South Pacific (musical) cracker stereotype – she's lovable ... But how can we love a racist?" Most argues that even Emile is tainted by racism, as his lifestyle is dependent on the maintenance of a system whereby he benefits from underpaid native labor – Bloody Mary is able to attract workers to make grass skirts for sale to GIs because, as she puts it, "French planters stingy bastards!" Nellie Forbush, in her journey from Little Rock, Arkansas, to serving as a Navy nurse and on to the domesticity of the final scene of "South Pacific", parallels the experience of many American women of
South Pacific (musical) allowed him to quit his job as an editor at Macmillan and to become a full-time writer. Over the next five decades, his lengthy, detailed novels centering on different places would dominate the bestseller lists. The role of Nellie Forbush was the first time with Hammerstein that Rodgers made the leading female role a belter, rather than a lyric soprano like Laurey in "Oklahoma!" and Julie in "Carousel". According to Mordden, "Nellie was something new in R&H, carrying a goodly share of the score on a 'Broadway' voice". Nellie does not sing together with Emile, because Rodgers promised Martin that