Theatre Journal

Most, Andrea.
"You've Got to Be Carefully Taught": The Politics of Race in Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific
Theatre Journal - Volume 52, Number 3, October 2000, pp. 307-337

The Johns Hopkins University Press

Andrea Most - "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught": The Politics of Race in Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific - Theatre Journal 52:3 Theatre Journal 52.3 (2000) 307-337 "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught": The Politics of Race in Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific Andrea Most [Figures] In the second act of South Pacific, Lieutenant Joe Cable sings "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught," a song about racial prejudice. Rodgers and Hammerstein were counseled repeatedly in tryouts to remove the song, which was considered by many to be too controversial, too preachy, or simply inappropriate in a musical. They resisted the pressure, James Michener (author of the book on which the play was based) later recalled: "The authors replied stubbornly that this number represented why they had wanted to do this play, and that even if it meant the failure of the production, it was going to stay in." During a touring production of the show in Atlanta in 1953, the song again raised hackles, this time offending some Georgia legislators who introduced a bill to outlaw entertainment having, as they stated, "an underlying philosophy inspired by Moscow." State Representative David C. Jones claimed that a song justifying interracial marriage was implicitly a threat to the American way of life. Hammerstein replied that he was surprised by the idea that "anything kind and humane must necessarily originate in Moscow." One of Rodgers and Hammerstein's most popular musicals,...