Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Oh, The Shenanigans We'll See!



When the Prude was eight she saw ‘The Music Man’ for the first time. It was on TV and her parents considered it wholesome entertainment, unlike the Jackie Gleason Show with its scantily clad dancers.
The Prude saw ‘The Music Man’ for the second time yesterday.
It was on TV and she considered it perfect entertainment to do ironing by, unlike the Brewers or Cubs games with their scantily batting players.

And somewhere between pressing the dress shirts and the khakis
it hit her like 76 trombones.
She has out-pruded her parents.

The Prude was shocked by the shenanigans in The Music Man.
-The staid librarian/staunch heroine doesn’t respect a mother’s wishes to control her own daughter’s reading material.
-Women of questionable virtue are exalted in an entire song.
-Teens are allowed—no– encouraged to have clandestine meetings with members of the opposite gender and without parental approval.

-Unchaperoned youth meet with members of the opposite gender at a footbridge. At night.
-Singing occurs in the library.
-The staid librarian/staunch heroine’s mother wishes out loud that the staid/staunch librarian/heroine would throw herself at a man. Any man will do.
-The heroine/librarian who is staid/staunch convinces the town to believe the ends justify the means regarding Mr. Music Man the Lousy Cheater.

Then, proving that naughtiness begets naughtiness, she tells the flim-flamming Music Man to ditch town before he is tarred and feathered.
AND SHE DOESN’T TELL HIM TO FIRST RESTORE THE MONEY HE CHEATED FROM THE SIMPLE TOWNSFOLK.

This is what The Prude was subjected to during her formative years at the tender and impressionable age of 8. What was her mother thinking?  Allowing an impressionable child in the throes of her formative years to see such roguishness?
Maybe she had been to busy ironing to notice.

3 comments:

Hope46 said...

I admit to having had a similar revelation when I watched the Music Man recently with my own children. I still love the music, but I did an awful lot of 'splainin' to my kids.:-)

Joanie said...

It is amazing how we see the moral and spiritual flaws in our childhood favorite movies. Maybe that era wasn't as innocent as we remember.

Lori Lipsky said...

In spite of what you were exposed to at a young age, still you didn't turn out too bad, Prude.