Renée Zellweger and Richard Gere in the scene from the movie musical “Chicago” that features the … [+]
It’s TikTok, with jazz hands. A foot-tapping trend gaining momentum on the social media app sees “We Both Reached for the Gun,” a song from the hit musical Chicago, turned into a meme for all occasions.
In the 1975 musical, and the Oscar-winning 2022 movie version that followed starring Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Richard Gere, the song reflects a storyline about spinning false narratives to manipulate public perception. But on TikTok, some users are applying the lyrics literally, to people or entities headed toward potentially explosive conflict. One video of presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris has racked up 1.5 million views, and at least 30,000 TikTok videos now feature the lyrics below (be warned, they can lead to a persistent earworm).
Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes they both / Oh yes, they both / Oh yes, they both reached for / The gun, the gun, the gun, the gun / Oh yes, they both reached for the gun
“When I see a nonchalant boy and a very emotional girl start dating,” the text in one TikTok video reads as the movie version of the song plays. Reads another: “Emotionally immature mom vs angry daughter.”
The song is showing up in countless “fancams,” which are fan edits that add a soundtrack to heavily edited clips from TV shows and movies. One vid juxtaposes footage from Barbie and Oppenheimer, two 2023 blockbusters dubbed Barbenheimer for their joint box office success that were often mentioned as direct competitors during last year’s awards season.
Glee rivals Rachel Berry and Quinn Fabray get the “They both reached” edit. So do Squid Game, The Bear, Dance Moms, Stranger Things and Game of Thrones, a drama packed with enemies jockeying for power.
“We Both Reached for the Gun” has become so popular on TikTok that this week it landed on the TikTok Billboard Top 50, which ranks the platform’s most used tracks.
The musical Chicago, written by Bob Fosse and Fred Ebb and composed by John Kander, tells the story of chorus girl Roxie Hart and vaudevillian Velma Kelly, two women accused of murder, and of their unscrupulous lawyer Billy Flynn. It’s the longest-running American musical in Broadway history, beloved for its show-stopping numbers and satire of corruption and celebrity culture.
The musical is based on a 1926 play of the same name by Maurine Dallas Watkins, a Chicago Tribune reporter assigned to cover the high-profile 1924 trials of two women charged with murder. In the play, Hart is accused of murdering her lover, while Kelly is charged with killing her husband and sister after catching them in flagrante delicto.
A famous scene in the movie adaptation shows Gere as lawyer Flynn at a press conference mounting a false defense for his client Hart. She and her victim both reached for the gun, he sings, a story that earns her public sympathy, media attention and a career boost. Interspersed with the more literal footage of the media gathering are images of Flynn as a ventriloquist and Hart as a marionette sitting on the puppet master’s lap. A chorus of journalists with notebooks appear as puppets on strings dancing behind them.
The TikTok meme that’s put the musical in the social media spotlight has serious legs (with tap shoes at the end of them). Theater TikTok, also known as “Theatertok,” has embraced a choreographed version of the song that TikTok attributes to user Dev the Menace. He credits the musical Chicago with sparking his love of dance, and pays tribute with “They both reached for the gun” moves complete with twirls and kicks that have so far pulled in 7.2 million views.
Writes one drama school graduate who launches into their own professional-level version of the dance, “Chicago is trending? Say no more.”
