Thoroughly Modern Millie - OBC Question

I saw it in La Jolla and found it incredibly charming. I'd never seen the movie and happened to be in the area for something else, and a friend wanted to go since it was there when we'd be there. I did think some parts were long or unnecessary, but I preferred Jimmy's song in La Jolla to what ended up on Broadway (am now blanking on the title).

I haven't seen the show since, but I can't say most of the changes (in my limited way of experiencing them) were for the better. I never understood why Mrs. Meers ended up looking like every Yellow Peril/Dragon Lady stereotype since it worked fine in La Jolla without it. I know she's doing it because she's a terrible person, but I always found it unnecessary and question why an audience laughs at her -- is it because it's "acceptable" and comfortable to laugh at her appearance and accent because she's a white lady in yellowface, and it's not okay to laugh at a real Asian for their appearance and accent?

I am Asian American and the daughter of a Chinese immigrant, and seeing Ching Ho and Bun Foo speak a Cantonese dialect very similar to my family's was both jarring and a strange source of pride for me. I'd never heard that in the theatre and I'd never heard it in any Western media at all. And then, once it transferred, they had to go and do that to Mrs. Meers?

Other than making Sutton Foster a star, I found most of Millie to be little more than serviceable. Several book alterations, such as matching Dorothy with Ching Ho, and Trevor with Bun Foo at the end, felt arbitrary. Worst of all (I felt), incorporating period songs (some with not-very-good new lyrics) undercut Tesori's work as the composer; she could easily have written some songs in the vein of G&S, Victor Herbert, and others, and the score would thus have had more integrity. In fact, my recollection of the entire piece (as a whole) was that it lacked integrity - that it was satisfied to copy many other things.

Another 20's-style musical that opened in the same theatre some time later felt much fresher and funnier - The Drowsy Chaperone.

Isn't Carol Channing of African American and German descent?

Plus, Carol played Muzzy fully Caucasian - not as an African-American. The plot of the Broadway musical cleverly explained this difference.

I think because my only exposure to any incarnation of Millie was the La Jolla tryout, and Pat Carroll was so grimly, hilariously evil without the need for the pseudo-Chinese getup, that when they added it, it just looked like they wanted to do it because that kind of appearance was funny. Can you see them doing the equivalent if Ching Ho and Bun Foo had been immigrants from Nigeria?

Someone from the LJP (I didn't catch her name) said something at BroadwayCon along the lines of it not being racist because it was Mrs. Meers who was racist. But did she get her comeuppance, or does she only get in trouble for being a liar and a human trafficker?

Updated On: 7/21/16 at 02:33 PM

There's a subject for debate: can one make jokes about racism without trafficking in racist jokes?

Like all such questions, you would get different answers from different people, all of them subjective. There could never be agreement, and no one would be "right."