Some things just wrinkle faster than others! Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the classic musicals that are particularly outdated.
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00:00 "I know the answer already."
00:01 "Do you now? Now how do you know how we judge things up here?"
00:06 Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the classic
00:10 musicals that are particularly outdated.
00:13 [Singing]
00:25 Number 10. My Fair Lady.
00:27 [Singing]
00:36 Not everything is so fair for this lady. The 1956 musical My Fair Lady is a theatrical classic with
00:43 a whole lot of problems. Inspired by George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, the story sees Professor Henry
00:48 Higgins transforming Londoner Eliza Doolittle into an educated lady by changing the way she talks.
00:54 "Oh, anybody who'd think he was my father."
00:57 "If I decide to teach you, I'll be worse than two fathers to you."
01:00 Yes, you heard that correctly. That's bad enough. Leave her accent alone. But Higgins also treats
01:06 Eliza like trash, berating and embarrassing her every chance he gets. Surprisingly, a bond grows
01:12 between them, and the story ends with him asking her where his slippers are. Yikes!
01:17 The 2018 revival attempted to update the text to make it less problematic,
01:22 but the original still leaves a bad taste.
01:24 "You've all been working much too hard. I think the strain is beginning to show."
01:28 Number 9. Bye Bye Birdie.
01:30 "What's the matter with her?"
01:32 "She's sad because Conrad's going into the army,
01:34 and she'll be too old for him when he gets out."
01:37 "Well, she's got a few good years left."
01:40 The 60s brought Bye Bye Birdie to the Broadway stage, and it is very much a product of its time.
01:45 [Singing]
01:53 The plot surrounds a big-time teen musician, Conrad Birdie, who is about to be deployed to
01:58 serve in the military. As a send-off, his agent Albert sets up a deal to have him perform on
02:03 the Ed Sullivan Show, where one admirer will get a chance to share a kiss with him. The show is
02:08 packed with offensive and troubling plot points, namely the racist treatment of Rosie, Albert's
02:13 love interest. It also sees its titular character accused of inappropriate behavior with a minor.
02:18 We are saying a big "bye bye" to all of that.
02:21 [Singing]
02:30 Number 8. Funny Girl.
02:32 [Singing]
02:44 Although this musical helped make Barbara Streisand a bona fide star, we can't help but
02:48 call out its faults. Somewhat based on the life of Broadway legend Fanny Bryce, the musical is all
02:53 about show business, and follows Bryce as she sings, dances, and belts her way to fame. Unfortunately,
02:59 she spends a good portion of the runtime following and pining for Nicky Arnstein,
03:04 who gets them involved in some shady dealings.
03:06 "Because I thought maybe, finally, at last, my luck had changed.
03:15 Only it hadn't."
03:21 "So it'll change tomorrow."
03:25 In the end, the two go their separate ways, but it's hard to watch someone as confident
03:29 and electric as Fanny Bryce fall for such a toxic man.
03:33 "You."
03:33 "Huh?"
03:34 "Are woman. I am man. You are smaller, so I can be taller than."
03:47 Number 7. The Music Man.
03:49 "Oh what can I do, my dear, to catch your ear? I love you madly, madly, mad of librarian,
03:58 Marian."
03:58 It's the classic opposites attract love story. In The Music Man, librarian and musician Marian
04:04 Peru is bugged, agitated, and lied to, but also eventually wooed by a con artist named Harold Hill.
04:10 His constant pursuit of her is straight-up annoying,
04:13 not to mention a trope that we see far too often and that sends a very troubling message.
04:18 "At what college do they give a degree for accosting women like a Saturday night rowdy
04:22 at a public dance hall?"
04:23 "Well I wouldn't know about that. I'm a conservatory man myself."
04:26 In the end, she somehow forgives all his bad behavior, actually defending him.
04:30 Frustratingly, but sadly not shockingly, the two end up together in a huge
04:35 outdated eye roll of a finale.
04:37 "No I never heard them at all, till there was you."
04:44 Music Man, you got trouble indeed.
04:48 "Well either you're closing your eyes to a situation you do not wish to acknowledge,
04:51 or you are not aware of the caliber of disaster."
04:54 Number 6. The King and I.
04:56 "You'll forgive me if I boast, and I've now become an expert on the subject I like most."
05:09 Despite being regarded as a classic, The King and I is one of the most problematic works in
05:14 the musical theater canon. The plot revolves around a white woman relocating to Bangkok
05:18 and work as a teacher for a King of Siam's kids.
05:21 "If I might be allowed to offer you a word of warning,
05:24 that man has power, and he can use it for you or against you."
05:28 "You must stop worrying about me Captain Orton."
05:31 "Sometimes I wonder if you know what you're really facing."
05:34 Firstly, it was created by Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein II,
05:38 two white men, who crafted a very narrow depiction of Thai culture.
05:42 The show deals with colonialism, but unfortunately not by properly trying to
05:46 unpack or criticize it in a fleshed out enough way.
05:49 "On a clear understanding that this kind of thing can happen, shall we dance, shall we dance,
05:57 shall we dance."
05:58 In addition, the original Broadway cast and the 1956 film adaptation both featured Yul Brynner,
06:05 a Russian-born actor, playing King Mongkut.
06:07 "Very often find confusion in conclusion I concluded long ago."
06:12 Number 5. Annie Get Your Gun.
06:15 "Getting paid for doing what comes naturally, let's go on with the show."
06:24 In 1946, Annie Get Your Gun was among the hottest tickets on Broadway.
06:31 After all, the tale of Annie Oakley, one of the West's sharpest shooters,
06:35 boasts some of musical theater's most memorable tunes,
06:38 including "There's No Business Like Show Business" and "Anything You Can Do."
06:42 "Anything you can do, I can do better. I can do anything better than you."
06:47 "Oh you can."
06:48 "Yes I can."
06:48 "Oh you can."
06:49 "Yes I can."
06:50 "Oh you can."
06:50 "Yes I can, yes I can."
06:52 However, the music also originally includes some truly disturbing lyrics,
06:57 targeting indigenous people and perpetuating harmful stereotypes.
07:01 It was outdated then, and remains unacceptable,
07:04 with numerous stagings making adjustments to remedy the situation.
07:07 Overall, the one-note depiction of the Sioux tribe throughout
07:11 is an unfortunate example of the industry's
07:13 troubling history of producing and showcasing racist content.
07:16 "It is just when they've taken everyone by force,
07:21 who makes an entrance on a big white horse,
07:24 who starts a shooting till there's no one left to kill."
07:28 "General Grant?"
07:29 "No, Colonel Buffalo Bill."
07:31 Number 4. South Pacific.
07:33 "There is nothing like a day, nothing in the world.
07:40 There is nothing you can name that is anything like a day."
07:46 When South Pacific first premiered on Broadway in 1949,
07:51 it was praised for what many consider to be progressive thoughts on race.
07:55 "All men are created equal, isn't it?"
07:59 "Amy, will you really believe that?"
08:01 However, there's no denying that the protagonist, Nellie Forbush, is racist.
08:05 "I wanted to meet different kinds of people and find out if I liked them better."
08:10 "And do you?"
08:12 "Well, I don't really know yet. I guess they're different."
08:19 She falls in love with a Frenchman, Emile,
08:21 later breaking things off with him upon learning that he has two children who are half Polynesian.
08:26 In the end, though, they end up together after she changes her mind.
08:29 But the resolution basically excuses her earlier bigotry, centering her happy ending.
08:34 [Singing]
08:43 Honestly, Emile should have never continued to pursue her after seeing her hatefulness.
08:48 There's definitely nothing enchanted about this twisted story.
08:51 [Singing]
08:56 "Fools give you reasons, wise men never try."
09:00 Number three, Oklahoma.
09:04 "Oh, they would? Oh, you never know how many people like you till you die."
09:09 There's no denying that Oklahoma revolutionized the musical theater genre.
09:13 Yet at its center, it really is just a story about two men fighting over a woman.
09:18 "Judd finishes off the unconscious Curly and carries Laurie out,
09:23 high above his head like a conquering hero, to the shock and horror of the townspeople."
09:29 And there's a lot of toxicity and misogyny at play. Curly McLean and Judd Frye's obsession
09:34 with winning over Laurie Williams culminates in Judd losing his life. It's at the hands of his
09:40 own weapon, but it's also during a throwdown with Curly. If you're thinking there's due process or
09:45 a proper legitimate trial, though, think again. Curly's basically hailed a hero,
09:49 and he and Laurie head off together.
09:51 "Oh, what a beautiful morning. Oh, what a beautiful day."
10:00 Between that, the sexism, and the underdeveloped female characters,
10:04 the musical in its classic form has not aged well.
10:07 "Don't you feel kind of sorry for a fella when he looks like he wants to kiss ya?"
10:12 "You just can't go around kissing every man that asks ya. Didn't anyone ever tell you that?"
10:16 "Yeah, they told me."
10:20 Number 2. Gigi.
10:22 "In this wide, wide world, must be oh so many girls better for you than I."
10:34 No matter how you try to spin it, there really is no defending Gigi.
10:39 "What's the matter with her?"
10:40 "Everything."
10:42 The plot is straight up unsettling, and the show does itself no favors when handling
10:47 delicate subject matter. Based on a French novella, Gigi follows the story of the titular
10:52 teen who is studying to become a courtesan in Paris.
10:55 "And never go home again."
11:03 It is not what she wants, though, and there's a considerable age gap between her and her
11:07 eventual love interest, Gaston. Don't even get us started on the latter's uncle, Honoré,
11:12 who has a song literally titled "Thank Heaven for Little Girls."
11:16 "Thank heaven for little girls. They grow up in the most delightful way."
11:24 Which reads "super creepy." We wish we were making this stuff up.
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11:44 Number 1. Carousel
11:46 Billy Bigelow might be musical theater's most controversial leading man. He's one of the most
12:02 famous characters, with a challenging repertoire of songs including "Soliloquy" and the duet
12:07 "If I Loved You."
12:08 "You can have fun with a son, but you gotta be a father to a girl."
12:16 That being said, Bigelow is a role that carries a lot of emotional weight.
12:24 Indeed, he is violent with his wife. It's a horrifying, shocking development,
12:29 made even more troubling when he later dies and ascends to the afterlife.
12:33 "She'd argue, she'd say this, I'd say that, and she'd be right. So I hit her."
12:39 "Are you sorry you hit her?"
12:42 "I ain't sorry for anything."
12:44 There, he is awarded the opportunity to make up for his transgressions. He ends up harming
12:49 his daughter Louise, and yet still he's ultimately redeemed and humanized. Thus,
12:54 Carousel sends a disturbing message that abuse is forgivable, and we think it's best if the
12:59 curtain closes on that message. Which one of the musicals do you think has aged the worst?
13:03 Let us know in the comments.
13:05 Do you agree with our picks? Check out this other recent clip from Ms. Mojo.
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13:14 [Music]