Movie Review: 1952 – Singing in the Rain

I am hardly the feminist by modern standards – my daughter and I startede watching old movies through the decades. We went with Singing in the Rain because it’s the best rated musical movie of all time – 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, 8.3/10 on IMDB – wow.

What was wrong with you 1952? The movie has even less of a plot than the Greatest Showman – it’s all about watching Gene Kelly dance. Admittedly, he’s extremely talented at that. The songs, however, have little to do with the plot and are just sort of … there. Tap dancing while being condescending and physically abusing your teacher because work is too hard? Sure. I guess that’s funny or something.

Now, if you ever wanted to know the reason for the feminist movement – watch this movie. There are a ton of scenes where there’s one guy surrounded by rows of eye candy women who do not much else but dance around the man in skimpy outfits. The lead female characters have no say in anything – Gene Kelly grabs them by the arm, waves his finger at them, physically shakes them, gets in their face … the one who falls in love with him does so after Gene Kelly says he’s angry at her and then basically forces her to dance. The whole movie is filled with forcing her to sing without credit while she even runs away when she’s finally given some. There’s a lot of women crying too.

The only woman who has any choice or say in what she does is a conniving villain who extorts other people and can’t get anywhere without cheating and has no real ability. Her terrible voice is actually an overly Brooklyn accent … okay, that’s fair.

Dang man. By 1952 standards I’m the biggest feminist. The movie was watchable and entertaining … I’ll give it that much … also kind of horrifying. This is who people idolized 68 years ago?