Setting and Popular Culture References
The Music Man is set in the fictional town of River City, Iowa, in 1912. The town is based in large part on Willson's birthplace, Mason City, Iowa, and many of the musical's characters are based on people that Willson observed in the town.. The "river" in River City is probably the Mississippi River near Davenport, Iowa: the Rock Island conductor's announcing "River City, Iowa! Cigarettes illegal in this state" implies crossing the Mississippi from Rock Island, Illinois into Iowa. The year 1912 was a time of relative innocence, as recalled in 1957 after two world wars, the Great Depression and the arrival of atomic weapons.
The musical includes numerous references to popular culture of the time. For example, in making his pitch, Harold Hill lists popular musicians and composers: "Gilmore, Pat Conway, Giuseppe Creatore, W.C. Handy and John Philip Sousa". Some of the cultural references are anachronistic: "Trouble" contains references to both Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, a monthly humor magazine that didn't begin publication until October 1919, and the nonalcoholic "near-beer" Bevo, which was first brewed in 1916. In addition, Rafael Méndez (referred to by Hill as "O'Mendez," a great "Irish" trumpeter) would have been six years old in 1912.
Read more about this topic: Winthrop Paroo
Famous quotes containing the words setting, popular and/or culture:
“Love is at the root of all healthy discipline. The desire to be loved is a powerful motivation for children to behave in ways that give their parents pleasure rather than displeasure. it may even be our own long-ago fear of losing our parents’ love that now sometimes makes us uneasy about setting and maintaining limits. We’re afraid we’ll lose the love of our children when we don’t let them have their way.”
—Fred Rogers (20th century)
“There is a continual exchange of ideas between all minds of a generation. Journalists, popular novelists, illustrators, and cartoonists adapt the truths discovered by the powerful intellects for the multitude. It is like a spiritual flood, like a gush that pours into multiple cascades until it forms the great moving sheet of water that stands for the mentality of a period.”
—Auguste Rodin (1849–1917)
“No culture on earth outside of mid-century suburban America has ever deployed one woman per child without simultaneously assigning her such major productive activities as weaving, farming, gathering, temple maintenance, and tent-building. The reason is that full-time, one-on-one child-raising is not good for women or children.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)