"South Pacific"
Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein II
1958
Based on the "Tales of the South Pacific" by James A. Michener

This film musical won the 1958 Academy Award for Best Sound. While all Rodgers & Hammerstein
productions involve class, nation and gender, they were never revolutionary and seem
quite dated now. On the other hand, given how much of the world has not changed
since 1958, the message is still mildly progressive. Although the context is World War II
between the united $tates and Japan in the South Pacific, the main content of the film
is the romantic relations of Amerikkkan soldiers from Arkansas and Kansas with the local people
of different race and culture than their own.

MIM's position on inter-cultural marriage is to favor it and support it as any other.
The only exceptions should be in cases where oppressed nations are literally in danger of
extinction as in some First Nations in North America where nations number in the dozens
or hundreds. Maintaining such a policy or attitude against inter-cultural marriage
after a nation reaches a million is already very dangerous--a possible factor in warfare
and danger to all culture.

In some socialist realist movies, Mitzi Gaynor's character, the young womyn from
Little Rock, Arkansas who plays a naive Navy nurse would be redone as an Aryan
officer of the Gestapo. After all, she's blonde, spies on her French boyfriend for the 
U.$. military and breaks up with the boyfriend when she discovers he has mixed-race
children.

Though the Polynesian
mother of two children by the Frenchman is dead, the U.$. Navy nurse still cannot stand the thought
of family life with her boyfriend because of them. Within two weeks of meeting him, she
is prepared to overlook her boyfriend's past for killing a man in France and going into exile.
In contrast, discovering the mixed race children sends her scurrying off to break up 
after declaring twice in song how she is in love with him. For those who bother to think about this movie,
it's all clear enough even without the Gestapo uniform and hairstyle.

The other character of interest is the lieutenant from Kansas who falls in love with 
a young Asian womyn of the South Pacific islands. In some socialist realist films, he might
be redone as an emerging Bolshevik and clear-cut character hero who lives happily ever after
in inter-racial marriage. In this "South Pacific" the lieutenant dies before being able to
do what he says he knows is right--marry in the South Pacific.

Some may criticize this film for not going far enough, at a time when most Amerikkkans wanted
to keep interracial marriage illegal. The real test of a culture is its allowing its wimmin to
inter-marry and this movie did not have any actual intermarriages occur.

Instead, progress in "South Pacific" comes in character development connected to the war plot. The Navy nurse only
realizes she is wrong, when months after breaking up, her ex-boyfriend is at risk of dying on a
mission fighting the Japanese. At that time, she decides to move in to his house while he is gone
to take care of the children she could not handle before.

Meanwhile, the lieutenant learns from his experience and vows to marry if he comes back from his mission
alive. He doesn't.

The film ends in sympathy with the Polynesian womyn who lost her Amerikkkan lieutenant boyfriend and the Navy
nurse who saw the light--at least enough to forget about past blood mixing. After all, she was not
put to the test of marrying a Polynesian or Tonkinese. For that matter our Frenchman only says
he has no apologies for the past saying that he lived as he could. We cannot help wondering if in the
revolutionary version he will send the should-be Gestapo bitch packing after she admits she can't
take the blood mixing. 

In a key moment in the film, the Amerikkkans try to convince the Frenchman to go on a military mission
"against the Japanese." He says, "I know what you are against" but then asks the Amerikkkans "what are you 
for?" The colonel at hand says he's not sure the Frenchman is wrong in wondering. The nurse, the Frenchman 
and Amerikkkans in general say they are for "freedom," but racism clouds the picture. Whatever faults the
Japanese may have had, one may question whether the Amerikkkans were really advancing matters 
in the South Pacific. (We say this 1) full-well knowing that the Japanese are also proponents of their
own form of racism and 2) upholding the U.$. fight in World War II as just.)

MIM favors the sort of art form in this movie in the sense that we will accept progressive art of all 
forms. The danger to the approach in this film is that even with its abbreviated plot sequences,
which may in fact offend much of the Third World with their references to sex and romance, "South Pacific" may be
too subtle. When one calmly reflects on all the scenes, we can objectively say that what the directors and
writers wanted was progressive. However, less sophisticated audiences may not "get it" unless
they see that lieutenant marry a Polynesian womyn. They may take what they want from the film and
identify with its most racist parts.

The danger of this latter result is greater in this film than in films of stark heroes and villains
often seen in Chinese socialist realism led by Jiang Qing. For example, the Navy nurse is attractive,
athletic, talented on stage as a dancer and singer; has men following her around giving her favors;
seems friendly and calls herself a "cock-eyed optimist." These aspects of her character may overwhelm
backward audiences in a way that would not happen had she just had a more Gestapo-like character.
The trade-off is that audiences may criticize the dictatorship of the proletariat if all films
are socialist realist films. Of course, it's also better if the audience does learn to maneuver
through political subtleties and not always rely  on stark contrasts directed by  the vanguard party.