RIP Shirley Temple

[Prospero]

The child actress and, later, US ambassador Shirley Temple has just died. RIP.

They were more innocent times.....it is hard to imagine a Shirley Temple for the 21st century

Shirley Temple : Animal Crackers In My Soup Extended Version - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNwFXLcrsbc)

[Stavros]

Hmm Prospero...innocent times? You might have contrasted Shirley Temple with Mae West to bring out the same kind of moralism in American public life that attended the life and death of prohibition, vide:

"The interest in West as author inspired the feminist press Virago to reprint her 1937 novel The Constant Sinner in 1995. Three Plays by Mae West: Sex, The Drag, The Pleasure Man finally brings these most notorious -- and important -- plays to light. Until now only available to a few scholars at the Library of Congress, the plays have been a crucial feature of most recent analyses of West, especially the books by Hamilton and Leider. West wrote a total of eleven plays, eight of which were produced before she went to Hollywood. Sex (1926), The Drag (1927), and The Pleasure Man (1928) have historically garnered the most attention. West's infamous run-ins with the police over these three works form an important component of her star text and, indeed, established the conditions for her controversial Hollywood career and subsequent run-ins with the Hays office. As editor Lillian Schlissel details, Sex was raided by the New York City police along with two other Broadway plays with sexual themes, The Captive (about lesbianism) and The Virgin Man, and West was jailed for nine days on the count of producing an immoral play. The Drag was forced to close out of town. The Pleasure Man went to trial for being immoral, indecent, impure, and obscene; however, the jury was unable to reach a verdict, largely because the defense succeeded in making the chief witness for the prosecution appear foolish by forcing him to imitate the female impersonators in the play. Happily, the book includes original documents from the trials that illuminate the laws and vagaries of theatrical censorship in the 1920s.
Moreover, these texts, especially the gay-themed The Drag and The Pleasure Man, authorize claims about West's progressive queer sexual politics and show her interest in and knowledge of drag culture and female impersonation. Despite its provocative title, Sex is a fairly standard melodrama about a self-sacrificing prostitute. The Drag and The Pleasure Man, however, offer more daring representations. The Drag, which circulated in gay communities for years in mimeographed form, attempts to represent seriously the plight of homosexuals in a hypocritical society. Most of its power and verve, however, centers around a drag ball and the improvised dialogue of its gay characters, who were played by drag queens West recruited from Greenwich Village hangouts. The Pleasure Man, a backstage..."
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/modernism-modernity/summary/v005/5.3br_schlissel.html

[Jericho]

They were more innocent times.....it is hard to imagine a Shirley Temple for the 21st century


But, but, we have Honey Boo Boo now!

[Prospero]

Okay Stavros... but the Shrley Temple end of the spectrum is now so clouded by the Paedophilia panic that I honestly doubt if a child star of her sort could be acceptable.

[youngblood61]

R.i.p

[Stavros]

Okay Stavros... but the Shrley Temple end of the spectrum is now so clouded by the Paedophilia panic that I honestly doubt if a child star of her sort could be acceptable.

All too true, not least her making a film with WC Fields...not sure 'animal crackers' would get past the pc censors either...

[NightmareX0666]

Rip...

[maxpower]

But, but, we have Honey Boo Boo now!


Shhh! If you speak of the devil, she will appear!

[Nikka]

R.i.p.

[robertlouis]

Obituary from today's Guardian, which also emphasises her notable contribution as a diplomat in later life.

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/feb/11/shirley-temple-ambassador-us-diplomacy