Family Ties as Political Obligation- Assenting

I found this argument quite persuasive because, to be honest, I had never really considered it before. Klein presents us with the overwhelming subtext behind the movie South Pacific. Although, after our brief viewing I was aware that there was a great deal of racial commentary happening within the film, I was not prepared for the amount of depth and information that Klein uses to back the images and plot.
Klein presents the reader with the notion that the relationship among the newly created family at the end of the film is quite symbolic. She writes, “South Pacific anticipates the postwar alliance of Americans and French designed to manage, as it were, Indochina’s transition from colonial status to independence. It visualize and narrativizes America’s emerging role in Southeast Asia,” (Klein 168). It is surprising that such a film could be so politicized. With the awkward color changes in the midst of scenes and sometimes-comical singing, it is interesting to consider Klein’s true message of the film.
This relates directly to the adoption issue that Klein discusses throughout the chapter. As Klein points out, Nellie must overcome her racism in order to create a family with the man she loves. This issue did not come up in the part of the movie we watched, but I feel that Klein clearly makes a case for why this was such a big issue at the time. Klein argues that this issue is problematic in America at the time, which is once again, a new issue for me. I never considered where or why the “adopt a child” commercials that come on television so frequently originated. Most people sit there, feeling guilty while comfortably sitting in front of their televisions while images of hungry and impoverished children flash across the screen. The narrator assures the viewer that “just a few cents a day” would be greatly helpful. I am no exception. These commercials make me feel quite guilty. At one point in high school my community service organization adopted a Chinese girl in this way. One day we were devastated to receive a letter saying that she had “suddenly moved” and we were assigned to another child. Klein points out the fact that people were paying money to relieve their guilt about the atomic bomb. This guilt, although not the optimal reason for donating, seemed to need to happen in order to get the American people to wake up to what they had done. It is important to recall that this money, however it was earned, was doing good for people that had been so horribly hurt by going to war with America. These children needed help, and no matter how they got it, it was going to help them.
Klein shows that by attempting to educate the American public about different cultures and trying to reduce racism the film and political movements forced Americans to look at the world around them. She makes it clear that people at the time began to understand that if they expanded their world and accepted others, their lives would indeed be better. This was especially important at a time when there was so much tension surrounding the Cold War.