1961 Babes In Toyland: What the actual F…

I know it was the 60’s, but c’mon

It was recommended in Holiday movies, so we figured, why not? At the beginning of December, the t.v. is all things Christmas and winter. It feels a little differently this year because we are in Hawaii and the majority of our decorations are at our house in Florida. However, we did buy a Palm Christmas Tree.

I know that I saw the 1986 remake of this movie, but mostly blocked it out because I remember it just being weird. The two must be similar. As I watched the ’61 version the feeling of memory kept arising and I know it wasn’t from watching it. Anyway…

It is a musical, so I felt certain my husband was going to change his mind and select a new movie. He let it play. Then our daughter commented that she loves how silly these old musicals are. This made me happy, having grown up on musicals…she was in for a treat! haha

Then a song came on that raised a big question mark for me. Mary starts singing about how she is too dumb to do math. “I can’t do the sum.” “Why am I dumb?” Several minutes of this air-brain girl singing about how hard and confusing math is. The result? She has to marry that old creepy guy who is 40 years her senior.

I was willing to let this slide as I made a big joking deal about how my daughter needed to study math or else. We all laughed. Maybe it was meant to be a lesson on doing your homework… I can hope. Although, I am not sure I was paying enough attention to the plot as a whole. The bad guy wanted to marry her for her money…but she needed to marry him because she was broke? I think I missed something.

So. The movie presses on and things happen. Jeeze, don’t want to spoil it for ya. lol

They are at the toymaker’s place when Tom, Mary’s love interest, starts singing a romantic song to her….about how she is just a toy and how, I guess, a man dreams of getting a pretty little wife to take care of and go to bed with and play with, like his own personal real-life doll. “You’re just a toy.” How…sweet?

Why has nobody mentioned this to me before? It is like years ago when I kept saying that one Christmas song, “baby it’s cold outside” sounded a bit rapey..then everyone started saying it a few years later…then everyone defended it as just the way they flirted back then. I get it. I understand things change. But nobody has ever been like, “Ah, Babes In Toyland, fun movie but what’s with girls being too dumb for math and really just play things for men?” Seems important to mention.

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