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
Nellie Graves Nellie Graves Nellie Graves was a female soldier who served, in secret, in the Union Army during the American Civil War alongside her close friend Fanny Wilson. Both saw action at the Battle of Fredericksburg and then the Battle of Chancellorsville. Their genders were shortly discovered while they were being treated for an illness. Both were discharged and went their separate ways for the rest of the war. Wilson chose to reenlist in disguise again. There is some speculation as to whether Graves did the same, but if she had reenlisted, she was not discovered for a second time. Nellie