My mother loved film musicals. When a new one appeared in a movie theater anywhere near our small North Carolina town, she and Dad would hire a sitter for the latest little one, pack the rest of us into the station wagon, and go see films like “Porgy and Bess,” “South Pacific,” and “Flower Drum Song.” She purchased the records to the shows and played them so frequently that to this day I can croak out songs like “Summertime,” “Bloody Mary,” “Honey Bun,” and more.
Some online reviews by critics and viewers accuse these old shows of racial insensitivity, sexism, anti-feminist messaging, and gender stereotyping. If judged solely by our present prim progressivism, then these three musicals and others stand guilty as charged.
