NP: Shirley Temple

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Had insomnia last night and ended up watching Bright Eyes on the tube.  This is the movie where Shirley Temple performs her famous number, On the Good Ship Lollipop.  The whole movie is a pedophile's delight, from the opening scene where little Shirley is hitching rides from strange men, to the ending, where two men, neither a relative, are engaged in a custody battle for Shirley.  In between, no male lap is left unsat on, various men kiss Shirley and she kisses various men under the mistletoe, and in the Good Ship sequence, she's in an airplane filled with young men who wrap their arms around her bare chubby thighs, pass her around, snuggle with her, rub cake and chocolate on her face and hand her various phallic-looking objects.

This was made at the height of the Hays Code, which forbade showing evils such as homosexuality and inter-racial relationships.  It's not as if they didn't know exactly what they were portraying.  Apparently, it was a lesser evil.  It's easy to see why Pynchon had Bianca re-enacting this scene.  It's like the gold standard for covert kiddie porn.

Laura