GYPSY: Why Was She Wearing....?

It has been discussed to death on here. The paint on the smock matches the colors of the sets for the acts, and it represents the hard work, love, dedication and yadda yadda that she put in for her kids, and when she throws it away, she is throwing away the strains and cares for her kids.

Or something like that.

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Updated On: 9/28/08 at 11:05 PM

I still dont understand why she'd wear it, if thats the case. I mean why still wear it YEARS later, after Gypsy made it apparent that she no longer needed her help. I'd understand if Rose was still "helping" Gypsy with "creating" her acts as she [Rose] wanted.

I never thought of her as throwing it away, but taking it off at the beginning of the number. She throws the fur after Gypsy exits more than she does the smock. And if it was that symbolic, you'd think Gypsy would've said something like "why are you still wearing that old thing?" Perhaps I'm reading too much into it.

She has it on so she can take it off. How dramatic. How earth shattering. How ground breaking. My question is...is she still schlubbing around the stage in slippers?

I think it's a great idea. Simple, clever, and it works really well in context.

When she's in Gypsy's dressing room, she's still trying to help her and do things for her so it makes perfect sense she'd wear it. Just because Gypsy doesn't need her help doesn't mean Rose still doesn't try, as we see in the book writing for that scene.

And I don't think it's supposed to be taken so literally like I don't think the real Rose Hovick would wear a smock like that with paint on it that matched every theater they played it or whatever the deal with the paint is. I think it's supposed to be more symbolic and like even after it all, Gypsy doesn't even recognize that her mother worked so hard for her. So she sees her "in the smock," either literally or figuratively, whatever you interpret it is, but doesn't really see her in the smock. She doesn't realize that she's tried so hard to make her famous and she's lost so much along the way. So Gypsy saying something like "why are you still wearing that?" would defeat the purpose.

And when did anyone call it dramatic, earth-shattering, or ground-breaking? We're just discussing the symbolism of it...


Sorry if that's incomprehensible..stream of consciousness.