I am generally a fan of Frank Rich, despite his occasional (okay, frequent) pretensions. However, his article today, entitled “Memorial Day at ‘South Pacific’” may be his worst work ever. He makes the argument that South Pacific is so tearjerkingly awesome because it makes the viewer think about the costs of war, which we are rarely reminded of by the bumbling buffooneries of our current president:

Watching “South Pacific” now, we’re forced to contemplate Iraq, which we’re otherwise pretty skilled at avoiding. Most of us don’t have family over there. Most of us long ago decided the war was a mistake and tuned out. Most of us have stopped listening to the president who ginned it up. This month, in case you missed it, he told an interviewer that he had made the ultimate sacrifice of giving up golf for the war’s duration because ‘I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf.’

‘South Pacific’ reminds us that those whose memory we honor tomorrow — including those who served in Vietnam — are always at the mercy of the leaders who send them into battle. It increases our admiration for the selflessness of Americans fighting in Iraq. They, unlike their counterparts in World War II, do their duty despite answering to a commander in chief who has been both reckless and narcissistic. You can’t watch ‘South Pacific’ without meditating on their sacrifices for this blunderer, whose wife last year claimed that ‘no one suffers more’ over Iraq than she and her husband do.

South Pacific also has minorities in it. According to Rich, this resonates because we still have black people in America and some of them want to be president or some shit.

Anyway, I don’t buy it. Yes, musicals do bring on the emotions, but I doubt to that they represent some sort of zeitgeist, or that their popularity represents watershed awakenings in the public. If this were the case, wouldn’t Rich have to write corresponding pieces where he attributes the popularity of the Grinch to the hatred of capitalism among our countries children, and the popularity of Rent to everyone’s newfound love of drag queens with AIDS? I think that instead of having a real point, Frank is just as bored of this election a since itse, and is reliving his glorious glorious past as a theater critic, and since it’s Memorial Day weekend he knows no one’s going to read his bullshit anyway.

Memorial Day at ‘South Pacific’ [the New York Times]