The Minstrel Show That Is My Life

I could write about my life, or I could show you Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland in blackface in Babes in Arms. I'm going to do the latter because it reflects the former. The United States was fucked up in the 30s and 40s.

Licking my Wounds — The Garland Remedy

Yesterday I was lazy. Ridiculously lazy. Summer is coming to a quick end as usual and I am entering a new seasons with pensive thoughts and newfound bitterness. I won't allow that though and I saw Hamlet 2. Which made me laugh much more than I expected. It was like the scripts Waiting for Guffman, High School Musical, Passion of the Christ and Hamlet all got mixed together. It was very cute and funny.

Then I talked a friend into buying me the Judy & Mickey DVD box set. Somehow I managed to talk her into it and so it's mine! I sat at home last night and watched Babes in Arms. Judy is a flower as a young woman. She gets all the performance numbers and even does black face at one point. There's something very interesting in seeing a young Judy perform numbers that she would later reshape and make her own.

The box set is totally totally worth the 50 bucks. It comes with poster sized photos of Mickey and Judy in production. As well as a bonus DVD with 21 of Judy's best moments at MGM (before they fired her). It's really sweet to see Judy in her young twenties singing songs like, "Zing, Went the Strings of My Heart" and then to realize the way that song was hers for the rest of her life. Just as easy as that. She sings it once and thus she will now sing that song repeatedly and make it her own.

Poor Judy. I love you.

Meet Me In St. Louis

So I finished Meet Me In St. Louis last night. What a movie! What's best about the 2 DVD set is it comes with an intro from Liza and she's hilarious.

"Papa told Mr. Mayer he wanted to make a movie about a family in St. Louis! And that was all! And then he met Mama and they just fell in love...he always shot her in a frame! Like a window or a mirror! Oh listen to me just going on about my mom and dad! Oh just watch the movie already!"

Liza says that after she finishes her rendition of Judy with a J that her good friends John Kander and Fred Ebb wrote for her. I kid. What struck me is how colorful this movie was! Like a total orgasm for the eyes. Vincent had a good idea with this one.

Judy is stunning, it was her first movie that portrayed her as more than the "Good Time Gal" reputation she'd had since Wizard of Oz. She was 22 when they filmed this movie, which I find even more grand because that would be what Judy looked like if we were best friends now!

Imagine Judy and I walking down the street. Her in her Blue Tassel dress and me in a Tight T-shirt. Judy pointing and saying, "Let's go sing the Trolley Song...but on the subway!" Of course I'd have to join her.

The one thing about the movie though is the fact that her youngest sister, Tootie, disturbed me deeply. The entire movie is sunshine and happiness and the most stressful moment is Judy and her neighbor's relationship. Honestly, that stressed me out a little bit too much.

Then you have Tootie who is pure bitch and a little bit lesbian. She tells people she hates them and spreads rumors that their neighbors are alcoholics. She pretends that Judy's Beau beat the shit out of her. Which causes Judy to go never door and pop a cap in his ass! (that scene was worth the entire movie).

What I found more creepy is near the end of the movie, after Ms. Garland performs the legendary Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas. Tootie flips shit and runs out to the yard and somehow acquires a baseball bat/large piece of wood and proceeds to destroy the family of snowmen they had built three scenes ago. Screaming and ranting that she hates them. She brutally smashes them and in particular she aims for decapitating them. It's frightful. I just wonder if Tootie was a repressed Lesbian or had the makings of a Serial Killer (ala Monster).

If you are curious how I mean brutal go 3:18 of this video and judge for yourself: