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Gilbert and Sullivan playlist and Notes
You may watch the playlist here, or click in the bottom right corner of the video to watch on YouTube. I suggest making sure each video is starting at the beginning, as I’m not sure where they were starting from when I added them to this collection.
I have listened to much of the Gilbert and Sullivan music, but I have not seen all of the operettas visually performed. Most of my comments are from listening to the music, and from watching the videos included in this playlist and a few snippets of the other operettas.
Notes on the playlist:
I created this playlist as an opening to conversations about the impact of politics on art, and art on politics, and to the interesting interactions between comedy, satire, and classism, racism, and sexism in response to the mention of the three little maids from the Mikado being used to advertise corsets in Tompkin’s Racial Indigestion. Much of my notes here are from personal observations and opinions, as I have not studied Gilbert and Sullivan and the interactions between art, theatre, and the sociopolitical sphere in depth, but I think they can still be interesting starting points for conversation.
Video one: Full recording of the Mikado. I have not seen this full version, so I don’t know how some of the changeable songs have been interpreted in this version, but it can serve as good context and a reference point to the original subject of Tompkin’s mention.
Video Two: To me this appears to be a relatively traditional performance of the song “Three Little Maids” from the Mikado. These are the three little maids mentioned in Tompkins, and the song mentions their homecoming and their expected times to be married, from my interpretation. Yum-Yum is already betrothed, and the others will not have to wait very long.
Video Three: This is a more modernly interpreted version of three little maids. I chose this video to showcase the differences in the way the shows are performed. As far as I can tell, it’s at least tradition, if not written into the operettas themselves, that certain songs are changed to fit the circumstances.
Video Four, Five, and Six: Several versions of the song “I’ve Got a Little List”. I’ve arranged them more or less in what I would call more tradition to more modern interpretations. This song is discussing various types of people that society wouldn’t miss if ‘someday a victim must be found’. Depending on the performance, political figures, people who puff peppermint in your face, and various other types of people are listed.
Video Seven: “When I was a Lad” is the story of how a man went from office boy to Ruler of the Queen’s Navy without ever going to sea or being on a ship. It’s poking fun at how authority figures are chosen and social hierarchies. I believe in this show the character who sings this song ends up having been switched at birth and trades places with the captain of a ship, again playing with various ranks and social orders. This song is from HMS Pinafore.
Video Eight: “If You’re Anxious for to Shine” pokes fun at intellectualism, or at least empty intellectualism, stating that if you speak in confusing ways that others’ can’t understand they’ll think you’re deep and profound. This song is from Patience, I think.
Video Nine: “I am the Very Model of a Modern Major General” is a very fast song that has been used in various parodies including Tom Lehrer’s Element’s Song, and a fan song about National Novel Writing Month called “I am the Very Model of a WriMo Individual. This song is also poking fun at various kinds of practical versus intellectual knowledge and position and authority. This song is from The Pirates of Penzance.
The last three videos are political parodies I chose to highlight the interaction between art and theater and politics. the first, Video Ten, “The Modern Fundamentalist” is making fun of the Kim Davis marriage certificate issuing scandal from a year or two ago, set to the tune of Modern Major General.
The Eleventh Video is a parody about Donald Trump, from before the election, set to the tune of “Ya Got Trouble” from the musical The Music Man.
The Twelfth Video is another parody of the Kim Davis situation, this time set to the tune of “Cell Block Tango” from the musical Chicago.
I chose these Gilbert and Sullivan songs and parodies using the music of musicals to begin a conversation about the dynamics and influences of art and politics on each other. This is not an exhaustive list, nor a particularly scholarly one, but it comes from my own personal observations and things I’ve found particularly interesting or amusing that art/theater/politic interactions have created. I hope you find some interesting thoughts, or at least amusement, in some of these videos and the connections that can be made between them.
Week five Seminar Response: So many Connections, so few words.
ComAlt, Sarah Williams.
Seminar Response Paper, wk 5
Zoe Wright
Tompkins Chapter 3, Newman Chapter 5, Selections of LaDuke.
“We return again, as well, to the ways that the language of food allows for the exploration of the fine line between animal and human: here, however, the line has a particularly racist connotation, as Haley attaches Eliza’s body to the category of animal – and, of course, not just any animal but a dead animal slaughtered for human consumption.” (Tompkins, 105)
“Compared with the polished robber barons of the midwestern grain machine, the merchants who dealt in produce were more likely to be newly arrived immigrants, struggling to build a family business.” (Newman, 65
“This was an enforced famine, the result of British policy. Wheat harvests flourished in Ireland during the famine, but the British harvested and exported these crops to feed their people in their colonial conquests worldwide. Had the Irish been able to access this food source, the numbers who died from hunger would have been far fewer.” (Laduke, 90)
“As interest in medical cannabis has increased, the terms “organic” and “sustainably grown” have become trendy buzzwords within the industry. There is obviously a need to propagate more cannabis to supply a large consumer demand, but the “more for your money” approach to growing has not been conducive to healthy stewardship of the land. Our corporate-dominated agricultural system is broken, and the cannabis industry should not emulate its worst features.” (Russo, 2016)
I am noticing that I the lines I choose from Tompkins book often have to do with the distinction and discussion of animals and humans and their value. I think this is because I can recognize and place these lines in context of my own experience, while much of the rest of Tompkins work sits in a kind of vacuum. I am learning from it, but there is no preexisting framework in my mind to facilitate that learning. I chose these lines in particular because of the connection between being considered an animal and racist connotations of being considered an animal, or less than a person. This has a lot of connections, from voting politics of the one third of a person law, to the treatment of slaves as property, to the association of savage, ‘lower or less civilized’ humans with being wild or feral animals.
In Newman’s quote, I liked the note about which areas of food were run by which types of people, because if there is such a difference in what kind of people are in what positions, it is good to know why. In this case it is that the egg market is less stable than the grain market, so people with means stay away from eggs, while people without means do what they can with what’s available to them.
I chose the lines from LaDuke to quote because it connected to my knowledge of colonialism and capitalism, and it made a connection in my mind to the book The Sea of Poppies (About the poppy trade between Britain, India, and China) by Amitav Ghosh because it was describing a colonizing country forcing its subject to produce a certain crop at the expense of their ability to gain food.
I chose this article because I was looking for something about monocropping, as it was discussed in LaDuke around potatoes, and I thought it would be a timely and connected subject. I chose this article because it amused me that it was discussing marijuana in terms of sustainability in production, and because it interested me that it was already being discussed in terms of sustainability even though it seems like the demand for this crop is relatively new.
Referenced article:
Russo, S. (2016, May 6). Marijuana, Not Monoculture: How to Make Your Pot Crop Sustainable. AlterNet. Retrieved from http://www.alternet.org/drugs/marijuana-not-monoculture-how-make-pot-crop-sustainable