Saoirse Daly

R00209883
Cathal Synnott
Musical Theatre Repertory Studies (MUSC7032)
The Great Debate: Broadway Musicals of the 1930s did nothing to move the genre forward,
and are best forgotten.

Today, I will be proposing the motion that the Broadway musicals of the 1930s did nothing
to further the genre and should be forgotten. Allow me to premise by stating that as long as
we have the creation of musicals, of course we have the history of the musicals that came
before as inspiration, to serve us as what to do but also, what not to do. There are of course
musicals that had minor steps forward, but I would argue much of the massive development
of musical theatre did not come until the following decades of the 1940s and 1950s. I
understand that from history we learn and we grow, but it still does not erase the past. It
could also be argued that the shows of the 1930s that were the most influential also took
inspiration and continued the culmination of concepts popularised in the times of previous.
I will be taking this slant today, by discussing the problems of the musicals of the 1930s, and
why these problems are not beneficial to musical theatre. The majority of these musicals of
this era only continued to promote ideas of racism, misogyny and other social problems for
decades to come, and could not possibly be staged today as they are so politically incorrect
and insensitive to the people that were the objects of derision of these shows. I have a few
examples of shows that endorsed in such horrific ideas, including ‘The Hot Mikado’,
“Hellzapoppin’” and ‘Porgy and Bess’. Also still popular at the time were the Ziegfeld Follies,
although this had fallen considerably in comparison to years prior. This further proves that
most ideas and developments of the 1930s carried over from the 1920s.

I would like to begin by briefly discussing ‘Porgy and Bess’. It did open in 1935 with
an All-Black cast, which was of course massively progressive at the time, but this hardly
distracts from the actual writing and producing of the musical, written by a white man
(George Gershwin) which promotes harmful stereotypes and caricatures of black people. It
illustrates the lives of black people with copious amounts of violence, addiction and
gambling and poked fun at the dialects of black people from a real place called Cabbage
Row, Charleston in South Carolina. It was from the eyes of George Gershwin who as a white
man had never faced the adversity and tribulations of the black community, and did not
necessarily accurately depict the true lives of black people in South Carolina at the time.
South Carolina, to this day, remains famously conservative, and at the time not only
enforced Jim Crow Laws but also Black Codes that were demeaning and restricted black
people’s civil rights even further. This did nothing to help the black people of South Carolina
at the time, and only reinforced the ideologies that are seen in the musical.

I would next like to discuss ‘Hellzapoppin’ which isn’t as widely known these days,
but at the time was the longest running show on Broadway. This show is flabbergasting to
say the least, and the whole premise of it seems to be commotion and cheap laughs and
entertainment. The opening sketches themselves set the tone of the kind of show it was,
most famously opening with Hitler speaking in a Yiddish accent and Mussolini speaking in
blackface with a minstrel. This was extremely insensitive given the European affairs and
political state in the late 1930s. The people of America at the time were living in bliss in
comparison to the distress, violence and danger to life that had begun in Germany, Poland,
France, Italy and even England. The movie made of the show after was even worse, edited
so that the scenes featuring black actors and musicians could be omitted in theatres as this
was common practice in Hollywood at the time. It also is a prime example of the over-
sexualisation of women in theatre and the use of chorus girls just for their bodies and legs
rather than as characters with substance and stories. The chorus girls originally danced with
audience members and sat in their laps, completely distracting from any of the amazing
athleticism or talent for dance that they had. The original poster for the show featured
dozens of scantily clad or fully naked women, some even being seen as the devil, and of
course being ogled by men.

Finally, ‘The Hot Mikado’, and its many successors, are, objectively, extremely popular that
continued to be produced until recently. It is a musical I have researched before, and is
problematic as it, to be frank, mocks Japanese culture based on the original opera titled ‘The
Mikado’. For years this was not openly condemned, as the most recent adaption of ‘Hot
Mikado’ opened in 1986 in Washington DC. ‘The Hot Mikado’ openly ridicules and parodies
Japanese cultures, with names like ‘Nanki-Poo’ and ‘Yum Yum’ which appear to have been
written to ‘sound’ Japanese but are joke-like and obscene. The musical featured characters
in costumes that drew inspiration from Japanese cultural outfits but were made ridiculously
over the top and, I would say, sexualised traditional garments. Of course it was great that in
this period of time, black actors were being given opportunity to perform in musical theatre,
but you cannot simply eradicate the struggle of Japanese and Asian minorities. To this day,
these minorities continue to face mockery and ‘comedy’ at their cultures expense in a way
that is not criticised as openly and on as large of a scale.

The fact that these shows continue to be performed to this day does not take away
from the fact that musical theatre has evolved. However the 1930s brought shows that yes,
should be acknowledged, but also brings those that should be left to exist in the past and
not be performed as they are harmful, hurtful and just overall offensive and cruel.