Staff Writer- Soph White
If you’ve frequented the interwebs, you may have come upon the TikTok and Instagram page of Joey Morof, who is a content creator and self-described kombucha fanatic. Ultimately to say, this is mostly a random person who has entered your lives in a ‘loafable’ way.
Get it? Loafable. Loaf.
Stealing a loaf of bread!
For those who do not understand what any of this has meant so far, let me catch you up to speed. This all begins with Hugh Jackman’s role as Jean Valjean in the Academy and Golden Globe Award-winning film, Les Misérables.
I was first forced to watch it by my loving partner, who continues to beg me to watch it with him. It was indeed a sad movie, but with repetition, it became a comical movie to try and sing along with. If you’ve watched the film, you know the reference to 24601, which is the number given to Jean Valjean as a prisoner forced to do penal labor. You also know about Javert, who is his ‘probation officer’ for all intents and purposes, as well as a rival – or maybe lover, unlikely, but the sexual tension is there – to Jean. You might also know the crime that got him committed—stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving sister’s children. All that to say, Jean is this pretty altruistic dude that talks with God and adopts the child of a sex worker who asked him to take care of her daughter as her dying wish.
During the songs sung by Jackman, his singing follows a Broadway style (nasally, forward vocal tone, and a lot of chest voice) with an abundance of vibrato. I would call this the “grandparent” style of singing, in my personal opinion. If you go to a church where a lot of elderly people are singing, you may notice an overly redundant use of vibrato (the subtle, continuous oscillation of pitches) and question if sheep walked into the sanctuary. This all being said, I don’t actually think Jackman is a bad singer. In fact, I think part of the reason he sings that way is to convey the emotion and goals of his character, Jean Valjean. What I think is funny about Jackman’s singing fully comes down to the impression that Joey Morof does of Jackman as Jean Valjean.
Like, who is this random dude just making Valjean-ified parodies of songs like “Mask Off” by Kendrick Lamar and “Golden Slumber (Once There Was a Way to Get Back Home)” from the movie Sing? Upon doing thorough research on Joey Morof, I’ve come to find that he is an artist….or rather a self-employed actor. Not only does Morof do impressions of Jackman’s character from Les Misérables, but also everyone’s favorite creature: Mort from the 2005 film Madagascar (literally came out the year most of us were born). Mort is also a singing connoisseur of sorts, but switches out stealing loaves of bread for his yearning towards King Julian’s feet. Alongside Mort, there is his Miranda Sings impression, which leaves me feeling sad that we are still acknowledging the existence of Miranda Sings, so I won’t dwell on it any longer than this one sentence.
I do find Morof to be quite witty and quick with his words when it comes to making parodies out of songs to the point where my sister, our friend, and I have attempted to do multiple replications of Morof’s Hugh Jackman impression to songs we enjoy in the car. Some songs we attempted were “Love On the Brain” by Rihanna, which was then redubbed “Loaf on the Bread” and “Back to December” by Taylor Swift, which became “Back to Loaf-tember”. There was both a simplicity and brilliance to the excessive brain rot that we indulged that day. Never have I felt more human, in all its complexities, until I was asking people on campus if they wished they could go back to Loaf-tember.
Many individuals who may be reading this article have likely decided to stop reading within the first few lines, because they do not understand these references, and are really missing out. True humanity is about bearing witness to the most absurd things and deciding to laugh at them and judging them silently in your head. All that to say, I hope your fall break is full of loaves and bread.