Not How It Seems: ‘South Pacific’ (1958)
After last week’s look at Show Boat, I elected to tackle another musical this week that deals with racial prejudices. South Pacific has its roots in the 1947 book, Tales of the South Pacific, and the original musical ran in 1949. By the time the stage musical was turned into a film in 1958, World War II had been over for some time. But the racial prejudices that plagued the characters were far from over.
Lieutenant Joseph Cable is sent to a Navy-occupied island in order to complete a planned mission to infiltrate one of the Japanese islands. When he first arrives, Cable is eyed by Bloody Mary, a trader woman the Navy men frequently buy goods from. The men already dream of visiting the island Bali-Ha’i because it’s said to be where all the women were put for safekeeping while the soldiers are around. So obviously, they have their own reasons for suggesting Cable visit the island, but Bloody Mary encourages him to visit as well.
Cable is looking for the French civilian Emile de Becque to help him navigate the Japanese island.
Emile has just recently begun to see a nurse, Nellie Forbush of Little Rock, Arkansas, and the two are rapidly falling in love. Nellie describes that she is “A Cock-Eyed Optimist” unlike the other women on the base. Both romantic partners begin to consider the advantages to a relationship from a realistic point of view, whilst also feeling butterflies in their stomachs.
As I suppose may frequently happen when there’s a war raging, and you’re unsure of the future, the duo become engaged after only knowing each other for two weeks. It’s all okay though, because he has admitted to her that he fled France after killing a man, and she’s said she’s totally cool with it.
They justify the whirlwind romance by saying that sometimes these things just happen. Sometimes you fall in love out of the blue and you have to just catch the person as fast as you can.
After their meeting, Nellie is interviewed by Cable and other high-ranking officials about Emile, and asked to find out his political leanings. They discover that Nellie doesn’t know much about Emile yet, including the fact that he was married to and had children with a Polynesian woman.
Cable and Nellie run into each other after Nellie has received a letter from her mother. In the letter, Nellie was scolded for becoming engaged to a man with a different background. Nellie refers to her mother as prejudiced against “anyone living outside of Little Rock.” Cable suggests to Nellie that she follow her mother’s advice and call things off with Emile.
Looking to her girlfriends for counsel, Nellie reluctantly accepts the same opinions given to her by Cable. She promises to call things off, saying she’s going to wash him right out of her hair.
The problem is, she actually has feelings for Emile. He asks her to a party he is throwing to introduce her to his friends and they to her. She feels hesitant but when she finds out he sympathizes with the American forces rather than the Japanese, she is relieved. She asks for details about the man he killed and he admits that it was partly by mistake. Emile makes a more formal marriage proposal to Nellie and she accepts his invitation to the party.
As Emile rides away, Nellie hears her girlfriends making fun of her for falling for him again despite just vowing to wash him out of her hair. She defends herself by saying “I’m In Love With a Wonderful Guy.”
Emile is approached about the secret mission and turns them down, citing the fact that the last time he fought a bully, he was forced to flee to an island, and the fact that he is in love with Nellie and cares about her more than anything else.
Cable is unsure of what to do for the mission now and is told to take some time off to relax. He and several other sailors take a boat to Bali Ha’i. There, they encounter Bloody Mary, who lives on the island. She leads Cable to her daughter Liat, a beautiful Tonkinese woman. Cable is instantly taken with Liat. She doesn’t speak much English, but they both speak a little French. They kiss and fall in love at lightning speed.
Meanwhile, Nellie has a wonderful time at Emile’s party. After the guests leave, they dance around and despite the words Nellie’s mother had for her, the pair bond over the things they do have in common. Emile decides to surprise Nellie by introducing her to his children. Because the children are half Polynesian, she assumes they are the children of his hired help until he tells her that they were born to his deceased wife. Nellie is stunned and upset to learn that he loved a Polynesian woman. She rushes off like Cinderella after the ball.
Cable returns to Bali Ha’i to see Liat. Bloody Mary tells Cable a planter has asked Liat to marry him. Cable says she shouldn’t marry the planter and Bloody Mary retorts that he should marry her instead then. She promises them she will continue to work and Liat and Cable won’t have to, they can simply make love all day and talk happy.
Cable gives Liat his grandfather’s pocket watch that his father carried through World War I. All is going well until Bloody Mary suggests that they will have “good babies.” Suddenly Cable realizes that he can’t go through with the marriage because his children would be mixed race.
Nellie stars in the USO Thanksgiving follies. Emile brings her flowers and she doesn’t know quite what to do about the situation. Again, Nellie meets Cable, and now the pair seemingly have more to bond over. Instead though, Cable longs to return to Bali Ha’i and Liat, despite having said he couldn’t love her. He was laid up with malaria for weeks and all he could think of was his love for her. He says, “If I love her, why don’t I marry her and stay here…” but Nellie cuts him off to remind him that he’s just far away from home. She says people like them just have to go back to where they belong. They both remember their lives back home.
Emile returns to find Nellie, and she tells him she can’t marry him. She refuses to admit it’s because of the children, but admits it’s because his deceased wife was Polynesian. Nellie claims she can’t help the prejudice, that it’s born in her. She tries to get Cable to help her, to explain to Emile how “they” feel, but Cable has seen his own blind hatred for what it really is, and refuses to even make eye contact with Nellie. After Nellie runs away, Cable tells Emile that the feeling Nellie was experiencing was not born in her, that instead, they have been taught to hate.
Emile realizes that without Nellie, he doesn’t really care if he lives or dies. Thus, he agrees to join Cable on the mission to infiltrate the Japanese island. Their mission goes well initially. After some time, Nellie discovers that Emile has chosen to go on this dangerous mission. She regrets her decision to call things off with him. Now that his life is in danger, she realizes how much he means to her.
Cable is killed on the mission, which prompts Nellie to talk to Emile as if he were there, telling him nothing should have mattered to her apart from him, and telling him she knows he can make it back alive. Soon after, Bloody Mary and Liat arrive, searching for Cable. Knowing the truth, Nellie embraces Liat. Had Cable married Liat originally, he would have been able to quit working, and never would have been killed.
A rescue mission is set up to get Emile back, but even before he returns, Nellie begins to associate with the children, getting to know and take care of them. When Emile returns, they all eat together as a family and it’s clear that Nellie’s racial prejudices are what has finally been washed out of her hair.
During a time in which segregation was still going on, South Pacific definitely took a strong and unpopular stance on race. Rodgers and Hammerstein were liberals, and expressing their views on race was a great way to show their politics without getting labeled as communists. And despite all the controversy the show caused, it was incredibly successful, both as a stage musical and a film. During the stage musical’s run, Rodgers and Hammerstein threatened to cancel a performance at a segregated theater in Wilmington, Delaware, were it not desegregated. As such, the theater complied. The film, despite its strong views on race and the terrible color filters incorrectly applied by the studio, topped the box office. The soundtrack still holds the record in the UK charts for the longest running #1 album.
South Pacific doesn’t really hide the anti-racist ideas, but the way it expresses them makes the topic sympathizable. The characters of Nellie and Cable are representative of the American people. They’re not bad people, but they have these terrible prejudices society has instilled in them. And over the course of the story, they both realize the fault of their thought patterns.
Nellie is facing her fears head-on. She’s from the South, being told off by her mother for the relationship in the first place, before the children are even brought onto the scene. She recognizes her mother’s prejudices but is initially unable to shake her own. It takes Emile putting himself in a dangerous position for Nellie to realize she’s being stupid. Is it a little messed up that Emile’s love of Nellie, a woman he’s known only a few months, is more important to him than his children? Sure, but that’s not the point.
Cable seems willing enough to fall in love with the Liat until he realizes that any children they have will be of mixed heritage. Cable is triggered to change his tune when he sees how ridiculous the racism looks on Nellie. He recognizes that they aren’t born into it, that it’s something they were taught by their family, prompting “You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught,” which has to be one of the most political songs in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s history as a songwriting duo. And it isn’t just political, it’s a poetic and fundamentally well-written song.
The handling of racial problems in South Pacific is spot-on, and dealing with the tensions in the exotic pacific islands rather than the American mainland made the piece much more palatable for those who might not otherwise have seen it.
While it isn’t the most exciting classic musical, and the color filters are incredibly annoying, South Pacific tells a very concise story with a purpose.
“Not How It Seems” takes a look at the underlying messages in classic movie musicals.
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