Are the brain-dead girlfriend and pecking/prudish wife REALLY inventions of the 60s and 70s? Aren't they really just variations on the same simple characters from street plays, morality tales, Punch & Judy puppet shows, etc.?
Look at how the play treats men. We have a schemer, an effeminate whiner, a horny old man, a loudmouthed jock....really, I ask you, are we supposed to expect *better* treatment of the women? At least in the musical (which I saw on Broadway with David Allen Griers!), I read the "I'm so pretty, but otherwise useless" song as social commentary, and the "prudish wife" eventually pries her wandering hubbies eyes away from the fresh meat.
The show (and I'd guess the original play) is meant to be funny because it presents a world turned upside down where the scheming slave is really in control -- it's a model for Jeeves and Wooster as much as anything else, isn't it?
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2005-09-16 01:23 am (UTC)Look at how the play treats men. We have a schemer, an effeminate whiner, a horny old man, a loudmouthed jock....really, I ask you, are we supposed to expect *better* treatment of the women? At least in the musical (which I saw on Broadway with David Allen Griers!), I read the "I'm so pretty, but otherwise useless" song as social commentary, and the "prudish wife" eventually pries her wandering hubbies eyes away from the fresh meat.
The show (and I'd guess the original play) is meant to be funny because it presents a world turned upside down where the scheming slave is really in control -- it's a model for Jeeves and Wooster as much as anything else, isn't it?