I didn’t see anything overtly political about the film The Pajama Game. Any labor politics (or management politics for that matter) seemed predominantly peripheral elements of the happy-go-lucky, boy-meets-girl, “Gee Babe, you’re swell!”, 50s film narrative. But there is an implicit political critique running throughout the film in its use of parody. The film parodies labor sabotage (in the over-exaggerated movements of the workers during the “slow-down”), consumerist culture (listing the various things in song that 7 ½ more cents can by), and pulp (I’m thinking about the seedy bar the characters go to that they need a match to see in). There are also other objects of parody throughout the film that I can’t remember or just missed. Is there any scholarship on the film as a parody? And if not, what are some ways we can read the film’s politics into its use of parody?
Also, do musicals in general offer a certain amount of parody in their form, especially since nobody—at least nobody considered legally sane or normal—breaks out in song and dance in everyday life? (I could see the film parodying a sit-in strike by having a dance-in strike.) But besides being a form of parody, maybe breaking out in song and dance is a form of political resistance. I’m thinking in particular of those IWW members who when arrested, especially if a lot of them were arrested together, would spend their time in the cell singing and making noise to drive the guards and perhaps the town nuts
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