KATHY G. writes:
I’ve been thinking about Alan’s wonderful post reminiscing about the old musicals.
I remember some of those movies, although they were on their way out during my ’60’s childhood. Looking back, I am increasingly struck by the engineered culture provided for Americans to consume. I have looked at music and artists that I used to enjoy and admire with more detachment. I’ve learned about military intelligence and CIA involvement in so much of it. I’ve thrown out a lot of it, movies as well, and will probably throw it all out.
As that catchy tune from the strange musical “Mary Poppins” taught us, “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down”.
In retrospect, “My Fair Lady”, based on Fabian G.B. Shaw’s “Pygmalion”, was basically advancing the multicultural mess we now find ourselves in. The premise that education, wardrobe, and etiquette skills can turn a street urchin into a fine lady is very entertaining and idealistic.
But the two classes represented are of the same race and share a background of Christian morality, albeit a declining one. That this kind of “Nurture” can work with different races and religions has been proven false.
I enjoyed the movie and the performances, but these movies very entertainingly changed how people think. “The Sound of Music” reinforced the “evil Nazi” narrative, even though it did have a Christian aspect (although Maria left the convent).
“Mary Poppins” depicted selfish and uninvolved parents and the nanny working magic.
“South Pacific” depicted a Navy officer in a sexual liason with an underage girl, “younger than Springtime”, in fact, as well as a gender-bending skit of sailors dressing as women. “White Christmas” is completely secular, and mostly about noble showbiz characters glamorizing war.
These musicals had Jewish composers, of course. Which begs the question, What kind of music and films might have existed had our “culture” not been manufactured and served up to us as captivatingly as it was?
I very much enjoyed the wardrobe, manners, and morals of “Downton Abbey”, and even “Mad Men”, because the characters dressed as they did when we had manners and pride, all now lost culture. But even “Downton Abbey” pushed the homosexual agenda, as well as the growing “liberation” of the daughters.
Looking at the world today, we appear to be as in the days of Noah.
Maybe we need to focus beyond this world and not look back at these works of men that we enjoyed at face value. Sentimentality didn’t do Lot’s wife any good.
