No Song is Safe From Us

No Song Is Safe From Us - The NYFOS Blog
 |  Jack Snyder

In the film version of On the Town, NYFOS friends Betty Comden and Adolph Green have the somewhat uptight Ann Miller character lead the gang of on-leave sailors into the Museum of Natural History, where she gets very turned on by the primitive man exhibit. The dancing is fabulous, so is her green dress, and the lyrics are laugh-out-loud funny. But the political incorrectness of everything that happens seems without bound: men are sexy because they are brutish; the sexualized “other” is human but seen as subhuman. If you’ve read the contrarian article entitled “Saviors, Victims, and Savages” on my human rights class syllabus, it is hard watch this silly dance number without your PC antennae up.




 |  Jack Snyder

My dad had a terrific singing voice, appearing as a young man in “light operas” such as the 1926 musical The Desert Song, an entertainingly orientalizing show about dashing Moroccan Berber rebels on horseback and their sexy womenfolk who performed the dance of the seven veils under the male gaze of French officers. Flash forward to ISIS, kidnapped Yazidi brides, and on-going debates over neo-colonial humanitarian intervention, and this all has a decidedly contemporary feel, no matter how cartoonish, culturally stereotyped, and ethically questionable.




 |  Jack Snyder

Last night Steven Blier led off the Bernstein concert with “Something’s Coming,” the quintessential expression of the blindly hopeful anticipation of youth from West Side Story. I wanted to pick this song even before knowing that it would be on Steve’s playlist.




 |  Jack Snyder

Today’s shamelessly pandering selection is the universally beloved Barbara Cook singing the wonderful “Glitter and Be Gay” from Candide, a song so difficult that she was sure she would be utterly incapable of singing it. The video clip includes part of an interview where she describes the horrors of initial rehearsals.