28 Mar
2018
28 Mar
'18
12:51 a.m.
An important thing to remember is that sometimes *you just can't
please everyone* no matter what you do. That applies not only
to issues that some would characterize as being about "political
correctness" (singing call lyrics; the "g-word"; gendered vs.
gender-free names for dance roles), but to many, many other
decisions about dance calling, dance organization, and life in
general.
Some of our recent discussion have made me recall an old fable of
which I offer here one version (from the March 29, 1753, number
of the British weekly, _The World_, as quoted at
https://books.google.com/books?id=L3YPAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA78
):
An old man and a little boy were driving an ass to the next
market to sell. What a fool is this fellow (says a man upon
the road) to be trudging it on foot with his son, that his
ass may go light! The old man, hearing this, sat his boy
upon the ass, and went whistling by the side of him. Why,
sirrah! (cries a second man to the boy) is it fit for you to
be riding, while your poor old father is walking on foot?
The father, upon this rebuke, took down his boy from the ass,
and mounted himself. Do you see (says a third) how the lazy
old knave rides along, upon his beast, while his poor little
boy is almost crippled with walking? The old man no sooner
heard this, than he took up his son behind him. Pray, honest
friend (says a fourth) is that ass your own? Yes, says the
old man. One would not have thought so, replied the other,
by your loading him so unmercifully. You and your son are
better able to carry the poor beast than he you. Any thing
to please, says the owner; and alighting with his son, they
tied the legs of the ass together, and by the help of a pole
endeavoured to carry him upon their shoulders over the bridge
that led to the town. This was so entertaining a sight that
the people ran in crowds to laugh at it; till the ass,
conceiving a dislike to the over-complaisance of his master,
burst asunder the cords that tied him, slipt from the pole,
and tumbled into the river. The poor old man made the best
of his way home, ashamed and vexed that, by endeavouring to
please everybody, he had pleased nobody, and lost his ass
into the bargain.
Regarding Rich's question about "Billy Boy", Frannie wrote:
I learned it as a child as "She's a young
girl." That would at least get rid of the people are things issue.
I might go further and change tag line to something like
She is young and she cannot leave her mother
lest someone object to the word "girl." Drawing an analogy to
the fable above, I think this sort of change is in the realm
of deciding who should walk and who, if anyone, should ride.
Your own modern sensibilities may suggest a departure from past
practice. Or if you think there's more than one reasonable
course of action (though perhaps no perfect one), then you might
feel little inconvenience in acceding to the most common (or the
most loudly asserted) preference of others, even it's not your
own first choice.
But now what if somebody objects to the word "young" because
it implies the protagonist in the song is courting an underage
child? Or what if someone knows the ending of the original
song (where the woman sung of turns out to be far from young)
and complains that it is ageist? Or what if someone finds the
gendered pronouns "she" and "her" to be unacceptable in any
context? There comes a point--and obviously not everyone will
agree where that point is--when either you can go looking for
a length of cord and a pole or you can decide that it's time
to say No.
--Jim