There were a lot of excellent versions of this. Hard to choose.
I have stayed away from "South Pacific" because I believe the sentiment of "You Have To Be Carefully Taught" is exactly backwards. But that's a terrible reason to reject the other songs.
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That's a surprising take on "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught." I have to say that the song corresponds to my experience. Even in the specific context of South Pacific, I was confused by it as a kid, couldn't understand what was bugging the Mitzi Gaynor character about the Polynesian kids. No one had ever told me that I was supposed to have a problem with Asians. My father was deeply skeptical of the intelligence of black people and sometimes said so openly--though even he wouldn't have dreamed of ignoring braininess in an individual black person and confined himself to believing that the average intelligence of the black race was low, which he thought explained why majority black countries were a mess. Nevertheless, he had Japanese colleagues he obviously thought very highly of and would collaborate with them long-distance. He also admired the Maori. So I knew there was a societal controversy over whether I was supposed to look down on some groups, but I was innocent of the issue with other groups unless someone clued me in.
Anyway, it would be a shame not to enjoy all the Rogers & H you can.
Hahaha. True. I believe everyone is suspicious of outgroups, back into prehistoric times. However, in a multi society of any sort, I at least partly agree that one sometimes needs to be clued-in to who is out. In NH, we had very few black people and I was taught with great strictness to treat them as well as possible, because that is what Nice People did. French-Canadians were another matter, and we were allowed to disdain them and make fun of them a bit. Except for Aunt Lillian Archambeault, who took the intelligent but odd Uncle Alfred off everyone's hands and was loads of fun to be with.
Korean adoptees (mostly by good Lutherans) and Chinese doctors (mostly at the non-Catholic hospital) were not specifically identified one way of the other. Those girls were too young for me anyway, so I never noticed, and the Leong and Tang boys both were all good at touch football.
All to say that these things were highly individual in northern Mill Cities.
I haven't seen the movie in a bit over 50 years, but I'd gotten the impression that the Mitzi character was unhappy to discover that her man was "second hand". I probably just missed a line or two. The other racial conflict was clear enough -- though it was the first time I'd run across people prejudiced against south pacific folks. (I'd read about the Chinese laborers and their problems, of course.)
James, that is interesting in light of the research that shows women somewhat prefer to choose a man that some other woman has vetted - though not too many other women.
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