Sondheim's fag" lyric- Page 2

[PalJoey]

Posted: 12/27/10 at 3:53pm

It's easy to say "It's racist now and it was racist then" "They're homophobic now and they were homophobic then." Facile, as a matter of fact. But that doesn't answer Andy's question.

Andy's question was, basically, why would Sondheim use a word that seems like a slap in the face to his young gay fans. It's a fascinating question and the answer involves not only the changes in society from 1970 to 2010 but also changes in Sondheim himself over those 40 years.

Andy--I would suggest you read Finishing the Hat and also Meryle Secrest's biography of Sondheim.

And remember how strong the hold of the closet was over the men of Sondheim's generation: Bernstein was conflicted over his sexual identity and married and had children and felt guilty about his attraction to men until he died. Arthur Laurents almost married ballerina Nora Kaye, who then married choreographer/director Herbert Ross. Jerome Robbins had tempestuous relationships with both men and women. Michael Bennett married Donna McKechnie and then lived with her again toward the end of his life. Sondheim himself almost married actress Lee Remick. In the end, Laurents was the only one of them able to sustain a long-term same-sex relationship.

So was his use of the word "fag" in Company an example of his self-hatred? Well, no, I don't think so, but, yes, he had a lot of it. You can read about it in the Secrest biography.

And, yes, Joe, I avoided typing the N-word. I didn't think typing it out added anything to the discussion but shock value.

The changes in the lyric were all made (or approved) by Hammerstein himself. He certainly understood the show--he just didn't know what the hell to do with the lyric.

And I believe that for the 1993 revival, Hal Prince intended to use the original lyric but he went back to "colored folk" when his wife refused to see the show if they used that word.

[Andy Hickes]

Posted: 12/27/10 at 3:59pm

chekkyjr

Good point about Marta's friends.. Thank you for being here.


What's everyone's problem. Stephen Sondheim was homophobic like everyone else in 1970. I see nothing wrong with that. I don't like that he was gay and did what he did
but it was the times. That he still maintains it was for "cultural" not personal
reasons is ironic as the genius in is his songs is that they are so genuinely personal.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 12/27/10 at 4:11pm

PalJoey, why is n* so offensive it can't even be typed and Fag isn't?

[hottieho13]

Posted: 12/27/10 at 4:20pm

"PalJoey, why is n* so offensive it can't even be typed and Fag isn't?"

so you walk around saying n***** just because some people say f**?both words are disgusting and can you please stop typing them out just for shock value?they are both demeaning and disgusting.if you want to combat hate and such why spew it yourself?your only gonna get the same reaction to your action.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 12/27/10 at 4:29pm

I wasn't calling anyone either name and I wasn't walking around saying it either. One word has almost mythical power, one doesn't> I just asked why.

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 12/27/10 at 4:42pm

We're also discussing lyrics here. No one is calling anyone anything.

There's absolutely no reason when discussing the word in context of a lyric (be it 'fag' or 'n*') to use asteriks. Especially when discussing the intended impact of the words.

Nothing will ever jolt an audience more than the original lyric 'n*s all work on the Mississippi'. Not 'darkies' not 'colored folk'...nothing.

I remember the protests back in the early 90's regarding Prince's desire to use the original lyric. Just like the protests for Sottsboro Boys today. It was radioactive. So, he went with 'colored folk'. So much better, right?

And let's face it...the word is still used today. I don't mean on the streets, I mean in the theatre. The word 'n*' is used both in Assassins and Hair...and by white people. I like to think that, if Showboat were done today, they would revert to the original lyric. But maybe not. Maybe the opening music is just to bouncy and up-beat sounding to support the word.

As for 'fag', I think it's an absurd change. The moment in the show is kind of a hazy, pot-induced daydream for Bobby. These three women don't know each other. They never meet. The entire song is what Bobby thinks the women think of him. And, of course, the big worry straight men have is that someone thinks they're a fag. It's not the women having the homophobic thought...it's Bobby. There's nothing dated about the use of the word in this context. It, too, should be used instead of the revision.
Updated On: 12/27/10 at 04:42 PM

[jimmycurry01]

Posted: 12/27/10 at 4:42pm

It is perfectly acceptable to type the words out when you are discussing the words themselves. If you are not mature enough, or are too PC to have this conversation about word usage, then perhaps you should join another discussion.
The fact of the matter is they lyrics in Show Boat use the word n*, and Company used the word fag. It is what it is, and if you wish to discuss those lyrics like an educated adult, then don't be afraid of the words.

[Andy Hickes]

Posted: 12/27/10 at 4:43pm

Joekv

good question.

[chekkyjr]

Posted: 12/27/10 at 4:44pm

Andy! I kiss you right back!

PalJoey! You are eminently reasonable and you can write a sentence!

By why apologize for Sondheim's homphobia? Interestingly, James Rado and Jerome Ragni, who co-wrote the book/lyrics for HAIR - a show which notably features a guy named Woof who admits that he's in love with Mick Jagger, and also with one of the main guy characters in the show - were born within 5 years of Sondheim, Rado in 1932, and Ragni in 1935. I think we have to say that all three men were members of the same generation. Rado and Ragni were clearly committed to making outside-of-mainstream sexuality an issue for the mainstream in the 1960s. Sondheim, on the other hand, allied himself with uptight upper-east-side-ish-ness, and he went the way of the closet. Yes, yes, it's true that Bernstein and Sondheim and Robbins and Laurents and Michael Bennett and for that matter Cole Porter and Larry Hart and on and on were victims of a rampantly homophobic culture. They have all my sympathy! Seriously. Nonetheless, it is also true that there were some theater artists who made a point of putting homosexuality front and center in their work - not to mention novelists like James Baldwin and Gore Vidal - and maybe their stuff wasn't exactly gay-positive, but at least they were willing to risk something.

Sondheim's work suffers in particular, I think, from its complete inability to acknowledge that black people exist, and from its internalized homophobia.

I don't think that's because "he lived when he lived." I think it was his choice to narrow his worldview. Plenty of his art was revolutionary, but he is an insistently apolitical writer, and his book highlights how apolitical he is. Yet there is a long tradition of art in the US that deals directly with political issues, and not all of it is dated and/or polemical.

I think of Sondheim as almost a characterological closet case, not just in terms of his sexuality, but in all kinds of says.

I mean I worship him, of course. I do, I do.

[chekkyjr]

Posted: 12/27/10 at 4:48pm

SonofR! Please marry me! (Despite what I said about hating couples. . .)

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 12/27/10 at 4:51pm

Oh, chekky (jr), we'd do nothing but fight.

I don't disagree with your analysis of Sondheim's narrow focus...I'm just not sure it's a fault. He writes what speaks to him. And within that, he finds the universal. His work is, undoubtedly apolitical. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's why God gave us Tony Kushner.

[chekkyjr]

Posted: 12/27/10 at 5:01pm

Yes, Sonof, an artist has to write what she or he has to write. But one aspect of Sonheim's book - little of it that I have read! - that I am acutely aware of is how he dismisses the political. I mean there is that old saw about political art always being a failure because it is merely emotional - wants only to rile you up, is a form of agitprop - and it dates too fast, and it's polemical, which is to say, "not artistic." I think Sondheim subscribes to that kind of party-line notion about politics being nothing but polemics. Ugh, so much of WASP-y NYC "high art" culture follows that party-line word, that politics=polemics, and therefore must be kept out of art that is supposed to be "universal." Sondheim clearly thinks this is true, and I think it's bull****. And so his book is aggressively apolitical and elitist, and, whatever: If I love him, I have to love his disease, that's what anorexics say, and I'm not too stupid too think that his personal prejudices aren't going to affect his work. But in any case, there it is.

And we would never fight, I don't fight, I'm passive-aggressive, I just sulk and then i flee.

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 12/27/10 at 5:03pm

So are we to presume that Hammerstein was racist because he wrote the word n* in a lyric? I mean, if we're going to claim Sondheim was homophobic because he uses the word fag...

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 12/27/10 at 5:11pm

People claim Eminem is when he uses it.

[chekkyjr]

Posted: 12/27/10 at 5:29pm

Well, I think we can of course say that Sondheim suffers from homo-self-loathing, can we not? And Hammerstein was of course racist, as even a cursory review of his various musicals will reveal. You don't need to hang his racism on "Ol' Man River" alone. There is also SoPac, and THE KING & I, and, oops!, FLOWER DRUM SONG. . .

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 12/27/10 at 5:37pm

I think you're doing some misreading, chekky. BTW, what was your screen name before this?

[PalJoey]

Posted: 12/27/10 at 5:40pm

And when we call Stephen Sondheim a "homophobe" and Oscar Hammerstein a "racist," both words cease to have any meaning.

[chekkyjr]

Posted: 12/27/10 at 5:46pm

Namo, I had no screen name! Before this.

PJ: Whadda you mean? I mean, tell me how Hammerstein's cutesy hokey Japanese-y characters in FLOWER DRUM SONG - his Fu Manchu Asians - aren't racist depictions? Not to mention Bloody Mary? Have you not read Edward Said's ORIENTALISM? Why must all musical comedy fans insist that the US musical theater is exempt from the kind of critical intellectual work that has been undertaken in EVERY OTHER LITERARY/ARTISTIC DISCIPLINE over the past 30 years? There's a reason why musical theater is currently a giant wasteland of cultural irrelevance, and it's because: musical theater experts/lovers - with the possible exception of Michael Feingold -are, on the whole, big cultural babies still clinging to their fantasy of Mary Martin's virginity and an all-white, all heteronormative-all-the-time America.

[hottieho13]

Posted: 12/27/10 at 5:50pm

"t is perfectly acceptable to type the words out when you are discussing the words themselves. If you are not mature enough, or are too PC to have this conversation about word usage, then perhaps you should join another discussion.
The fact of the matter is they lyrics in Show Boat use the word n*, and Company used the word fag. It is what it is, and if you wish to discuss those lyrics like an educated adult, then don't be afraid of the words."

Okay,so now your calling me an uneducated child because i said i don't like the words?if you can't take hearing people feelings about a word weather you agree with it or not then maybe you should join another discussion too.and maybe people hate those words because they have been called them in their life?have you ever thought of that?why do i want to celebrate words that are full of hate?i don't know the intention of the person behind the computer using the words,looking at it typed out is jarring enough especially with the overly sarcastic tone of posts on this web site so how in the hell is someone to know the true intention?Ok so get a ****ing grip not everyone agrees with you just like people don't agree with me that's life deal with it,it is what it is.

I never called Hammerstein a racist, and JOEKV sorry i jumped down your throat like that.

neither word is a good term but one has a very, very, very, long and hate filled history.it's n*. not to say that fag doesn't have a history itself it's just that the history of n* is more notorious.

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 12/27/10 at 6:00pm

But YOU were the one asking someone to censor themselves when discussing the words. You asked him to not type it out. And you then tried to impose your interpretation of what Joe (and others, perhaps) meant by typing out the word.

Yes...the word 'n*' is noxious and awful. As is the word 'fag'. As are many other words. And, as an actor, I've been called upon to say both of them, as well as many others. If one is to take on theatre as a career or hobby or obsession, one has to understand that language is pretty much all we have. And to censor it, in any way, is destructive to the art form...and to the discussion OF the art form.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 12/27/10 at 6:09pm

The phrases "critical intellectual work" and "giant wasteland of cultural irrelevance" coming from a shallow flibbertigibbet like you just make me sn*.

Hammerstein was a lifelong progressive. Any inadvertent racism you and Ed Said want to ascribe to him is no better and no worse than every other 20th-century white American liberal and progressive. Oscar was as good as it got back then in "all-white, all heteronormative-all-the-time America."

If you love theater and all you can do is sum him up only by his hokey characters, I pity you.

First of all, add into your smug and falsely superior condemnation of Hammerstein his lyric from South Pacific about being "carefully taught." Then add in the dignified employment he gave several generations of underemployed African-American and Asian-American performers. And if the sum total you come up with is still "racist," then go back to your silly pseudo-intellectual pursuits.

Bottom line: Oscar was NOT a racist and his characters were not racist depictions.

And if anyone is a "big, cultural baby," it's you.

Updated On: 12/27/10 at 06:09 PM

[hottieho13]

Posted: 12/27/10 at 6:10pm

"But YOU were the one asking someone to censor themselves when discussing the words. You asked him to not type it out. And you then tried to impose your interpretation of what Joe (and others, perhaps) meant by typing out the word."

But should i be called an uneducated child?no.i wasn't imposing (or trying to anyway)what i thought everyone else other than joe was saying .the word it just felt "off' to me.yes i did ask him not to type it out that i don't deny but i never called him a racist i was just trying to add shock value to inquire what way he meant it?kinda the way he used n* at first.

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 12/27/10 at 6:14pm

I find it more horrifying that chekkyjr said "SoPac".

[darquegk]

Posted: 12/27/10 at 6:15pm

Let's not forget, too, that it's only since the forties or fifties that "n*" has become a ticking-time-bomb word watched for and feared as a politically incorrect statement. It was a blunt term, perhaps a rude one, but not a "word that must not be spoken." The same with "fag." Was it rude, dismissive? Sure! That was unarguable. But it is only in recent years that it has become "the other F word."

We can't impose modern standards on older works without at least at FIRST considering what the work says, and what our modern standards say about it in comparison to what IT says about US.

[hottieho13]

Posted: 12/27/10 at 6:16pm

Oscar is/was not a racist!i actually wish more composers and playwright's today wrote beautiful moving musicals about people of color and race the way he did.Musicals like that are forgotten/non-existent now.