Yesterday I made a post share on Facebook about a meme that I thought was very funny. I was responding to a “suggested” post about a meme of Anne Coulter, the ultra-right-wing Fox contributor.
Wicked Which of the West
When I saw the meme, I immediately laughed because I dislike Ms. Coulter’s vitriol on Fox News (which I usually prefer to write as “Faux” News). I did not get any “likes” on my share but I did get one comment from a friend who said “Even though it’s Ann Coulter and it pains me to point it out, this is sexist. :-(”.
Of course she was correct; it was sexist.
So I began to ponder my initial reaction to the meme. Why was my immediate reaction “this is too funny?”
I first saw the Wizard of Oz about 1948/9 a year or so before I started grammar school. My older brother Dean and I rode the streetcar from our West End home uptown and waited on the Loveman’s mezzanine until my father got off work. The three of us (Don’t know why Mom was not with us. Interesting that back then allowing two very young boys, ages 7 and 4, to take the streetcar alone was not a criminal offense.) walked the few blocks from Loveman’s up to the “new” Melba Theater (it opened in 1946). I had no real idea of what the movie was about as this was long before trailers on TV.
Dad bought me a small bag of M & M’s and Dean a Snicker’s bar, both real treats for our lower middle-income family, and we took our seats in mid-theater. I can’t remember what the cartoon was nor what was shown on the news clip that preceded the main feature but I do remember that we were serenaded by the huge pipe organ before the curtain was raised and the films began.
It did not take me long to get scared. The tornado scenes really frightened me but what ended our day at the theater was this scene when the Wicked Witch of the West made her grand entrance:
I remember being so scared that just closing my eyes was not good enough. I dropped down on the floor in front of my “rocker” seat and began a loud howl that my dad was unable to squelch. When the shushes from the folks seated near us became too embarrassing, my dad grabbed me up and took Dean and me out of the theater, never to return that day. Dad was very angry as he really was a movie fanatic and the cost of the tickets was a lot of money lost for us.
I continued to cry until we reached the Krystal restaurant on 2nd avenue by the streetcar stop. One nickel hamburger shut me up. I think I finally saw the movie through about 1960 on TV, though I still did not like the WWotW. If that makes me sexist, so be it.