Oklahoma! and the Battle Between Darkness and Light

While the musical has its origins in a play an Oklahoma man wrote about his 
family, I think there is a string of cultural factors that was causal in 
raising the Broadway musical and then the film to prominence. 

One thing that occurs to me is the political climate at the time of the 
premiere of the musical. Oklahoma! became a sensation on Broadway when 
American was immersed in World War II, a time when the country didn't question 
its moral purity and saw the world in the starkest contrasts of 
black-vs-white and good-vs-evil. We were at war against the "Japs" and the 
Krauts who were absolute evil. The audience at the musical was heavily 
populated by soldiers on furlough in New York.

We think it is of little significance now, but people were well aware in the 
40s of Oklahoma's place as Indian Territory that was overrun by settlers, 
becoming one of our nation's most-blatant land grabs. Of course, in the 40s 
and well into the 60s, the notion of these early farmers and ranchers [the 
"Sooners"] was that they were the last of the great, heroic American 
pioneers. I was a small boy in the early 60s, and I well remember playing 
Cowboys and Indians in the streets of Tulsa with our capguns. Though there 
were Native Americans in the population -- indeed, I am 1/16th Cherokee -- 
the Cowboys were *always* the good guys and the Indians savages. We played 
with that sensibility without giving it a thought.

I think the culture of the musical/movie supports the culture of the times of 
their premiere. Curly and Laurey represent a pure, powerful, cleansing 
American ideal -- virtuous without question -- in a land where there are no 
shades of gray. The ideal was a physically fit, Caucasian man returning home 
(as many men were returning from war), to a virginal girl/woman. The dark 
Jud hadn't gone anywhere (he had long been in his hovel), while Curly is the 
returning American hero.

In America in the 40s and 50s, youth of Curly's age where respect as Men 
[They had fought in a war that the nation honored!], and I think this 
explains in part Aunt Eller's acceptance of their unconcealed interest in 
pornography and wild times in Kansas City at the beginning of the film. 
Young men had a "right" to wild times after their sacrifice for the country. 
These men also had a "right" to return home and displace others in the 
factories and sweep in and marry the girls back home. There was no sympathy 
in the country for those who might stand in the way of the returning, 
conquering hero.

It was easy at the time when the musical and movie premiered to view Jud with 
no sense of sympathy (and certainly no empathy), yet Jud was a part of the 
community and a member of Aunt Eller and Laurey's household. The hovel he 
lived in belonged to the farm -- not Jud -- and was where he was assigned to 
live as a farmhand. Yet, Jud is immediately subject to ridicule. We as the 
viewer are not allowed to look upon him as having any possible redeeming 
qualities.

Jud is not just Curly's unworthy rival for Laurey's hand, he also holds the 
job that Curly will eventually assume. Jud is the farmhand, but Curly will 
eventually (we can suppose) be the man of the farm if he marries Laurey, and 
a farmhand will not be needed. So, Curly is the invader (the conquering 
hero) much in the manner that the Sooners took control of Oklahoma and young 
men defeated Germany and Japan in WWII.

At the end of the film, there is a breakdown of the rule of law. I think 
that this troubling end to the film can in part be understood in terms of the 
time when the musical premiered. America was nearing the end of the chaos of 
war, guided by a sense of might and right. The returning soldiers, it was 
thought, were entitled to the comforts of their return and there was no 
toleration for close examination of the conduct of young men who had 
frequented whorehouses and had killed and otherwise had endured the horrors 
of battle.

--Tom Armstrong