A walk on the dark side with Dick & Oscar

[litlover12]

Thoughts inspired by last night's "Live at Lincoln Center" airing of South Pacific (that is, the little bit I've watched so far):

1. Kelli O'Hara is phenomenal, and Paulo Szot is no slouch either. I need to get this cast album.

2. Even though "In Love with a Wonderful Guy" was one of my favorite songs in junior high (no, really, it was; I was a major show-tunes nerd), I had forgotten just how great these songs are.

3. I had also forgotten how squicky the mommy-pimps-daughter storyline is. Truthfully, I'm not sure I ever realized before just how squicky it is. My grandmother bought the movie for my sister and me when we were kids -- that is, too young to realize exactly what was going on -- and it's been a very long time since I watched it. (What I thought Cable and Liat were doing, I'm not sure. Hugging a lot, I suppose.) Tacking on one of the most beautiful songs ever written, "Younger than Springtime," just takes the whole thing into the realm of the surreal.

People have this mistaken impression that Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals are all about the sweetness and light and cute little moppets dressed up in curtains. They're really not.

Comments

[myrna-nora.livejournal.com]

It's been a while since I saw it, but didn't Bloody Mary believe that her "pimping" would lead to a wedding? Not that it makes it any better, but was there ever any suggestion that she had pimped the daughter before? Of course they were only hugging and the mother is a "matchmaker!" LOL! I think all children were under that impression.

R&H had serious issues and backgrounds in a lot of their plays/films --racism, domestic abuse, death, Nazis. I mean "Poor Jud is Dead" is Curly singing about the great funeral there would be if Jud committed suicide.

[arkadelos.livejournal.com]

"I had also forgotten how squicky the mommy-pimps-daughter storyline is."

Is that storyline what I think it is? People have been using the word "pimp" to refer to things that are not sex.

[litlover12.livejournal.com]

No, this time "pimping" means actual pimping. Myrna_nora is right that the mother was hoping for a wedding to come out of it (and I think she's also right that the mother had never done it before), but she didn't KNOW that would happen. So basically it was "Here, have sex with this girl (who happens to be my daughter) and let's see where it goes from there."

Now, I'm not saying that R&H were endorsing this sort of thing. I'm just saying it's . . . squicky.

[litlover12.livejournal.com]

Good questions. See my answer to arkadelos below -- I think I covered everything.

And yes, weren't we all innocent in those days? Who knows, maybe modern kids would look at it and say, "Hey, look, that woman is playing madam for her daughter."

[arkadelos.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I see what you mean. The mother sounds either willfully ignorant, truly oblivious, or manipulative. It does fit with how women hurt other women in a patriarchal society.

[valancy-s.livejournal.com]

Have you heard Mandy Patinkin singing "Younger Than Springtime"? You should Youtube it. Gorgeousness.

[litlover12.livejournal.com]

I have! Swoonworthy! :-)

[digne.livejournal.com]

South Pacific was and still is my favorite R&H musical! It's a beautiful work that grows in my appreciation every time I see if.