That hasn't aged well

The original Annie Get Your Gun. Songs have been cut (I'm an Indian Too) and now the story have been revised so that Annie doesn't just do everything for a man. There is a lot of stuff in the older musicals that you wouldn't necessarily get away with today.

But I feel that not everything should be tampered with to make it more palatable for a modern audience. Why can't they just be presented for the period pieces that they are?

When You've Got It Flaunt It from The Producers - was met with a really awkward silence when I saw it at the Royal Exchange.

The "jokey" domestic violence in Little Shop of Horrors.

I'm amazed Russell Tovey got away with the Babatunde scene in The Pass, and even more amazed that that scene made it into the film adaptation.

Generally, forced "jokey" lines about race.

For example in "I can't sing" there is this line that Cynthia Erivo's character sings: "I can't sing, it's too bad, I move worse than a white boys dad......"

It's not like society or black people for that matter take the race subject lightly at the moment or are able to laugh about it in general. Maybe in 100 years, when there is no victim role anymore, and people are truly woke, so black girls in Disneyland can dress up as Snow White again if they like to, and white girls can dress and paint themselves as their favorite princess Tiana if they like to, without the current still asleep (but calling themselves woke) people screaming "blackface" at them, in other words, when there is true equality, and we start seeing human instead of race, then we can start making these jokes again.

Betty and tbfl,

Thanks for your replies.

The subject of little girls dressing up as their favorite princess came to mind after the following; I was in Disneyland last year and a cute 4 year old black girl was wearing a little snow white dress (yellow skirt and blue sleeves and red ribbon) and yes, there were actually American people standing there and I heard them speak negatively about it and they used the term "whitewashing". Adults like that are poison to the mind of a child.

A few weeks ago I had a discussion with an American mom at Starbucks when I ordered a certain flavour of coffee, and she said "Oh my god, that's such a white girl sorority drink". I did not understand her and said I just like the flavour and that I'm a man and that she should keep her race remark to herself and that Starbucks is for everyone. She felt attacked by my response and called herself woke and then I asked her what she would think if I made a remark about a certain type of food saying "OMG that's such a black girl certain layer of society taste". And then she said: Well, you're just not woke yet, there is no equality so I am allowed to make these remarks and jokes and you are not. And then I said; Well, out of the 2 of us, I am the one treating people as equals and you are the one making separations based on race. Then I said, how would you feel about a black girl dressing up as snow white and a white girl dressing up as Tiana, and she actually called that last example blackface. Then I called her "asleep" and said I hope that in 100 years society will be truly woke, and that there will be real equality, without double standards in remarks, dressing up and jokes.

I can actually laugh about all kinds of jokes, also if they are about minorities or sensitive things that I am part of. But I would like to ask the both of you if you would laugh just as hard about a lyric like "I look worse than a black girl's mom", or "I am heavier than a black boy's mom" or "I ski worse than a black girl's dad". Or whatever you want to make of it. Is the race part really that funny in this context?

Also, when I was a kid I went to the carnaval dressed up and painted my face as an Indian. It was all happy and celebration. I was a blonde boy. I will also teach my nephews that that is a celebration of inclusion. That is the right path. They went to the carnaval this year as a lion and a cowboy.

If something referes to a sterotype, then i can find it funny, regardless of what or who it refers to, as long as it isnt meant maliciously. The intent behind words is what's important for me.

I thought Bring It On had some fairly questionable messages when I saw it a couple of years ago.

It's not odd. Obviously people only start to use the word when they are confronted with the truth. As long as you don't do that it's not odd that you don't experience it. 

And this (white middle aged) woman in Starbucks did not have prejudice against me for being white, just for me calling her out on her race remarks.

The people complaining about the girl's dress in Disneyland didn't have prejudice against me either, but I bet they would if I had called them out too.

It always seems to me that anything that pointedly references something on the Internet to show how modern it is feels dated almost as soon as it comes out, but that's not really the sort of thing that makes me think "that hasn't aged well". It's more like "you tried too hard".

For me, when people talk about things that don't age well it's more along the lines of targets of scorn where the audience is clearly expected to be on board with the derogatory comments because society as a whole felt those targets were intrinsically scornworthy, so the writers were playing up to the bigotry of the time. And if you think we're above that now consider that "don't drop the soap" jokes about prison still haven't fallen out of fashion.

Some lyrics in 42nd Street really haven’t aged well.

“Keep young and beautiful, it’s your duty to be beautiful, keep young and beautiful if you wanna be loved”.
“What’s cute about a little cutie, it’s her beauty not brains”
“If you're wise exercise all the fat off”

And a few inappropriate jokes. The songs are pretty catchy though.

That song did hack me off each of the 4 times I saw the show. It's impossible to keep beautiful if, like me, you were born plain. Youth is also gradually disappearing. And yes, I am permanently single.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE Avenue Q but the "take her home, she's wasted, yay" makes me cringe.

Young Girl from Return to the Forbidden Planet

Young girl get out of my mind
My love for you is way out of line
Better run girl
You’re much too young girl

Beneath your perfume and your make up
You’re just a baby in disguise
And though you know that it’s wrong to be
Alone with me
That come on look is in your eyes


!!!!!!!!!


I mean, I know it was a different time but what the f**k!?

I think the song is played to mock Henry Higgins’ views of women. The tone and tempo says it all

It’s not played for laughs but to me it gets the point across.

Perhaps we should look less at the words and more at what the songs are trying to tell us

And isn’t it good to have stories with a variety of characters, even if their views are backwards, to play off one another

Sure there are songs that are museum pieces now but it’s nice that they’re still around for us to look at and be happy to khow far we’ve moved on from this