The Prom, Ryan Murphy's splashy musical on Netflix, upholds a utopian idea of American unity Ryan Murphy's The Prom, with its canny mix of nostalgia and idealism, old-fashioned conservatism and new-age liberalism will hit the spot for some, even if its vision of American unity is hard to recognise in 2020. Early in Ryan Murphy’s The Prom, a Broadway flack starts reading the reviews of a newly opened show about Eleanor Roosevelt, “Eleanor!” The gang is all here, including the self-adoring stars, Dee Dee Allen (Meryl Streep) and Barry Glickman (James Corden). The drinks and laughs are flowing, and everyone is as lit as their bedazzled outfits. And then the flack starts reading the notice from