"The Sad Devolution of Marian the Librarian" : A Different Perspective on 'The Music Man'
Chris Peterson, OnStage Blog Founder
When looking back at some of the most notable musicals in history, we tend to see things from a different perspective. Some of these things have aged well and others haven’t. We’ve also seen how villains may not have been as bad as they were depicted and unsung heroes that deserve more credit.
And then sometimes we see that tragic downfalls are often overlooked or aren’t considered downfalls at all. Such is the case with the latest installment of this series - "The Sad Devolution of Marian the Librarian".
In the past, we’ve taken another look at musicals such as Oklahoma!, The Phantom of the Opera, Grease, The Sound of Music and Carousel. Today, we’re looking at The Music Man.
While many consider Meredith Wilson’s classic one of the greatest musicals of all-time, it’s worth taking a look at because it could also be a cautionary tale.
It’s basically the story of a con-man who cheats people in Iowa with empty promises and gets away with it. Hm, I wonder if the actual people of Iowa are familiar with a situation like this.
But along with stealing money, he breaks down a woman who should be a championed female character in musical theatre history to a standard cliche.
For this piece, I’ll be looking at the 1962 movie adaptation. Let’s break down The Music Man from Marian Paroo’s perspective.
(Disclaimer: I know we’re looking at a piece written over 70 years ago, set decades before that, through a 2020 lense. But this piece is still one of the most popular musicals produced by schools and being revived on Broadway later this year. So it’s relevant and worthy to be talking about these issues. Also, we’re going to overlook the “Wa Tan Ye” sequence and the Mayor’s xenophobia because that’s a whole other set of issues for another column.)
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It’s 1912 in River City, IA. Marian Paroo is working at the town’s library where she is the librarian. Storming in is Eulalie Mackechnie Shinn, the mayor’s wife, furious over the fact that Marian let her daughter check out “The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám”, a book of Persian poetry. What Mrs. Shinn finds filthy about the book is its depictions of people eating sandwiches and drinking with girls. You know, dirty stuff. (Side note: Hermine Gingold is simply wonderful in this movie)
It’s more than likely that Mrs. Shinn was referring to the passage:
“If chance supplied a loaf of white bread, Two casks of wine and a leg of mutton, In the corner of a garden with a tulip-cheeked girl, There'd be enjoyment no Sultan could outdo.”
Suggestive? Maybe. Smutty for 1912? A bit of a stretch even for a conservative like Mrs. Shinn.
But given that this is likely the most powerful woman in town, does Marian cower and apologize? No. She stands her ground and proclaims that young women in the town should be allowed to read classic literature to expand their minds rather than the works of Eleanor Glynn - a romance writer whose works were actually considered controversial in 1912.
On her way home that night she is followed by a man she doesn’t know from the center of town to her front door. Her interaction with this man is as follows:
Man: (Holding a handkerchief) “Did you drop your?”
Marian: “No.”
Man: (Grabbing her arm to stop her) “Didn’t I meet you in-?”
Marian: “No.”
Man: “I’ll only be in town a short while…”
Marian: “Good!”
Now, this scene was likely intended to show how cold Marian is or how much of an obstacle she will be. Because unbeknownst to her, this man’s goal is to seduce her because he’s been told she’s his only obstacle to scheming the townspeople out of their money. It’s terribly unfair to depict her like this because she was likely just trying to get home safely without being 1912 catcalled.
In that scene alone, she’s likely followed home for blocks by a stranger, stopped twice in her tracks, and once grabbed by the arm. Keep in mind she’s also had a terrible day at work with the mayor’s wife yelling at her. I don’t blame her for not reacting to this man’s flirting attempts with giggles and batted eyelashes.
Once inside the safety of her home, she tells her mother that she was followed home by a strange man. Rather than being concerned, her mother criticizes Marian for having too high of standards for men. Apparently, Marian’s standard of accepting men who stop her on the street at night is way too high. Her mother then goes onto criticize her job as a librarian and her worth as a woman by singing,
“But, darlin'--when a woman has a husband And you've got none Why should she take advice from you?”
Good Lord. And if that weren’t enough, she’s called an old maid by her young piano student.
I wouldn’t blame Marian if she ended the day with a stiff drink and a good cry.
The next day during a town meeting, she sees the strange man, whose name is apparently Harold Hill, convince the townspeople that what they need to save their youth is a boy’s marching band.
After seeing her neighbors enthralled enough with the presentation that they full out pantomime a parade, she follows them outside. The mayor and the school board are just as enthralled with a fake parade, so Marian has to remind them that there isn’t an actual band which then causes the mayor to demand to see Hill’s credentials.
In case you’re keeping score, during the entire “76 Trombones” sequence, the only one not buying into the B.S. is Marian Paroo.
Later that night, Marian is walking when Harold Hill once again blocks her path. This time he asks if she lives alone or would she like to come with him to her hotel for caramel.
When Hill tells her that he’s a professor, she asks the most logical question in the entire show:
“Professor of what? At what college do they give a degree for accosting women like a Saturday night rowdy a dance hall?
She goes on to tell him she’s not impressed by his act nor does she believe his lies. Yet again, Marian is the smartest person in the entire town.
Days later, while at work, Hill enters the library, threatens to drop a bag of marbles on the floor, and professes his love to her(which he doesn’t mean).
It is here where writers of the movie try to convey the “softening” of Marian but in reality, they’re turning her into a doe-eyed long interest with no explanation of how that happened. They’re trying to show that Marian’s not all that bad when in fact, she hasn’t been bad at all. Up to this point, she’s been a hard-working, single woman who doesn’t like it when strangers accost her on the street and doesn’t buy into the lies that this man is telling the town.
But this musical needs a love story, so the writers want you to forget that.
What we’re led to believe is that all it takes to make this woman start to fall for this guy is for him to barge into her place of work, lead an enjoyable soft-shoe tap number, stuff a marshmallow in her mouth and that will do the trick. It betrays everything Marian is as a character.
Later on, when Hill has appeared to gain interest from Marian’s mother for her brother to be in the band, she and her mother argue over Marian not believing him and her mother wanting her to find a man.
Her mother says,
“Marian Paroo, if you don’t mind my asking, don’t you ever think about being in love?”
This is an important scene because, for the second time in this movie, her mother puts pressure on her to find a man. We’re also to assume they’ve had this conversation many times before.
She then sings the worst composed song in the movie(“Being in Love” which inexplicably replaced the average “My White Knight”). But it does contain important lyrics of what Marian wants in a man:
“All I want is a plain man. All I want is a modest man. A quiet man, a gentle man. A straightforward and honest man. To sit with me in a cottage somewhere in the state of Iowa...”
This is important because Harold Hill embodies none of the qualities she’s looking for.
Later that day she finds information that Harold Hill’s claimed education credentials are false and is about to tell the mayor but the Wells Fargo wagon arrives and Hill delivers a shiny cornet to a beaming Winthrop. Because Hill has made Winthrop happy, she tears the information out of the book and exchanges affectionate looks with Hill.
Her growing affection for Hill makes no sense. She’s uncovered a lie about him but she throws that logic out the window because Winthrop’s happy? This contradicts any and all logic we saw from her at the beginning of the musical.
Later that night, while waiting for Hill, she encounters another traveling salesman who’s out to expose Hill’s con. Marian defends Hill by saying the man is making a big mistake. What mistake? She already knows that Hill is lying about his past, so someone else with physical evidence that Hill cons others is so unbelievable?
Then, in another betrayal to earlier Marian, she tries to delay the man from exposing Hill by pretending to seduce him and kisses him. Angry that he’s been had, the man yells that Hill has girls all over Iowa who he sweetens to make sure they shut up. Remember this for later.
When Hill arrives, she doesn’t mention the encounter or what the other salesman said. She’s about to, but then asks him about the ludicrous “Think System”.
She asks if “all music teachers are as dense as she is?” Again, nothing she’s done in this movie should be considered “dense.” She then starts to address the rumors she’s heard about him but Hill says rumors are silly just like the one about her inheriting the library from “Uncle Matty”.
I should mention here that all the while, Marian’s been dealing with the town rumor is there is some dirty secret as to why an old man left a young woman a library after he died. When in truth, the old man was Marian’s dead father’s best friend and wanted to make sure they had financial security. Hill knows this and uses it to dispel the rumors about him.
Marian agrees and makes a great “fake news” argument as to why you shouldn’t believe nasty things said about people. I guess the writers want us to forget that she discovered Hill’s lying about his past.
She agrees to meet him at the footbridge. Where she professes her love for him, by saying that she was oblivious to bells, birds, and music until the professor came into her life.
Let me remind you that before Hill came into town, Marian wasn’t locked in a tower. She was an educated woman and a champion of literature. She was already knowledgeable of everything mentioned in the song before Hill and to suggest otherwise is plain insulting. (Side note: I do love Barbara Cook’s version of this song though, I’m not a monster) I’m also skipping over the misogynistic “Shipoopi” whose lyrics contain “Squeeze her once, when she isn't lookin', If you get a squeeze back, that's fancy cookin’”.
After the song, Hill goes and talks with Washburn about his scheme and how all the plans are still in motion.
So just so we all know, everything is going according to Hill’s plan. He’s conned the town and done it by “wooing” his only obstacle, Marian. Nothing up to this point in the musical demonstrates that he has genuine feelings for her.
She reveals that she uncovered the truth about his education but scoffs it off because the town that his school was in wasn’t even built yet. She’s basically like, “Oh you silly goose, the fact you’ve been claiming all this time was false, oh well I’m in love!”. Marian from 30 mins prior would punch this Marian in the face.
She also tells him she’s found out the lie but gives him the evidence because she doesn’t want to turn him in! Who is this woman?!?!
Hill thinks he’s going to get away with it and when he’s confronted, his doe-eyed accuser just hands him evidence needed to charge him.
Remember the point I asked you to remember earlier? How Hill’s been known to sweeten girls across the mid-west so they don’t turn him in? Find the lie.
After Hill is caught by the townspeople when the anvil salesman reveals the con, he’s brought to “trial” at the rec hall.
Here is where we see the final shovel of dirt placed on the grave of “Logical Marian”.
She defends Hill by saying that he should be credited for helping to town create things to do and being nice to one another. She’s giving Harold Hill credit for the job she was basically trying to do at the beginning of the musical by running the library and tasked with the mission of “improving River City’s cultural level”.
So the simple synopsis of this musical is that a woman can’t do the job she set out to do until a con man comes into town to do it for her. I don’t think I’m stretching anything here.
The movie has a weird ending right up there with Sandy and Danny taking off in a flying car, where the residents imagine a grand parade. End credits. All that’s missing is the post-credit scene where Hill jumps on the next train out of River City because nothing happens in the movie to suggest he’s changed his ways.
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At no point is there any contrition, or significant change in character on the part of Hill. He only gets away with it because the people of River City are morons.
As I said earlier, we’re looking at a 70-year-old piece through a 2020 lense. But pieces like The Music Man are annually performed in schools and community theatres. And with the big Broadway revival planned for later this year, this argument is going to come up again. Marian is a great character in the first half of the show but devolves quickly and over nothing. She becomes part of the stigma in musical theatre that women can’t make it on their own and need men in order to be happy or succeed or hear birds winging in the sky. Interestingly enough, given her past roles, Sutton Foster should have no problem with a portrayal like this. And with Scott Rudin producing it, don’t expect any changes to strengthen Marian for 2021 audiences.
I’m not going to ask people to suddenly boycott a show like The Music Man. But if there are teachers or directors that are looking to produce shows with strong female roles, they should steer clear of this one.