You've Got to Be Carefully Taught

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).

"You've Got to Be Carefully Taught" is a popular song from the musical South Pacific written by Richard Rodgers (music), and Oscar Hammerstein II (lyrics). The song was published in 1949.

South Pacific received scrutiny for its commentary regarding relationships between different races and ethnic groups. In particular, "You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught" was subject to widespread criticism, judged by some to be too controversial or downright inappropriate for the musical stage.[1] Sung by the character Lieutenant Cable, the song is preceded by a lyric saying racism is "not born in you! It happens after you’re born..." The song begins:


You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear,
 You’ve got to be taught from year to year,
 It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear—
 You’ve got to be carefully taught

You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
 Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
 And people whose skin is a different shade—
 You’ve got to be carefully taught.

You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late—
 Before you are six or seven or eight,
 To hate all the people your relatives hate—
 You’ve got to be carefully taught!
 You’ve got to be carefully taught![2]


Rodgers and Hammerstein risked the entire South Pacific venture in light of legislative challenges to its decency or supposed Communist agenda. While on a tour of the South, lawmakers in Georgia (U.S. state) introduced a bill outlawing entertainment containing "an underlying philosophy inspired by Moscow."[3] One legislator said that "a song justifying interracial marriage was implicitly a threat to the American way of life."[4] Rodgers and Hammerstein defended their work strongly. James Michener, upon whose stories South Pacific was based, 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."[5]


[edit] References

  1. ^ Andrea Most, “‘You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught’: The Politics of Race in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific” Theater Journal 52, no. 3 (October 2000), 306.
  2. ^ Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, South Pacific: A Musical Play (New York: Random House, 1949), 136-137.
  3. ^ Most, “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught,” 307.
  4. ^ Ibid.
  5. ^ Ibid.

[edit] External link

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../y/o/u/You%27ve_Got_to_Be_Carefully_Taught_f99d.html"