O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A

Disclaimer: this blog post has nothing to do with what we’re reading in class, I was just thinking about some stuff and curious about other people’s thoughts on it. Also, I realize I kind of made Oklahoma seem like a terribly racist and awful musical which it isn’t. It’s a fun time, the music is good, everyone involved has been working very hard and doing a genuinely great job -- please do come see it!!

              Wednesday is opening night for Uni’s production of Oklahoma!, a heartwarming story of two melodramatic love triangles and the good-natured (I think?) conflicts between the Farmers and the Cowmen. So far I’ve seen the whole thing about four times from the slightly-obscured viewpoint of the pit orchestra. In doing so I started thinking about the ways in which the musical Oklahoma! is actually really interesting to think about as an expression of many of the same themes we’ve been discussing about history as fiction in this class.

               Like most of the books we’ve been reading, Oklahoma!’s plot is set in the past: in this case, 1906, when Oklahoma was a territory right on the verge of becoming a state. But, also like many of the books we’ve read, Oklahoma! arguably makes more of a statement about the time in which it was published than the time it depicts.

              First of all, to get it out of the way: many of us have probably noticed this musical has stirred up some degree of controversy around school because it’s so viscerally, painfully dated. Blatant sexism is inherent to the plot: women are considered little more than property, and their morality is centered entirely (the two female leads are characterized by the songs “Many a New Day,” in which the “good” woman is utterly uninterested in men, and “I’m just a girl who cain’t say no,” mocking Ado Annie for being unable to resist the charms of any men) around the “Madonna and Whore” dichotomy. Then, there is some painfully cringe-inducing racism inherent to the humor: the “comic relief” character is Ali Hakim, a caricature of a “Persian peddler,” who is supposed to talk in an accent and make jokes about how “that’s how they do it in Persia!”

               However, despite the fact that the more spelled-out racism and sexism in the humor is all obviously… not great, the part of the musical that is really interesting (to me, at least) is the themes of race and class that are more deeply hidden, but nevertheless a very integral part of the plot, and this I think is where we can really see what this musical says about the 1943 cultural context in which it was published.

               The musical Oklahoma! was written by Rogers and Hammerstein but it was actually based off of a play called Green Grow the Lilacs, which was a relatively unsuccessful production that premiered (briefly) in 1931. Oklahoma! followed much of the plot of Green Grow the Lilacs, but one significant theme that was left out was the theme of racial conflict. Despite the fact that the Oklahoma! essentially treats “farmer vs. cowman” as the primary societal conflict of the day, in the actual historical context of Oklahoma, racial conflict was a very significant theme (obviously. racial conflict is a theme in literally all of american history. But I digress.). Before Oklahoma was a state, it wasn’t some pristine land: it was part of the violent divisions of tribal lands resulting from the 1887 Dawes act. The specific setting, the town of Claremore, was right in the middle of the Cherokee Nation. Green Grow the Lilacs addressed this theme directly, contemplating the conflicts and dangers of this arrangement (interestingly, the author Lynn Riggs actually had both Cherokee and early-Oklahoma settler ancestry). Oklahoma! doesn't address these themes, nor does it consider that ¼ of “cowmen” were actually black, or that 1906 was a time of resurgent white supremacy (nine years later, Birth of a Nation would become a smash hit); everyone in the show is white and at no time is it implied that there’s anyone besides white people anywhere in America.

              While Green Grow the Lilacs was pretty much ignored, Oklahoma! was incredibly popular: today, it’s recognized as having revolutionized musical theater. So what were the differences between these two ostensibly nearly-identical musicals that led to only Oklahoma! being so popular? Most likely, the combination of the selective historical amnesia Rogers & Hammerstein mysteriously experienced while writing it, and the specific context of 1943 America in which it premiered. In 1943, America was still reeling from the Great Depression, World War I, and in the middle of World War II. It was a time in which audiences were very receptive to the kind of classic, idealistic American mythology Oklahoma! unquestionably provided; a wholesome tale of a righteous, moral people who banded together to “pull themselves up by the bootstraps” in the recently-tamed Wild West (and all the classic Manifest Destiny idealism that entails). The vista presented in the musical allows audiences to reconstruct and reassure themselves of how admirable the “real America” presented was. The folkloric elements of the musical are deliberately meant to inspire misty-eyed nostalgia for "the good old days." But of course, this view of westward expansion as an idealistic “real” America was only made possible by deliberately ignoring the more thorny aspects of racial and societal conflict that were fundamentally a part of that expansion.

                 And yet even while explicitly, spelled-out racial themes were left out, one more essential part of why this musical was so successful is how it still did provide a racialized antagonist for audiences to band against. This was significant because an integral part of the classic American idealism (or is it nationalism, depending on how you see it?) is the fact that the heroes are understood to be “real Americans” uniting against a dangerous threat; and this dangerous threat is, inevitably, racialized. In Oklahoma! this threat is the farmhand Jud Fry. Jud isn't written explicitly as anything but white like everyone else (I think, at least. I might be wrong: he's briefly described as "bullet-colored," but it seems like if he was meant to be a specific race it would be more specific/prevalent? I'm not sure though); but he is defined by many of the racist tropes that were used in media throughout the 20th century to signify a non-white character, and perhaps most importantly, the fact that he is understood as a threat to white America is an essential part of his villainy. Jud is conspicuously portrayed as less than human: he lives in an old shed, described by Curly as a “cave,” decorated by pornographic pictures (yet another threat to the “respectable” people around him). When he talks to Laurey, she is affronted that he suggests he’s at same social level as she is; it is clear that he is distinctly meant to be at a lower social tier than everyone else. He is described by Laurie (if I remember the line, which I think I do) as an "old dog that somebody ought to shoot." In this environment of a close-knit farming community, Jud is understood by the characters and the audience to be the "other" in every way.

               Most importantly, Jud’s primary (really, his only) crime is pursuing Laurey, the idealized, respectable, (which in this paradigm, implies white) young woman. Throughout American history, the worst crime a black man could commit, in the eyes of white people, was to pursue a white woman: it’s the literal plot of Birth of a Nation and the “justification” for countless horrific lynchings. At the end of the musical Jud dies by falling on his own knife, and his death is very casually brushed off (the “trial” amounts to the cast just enthusiastically yelling “not guilty!” at Curly, who does seem slightly remorseful, but it's primarily out of fear that he might miss his wedding night). The death scene takes only a few minutes, sandwiched between the two most optimistic, rousing, all-cast renditions of the song “Oklahoma.” It is implied by all of this that Jud’s death was both deserved -- it is symbolic that he stabbed himself; he literally brought death on himself by pursuing Laurie -- and, like all things associated with Jud, something less than human. Jud's death isn't a tragedy -- instead, it seems slightly unpleasant, but is ultimately understood to be necessary to ensure a happy life for Curly and Laurie. To take this comparison further: you could argue that Jud’s death becomes a part of the celebration itself, which I admit might be a stretch but, even if it’s only true to a partial degree, makes the final scene take on genuinely disturbing implications.

              This year is the 75th anniversary of Oklahoma!’s premiere in 1943, and for those 75 years, it has gained status as a landmark musical work for the ways in which it transformed musical theater. But I think it is worthwhile to consider how the artistic merit of the musical wasn’t the only reason it was so popular: rather, it was also very effective at using history to write fiction that tapped into cultural dynamics of the time to present a version of American mythology that resonated profoundly with audiences. I also think it’s worthwhile to understand that the reasons this American mythology did resonate were so closely tied to themes of race and class conflict. All of this is especially interesting in terms of the questions we’ve been discussing in this class all year, and how the interpretations and narratives of history are arguably more important than history itself. The contrast between Green Grow The Lilacs and Oklahoma! is a striking example of how the implications of history don’t just arise from the history itself but rather how it is used to create a narrative, and how this narrative affects people. To relate this to the "history as data points" paradigm we've discussed all year, both of these narratives have essentially the same objective facts, "data points," involved in the story -- but the way the story is told results in drastically different implications. Green Grow The Lilacs, using these data points to present a conflicted portrayal of life in the Oklahoma territory, was nearly forgotten. Oklahoma! became a cultural phenomenon because the same data points were skillfully manipulated to create a sanitized, entirely respectable American mythological hero for the war-stricken audiences to rally around -- and by doing so, also offers a glimpse into the more hidden aspects -- most notably, in my opinion, the deep racial animosity -- that defines the mainstream imago of the entirely respectable American mythological hero that has sustained Oklahoma! for the past 75 years.



sources if anyone is interested!! 

http://lewebpedagogique.com/musicatub/files/2014/01/OFI_ResearchPaper.pdf

https://theconversation.com/oklahoma-at-75-has-the-musical-withstood-the-test-of-time-94110