South Pacific

In 1949 the world’s pre-eminent stage musical writers were in trouble.

Rogers and Hammerstein had written ‘South Pacific.’

The plot centres on an American nurse stationed on a South Pacific island during World War II who falls in love with a French plantation owner but struggles to accept his mixed-race children.

A secondary romance, between a U.S. lieutenant and a young Asian woman, explores his fears of the social consequences should he marry her. The issue of racial prejudice is candidly explored throughout the musical, most controversially in the lieutenant’s song, “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught”.

The song was subject to widespread criticism, judged by some to be downright inappropriate for the musical stage.

Redneck US politicians actually proposed passing laws banning the musical, insisting, said one: “It has an underlying philosophy inspired by Moscow.”

One legislator said “a song justifying interracial marriage was implicitly a threat to the American way of life.” The writers, Rogers and Hammerstein defended their work strongly saying “You’ve got to be carefully taught” represented why they had wanted to do this play, and that even if it meant the failure of the production, it was going to stay in.

The rest of course is history, the song stayed and the musical has been a huge hit.

What were the controversial words? Well, lines like…

‘You’ve got to be taught to be afraid, of people whose eyes are oddly made, and people whose skin is a different shade, you’ve got to be carefully taught.’

No wonder the rednecks were upset!

Have we come a long way since that musical was written? Sometimes when you look around at our word and at places where people are tearing each other apart, you have to wonder.

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