookie, 8BC, and "to being an 'us' for once instead of a 'them.'" The bohemian life.

This song honors Bob Dylan, Pablo Neruda, Susan Sontag, Stephen Sonheim, Václav Havel, Maya Angelou, Allen Ginsberg, Buddha. It celebrates participation in activities generally seen as offensive: masturbation, smoking marijuana, homosexuality, ambiguous sexuality, hallucinogens, sodomy, S&M, "people living with (not dying from) disease."

"Let he among us without sin be the first to condemn," they challenge the audience. And Mark sings a noteworthy solo towards the end of the song questioning the validity of the concept of "the mainstream." "To anyone out of the mainstream: is anyone in the mainstream?" He urges "anyone alive with a sex drive" to "tear down the wall. Aren't we all" already doing that anyway? "The opposite of war isn't peace," he says—"it's creation."