A series of random events have caused my mind to wander over to “Carousel,”the second musical by the legendary team of Richard Rodgers (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (book and lyrics), following their ground-breaking “Oklahoma!” The 1945 work was adapted from Ferenc Molnár’s 1909 play “Liliom,” and although it is a favorite of most critics (declared by TIME as the best musical of the 20th Century, for example, but what does TIME know?), its plot and characters become more troubling the longer one thinks about them. Rodgers said it was his favorite of his musicals with Oscar, and he was definitely in top form; I think his Overture to “Carousel” may be the best thing he ever wrote.
For the “hero” of the musical, Billy Bigelow, is a thug, a dolt, and a domestic abuser. I found the musical hard to take even as a kid for those reasons. When, in his justly famous song “My Boy Bill” after learning that he is going to be a father, Billy suddenly realizes that he might end up with a daughter instead (this only occurs to the big dummy two-third of the way through), his immediate conclusion is that he’ll rob and steal if that’s what it takes to raise her. Sure enough, that’s what he does: ultimately Billy gets himself mixed up in a dumb robbery scheme that goes sideways, and he is killed. The whole show is about his bad decisions and an ultimate opportunity given to him by God (or someone) to leave Purgatory (where everyone has to polish stars) and go back to Earth for a day to try to clean up the mess he’s made.
Today a song from the show turned up on the Sirius/XM Broadway channel: I hadn’t heard it in years. The song, “What’s the Use of Won’drin’? is sung by Julie jordan, the New England fishing town girl who has the misfortune to fall in love with Billy. Here are the lyrics:
What’s the use of wond’rin’ if he’s good or if he’s bad
Or if you like the way he wears his hat?
Oh, what’s the use of wond’rin’ if he’s good or if he’s bad?
That’s all there is to that.
Common sense may tell you that the ending will be sad
And now’s the time to break and run away
But what’s the use of wond’rin’ if the ending will be sad?
He’s your feller and you love him
There’s nothing more to say…
Something made him the way that he is
Whether he’s false or true
And something gave him the things that are his
One of those things is you, so
When he wants your kisses
You will give them to the lad
And anywhere he leads you, you will walk
And anytime he needs you
You’ll go running there like mad
You’re his girl and he’s your feller
And all the rest is talk.
Common sense may tell you that the ending will be sad
And now’s the time to break and run away
But what’s the use of wond’rin’ if the ending will be sad?
He’s your feller and you love him
There’s nothing more to say!
The usual defense of these sentiments is that they aren’t Oscar’s (who was, as you may know, Stephen Sondheim’s freind and mentor as an aspiring lyricist) but the character’s. My problem is that this is only the worst of the writer’s paeans to women tolerating bad conduct from lovers and romantic partners. I wrote about another one almost exactly a year ago, here, the jaw-dropping “I Enjoy Being a Girl.” And, of course, Hammerstein also wrote the lyrics to the song that gave the “Julie Principle” its name, “Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man of Mine.”
Maybe its just a coincidence (maybe Oscar had bad experiences with a woman named “Julie”…), but that’s a lot of bad ethics from a single lyricist. The “Carousel” song is easily the worst of the three: whether a man is “good or bad” is in the same category as “how he wears his hat”? What kind of value system is that?
I think what troubles me most in the song is the third verse telling women that no matter what they want or how wrongful the conduct that “their man” wants them to support, their job is to ask “How high?” when he says “jump.” A lot of women still believe that. A lot of women tolerate domestic violence, and worse. Julie, Billy’s victim and enabler, is the most likeable character in “Carousel.” If I had a young daughter, I’d have a serious talk with her before she saw “Carousel.”
No wonder the show isn’t produced by colleges and high schools, though I’m not sure I would want to hear a high school orchestra try to tackle that overture either.
[Note: The WordPress bot wants me to tag this “Billy Joel.”]
Ethics Alarms 
one of the wife and my guilty pleasures is reality police shows ( and thanks to EA, I often appreciate the ethical considerations and dilemmas encountered). In one we watched last night, the police responded to a violent domestic dispute. When they arrived, the aggressive man attacked them and they tackled him to the ground. At that point, the female, who was the one who called 911, switched to attacking the officers to “protect her man.” The one who just beat her up and gave her a black eye. The show’s commenters (former officers) said that response was all to common; victims frequently tried to defend their abuser from the police.
I think entertainment media (including this play, movies, music, etc) paints a distorted picture of love. Love conquers all. All you need is love. If you love them, that’s all that matters. My kids are still somewhat young (middle school), but we are already teaching them about healthy relationships and healthy “love”.
Funny—we had been watching a lot of Law and Order SVU recently, and scenes like that were on my mind when that song came on the radio…
“If I Loved You” will always be one of my favorite songs.
Me too! It’s essentially the same song as “Make Believe” in “Show Boat” and “People Will Say We’re in Love” in “Oklahoma!” but the best of the three by far.
Jack wrote, “For the “hero” of the musical, Billy Bigelow, is a thug, a dolt, and a domestic abuser. I found the musical hard to take even as a kid for those reasons.”
I completely agree. I have had a real problem with this show since the very first time I was exposed to it. I know the show is very socially dated as the lyrics of “What’s The Use Of Wonderin” clearly show us. The show has some good music in it but I’m very biased against presenting this show to the public.
When I was on the board of a local Community Theater group this show was pushed by that in crowd that always seemed to get their way. I voiced my concerns for presenting the show but as I said, this in crowd always seemed to get their way and my concerns were out voted and the show must go on. As is customary and pretty much a responsibility for board members of a Community Theater, I took part in the show but I refused to be onstage for this one and instead I tried to help make the show a success by helping with the set design and carpentry and keeping my opinion about the content of the show basically to myself around the cast and crew so I wouldn’t affect morale. In the end, the show was considered a success by the in crowd because in was in the black, but if I remember the house numbers were way, WAY down.
I won’t ever see the show or take part in the show again.
I’ve got a question for Jack, this old school in crowd I talked about is the same in crowd that says a show like Carousel is “good theater” and popular shows like Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is not good theater, but house numbers don’t lie! Popular shows like Joseph… put butts in the seats and literally fill the house for every performance and shows like Carousel barely make ends meet because attendance is so low that they have to produce the shows on severely limited budgets or budgets that they know will be in the red from day one. These people seem to know their audience but ignore them and do what the old school in crowd want to do. They’d rather loose money on their “good theater” than make loads of money on producing what the public will attend. How the heck do you deal with the dominate old school crowd in theater companies when the company, board, directors & producers all know these attendance facts but openly and willfully ignore them?
I’m probably the last person to ask that question, since I helped found and serves as the artistic director for a crazy professional theater with the mission of only producing American shows 20 years old or more that everyone else considers too dated, unpopular, cerebral, controversial or risky to take on. I’d say “Carousel” is still too popular qualify.
Your professional theater group had that as a mission and I’m completely fine with that, community theaters generally don’t have that kind of specific mission. Community theater groups enlist the talent and skills needed for productions directly from the community and that’s also where the vast majority of their funding dollars come from.
Oh, I agree, but its Ok for community theaters to challenge the community too. As a community theater director, I persuaded community theaters here to produce “Follies,” which was never Broadway success and a very bitter show; “Three Penny Opera,” which celebrates a sociopath, prostitution and crime, and “King Lear.”
Jack wrote, “its Ok for community theaters to challenge the community too”
Sure, but when the old school crowd get’s their way all the time and continue to stage shows year after year that their local community really doesn’t respond well to gives me the impression that the old school crowd really doesn’t give a shit about their “local community” audience and simply wanna do what they wanna do in spite of what their house numbers tell them.
Know the audience that puts the dollars in the bank is very important for the future of the company and have some kind of balance to the productions that reflects that local audience. Expand the theatrical experiences of the community once in a while by plugging in those challenging shows into the production schedule, but it seems defeatist to deny what the community wants to see by allowing the challenging things to dominate the entire schedule year after year.
Jack wrote, “I persuaded community theaters here to produce…”
How did the communities respond to the shows, resounding success, borderline success, or pull in a very niche regional audience of like minded theater people?
Some of this might have to do with the market size. The DC area is rather large and I’m guessing that theater audiences tend to overlap communities where areas like where I’m at in south central Wisconsin there are certainly some that attend shows in various Dane County communities, but for the most part the audiences of community theater productions are very local and there is a strong component of family and friends of the cast and crew. There is a huge correlation in community theater productions between the size of the cast and house sizes, involve as many of the local community as you can and the success rate in the house increases.
“Follies” and “Threepenny” sold out and won awards. “King Lear” drew better than anyone expected, and most importantly, made the case that a community theater could do Shakespeare and not embarrass itself. (Unfortunately, as I predicted, “King Lear” just spawned some really bad Shakespeare productions.)
This post just made me think of “She’s my Girl” by Tom Lehrer. https://genius.com/Tom-lehrer-shes-my-girl-lyrics
The concept is terrible, and Tom did a great job mocking it in my opinion.
As he did with everything he set out to skewer.