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What is Up with Bloody Mary and her Daughter? Is she a Pimpette?

posted 14 years ago by viamber
3 replies | jump to latest

Just saw the musical here in Pasadena at the Ahmanson Theatre. It was terrific...great singing and acting. But one very strange thing about Bloody Mary and that daughter. What was going on there? Is she a pimpette? Or just a concerned mother trying to get the "best catch" for her daughter (Cable)? Why did they hook up so fast? One look at each other and they're taking off their clothes! Nellie and Emile didn't do that! That bothered me. And then Bloody Mary offering Cable thousands of dollars to marry Leit and promising "you'll never have to work again." Hmmm....and not to mention the daughter looks VERY YOUNG. How was this portrayed in the original movie in 1949. Someone told me it was suggested that Cable rapes her.

Any help on this is appreciated.

Thanks!

[–] richard-III 14 years ago

Well, in James Michener's Tales Of The South Pacific, well-known-for-cursing Mary sees Lieutenant Cable as a real man, a good catch, so she sends him up to her daughter.

Cable and Liat have sex, not especially because Mary might want it but because Liat wants to.

Later on Mary asks Cable if he likes Liat and if he wants to marry her. Mary even offers him 3,000 dollars and wants them to live here, or in China.

Edit: In the book, Liat was about 17 years old.
De Becque has beautiful, grownup legitimate daughters (he only has two young children in the 1958 movie), and they all marry. The youngest, Marthe, was 15 and got pregnant by an American sergeant who wants to marry her. (Pilot Bus Adams has a love affair with the oldest daughter, Latouche, but loses her for Lieutenant Tony Fry, a freeminded 'trading specialist' and a friend.)

"When there is no more room in the Oven,
the Bread will walk the Earth."

[–] ultimatelotrcrossover 14 years ago

What I don't get is why we're supposed to think that Cable is a bad guy because he doesn't want to marry some bimbo he's known for 5 minutes. Keep in mind that this was the 1940's and 'nice girls' didn't have sex before marriage, let alone leaping into the sack with a total stranger.

[–] julesaz 10 years ago

However bizarre, creepy, and hasty their courtship was, he fell genuinely in love with her and just didn't see how he could marry her and take her home because of the racial issue. He didn't like himself for feeling that way, and he ultimately decided not to leave her (in the stage version, at least). We're not supposed to think he's a bad guy.

Real people and "nice girls" in the 1940s did in fact have sex outside marriage fairly often; we just told women that they shouldn't. Contraception was unreliable, so people often got married just so they could have sex or continue to have it.