Vaudeville and the Semiotics of Patriotism

During a brief stay in Newport last week our lodging happened to be across the street from this historical museum operated by the Artillery Company of Newport. On our visit, I recognized right away that the image over the door (above), and much that was inside, were very much in the aesthetic spirit that enthralled me when I launched my American Vaudeville Theatre back in the ’90s.

I had always been entranced by the Smithsonian’s long-time exhibition of materials from the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, which was on display in the Arts and Industries Building on the Mall in Washington DC from 1976 to 1996. I had visited it as a kid during the Reagan administration and was subsequently married to a Washingtonian, so I had several opportunities to take it in. In retrospect, I am realizing that my last time there must have been around the time that it closed, because that’s just around the time I began emulating its influence.

The emulation took the form of the generous, liberal, even profligate use of American flags in the decor and promotion for my shows. Now as I pen these words our nation is troubled, but it was also troubled in the years when I was visiting that exhibit. Yet I always found myself inspired by the late 19th century’s optimism and confident clarity and sense of mission. It was a time of invention, growth, and expansion. The Grand Army of the Republic had won the Civil War, Reconstruction was still under way, the country was booming, and it was about to open its doors to huge numbers of immigrants. And so throughout the late 19th century, one gets the sense of widespread, general celebration. The popular culture I write about and which inspires me was being created at the same time. The movers and shakers in America’s nascent show business harnessed the power of patriotism. You see it in images of P.T. Barnum’s American Museum, and Tony Pastor’s Opera House, and all of those tented American circuses since the time of Dan Rice. In places like the Bowery and San Francisco’s Barbary Coast, Civil War Veterans formed drill teams that performed their choreographed exercises on the the variety stages of saloons and theatres like Harrigan and Hart’s. My beloved Grand Army Plaza in my long time home of Brooklyn is a monument to that energy and the achievements of that war. Then George M. Cohan tapped into it for his songs and shows, such as “Yankee Doodle Dandy” from Little Johnny Jones, and “You’re a Grand Old Flag” from George Washington, Jr. and later “Over There”, which was introduced in vaudeville during World War One. And so on, for decades. The U.S.O. for example. Patriotic Musicals. And Coney Island’s 4th of July Hot Dog Eating Contest.

And so when I began producing my own vaudeville shows, that was something I wanted to evoke. My hope was for a sort of timeless association, something that would take the audience on a little trip. And it made decor for my shows easy — no matter where I was I could hang a flag or bunting or banners of red, white, and blue, and stand in front of it in a swallowtail coat and top hat, and we’d be in vaudeville.

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It’s not like I was unaware of negative associations (war, jingoism, colonialism) but in my hubris I was of the feeling that we could redefine it, to emphasize the aspects it stood for of which we approved, the promises of freedom and equality and inclusiveness (it’s right there on the Statue of Liberty) and the good parts of populism. This, and naturally, there can also be an aspect of irony, satire, camp read it into it as well, which ought to be indicated by my professional name. It had been employed this way by everybody from Abbie Hoffman and Paul Krassner to Mark Russell. And this allowed it to weather anything that was going on in the news, whether I approved or not. For example, I cooked up a whole faux-jingoist production number that mocked the national mood of the Bush II era which we performed in my shows for many years. And, at bottom, at the simplest possible level, a third dimension to the thing, and one that speaks to its graphic power. On an aesthetic level, I simply like it. You know how in You Can’t Take It With You, Essie’s Ed accidentally prints all those Communist slogans not because he embraces the sentiments themselves but because he likes the sound of them, and the look of them in typeface? There’s a layer of that, of nothing more than sensuality, in all art.

But that of course also explains the whole power of propaganda.

Through some cruel cosmic joke, today also happens to be the date of birth of the monster who was arraigned in Federal court yesterday. Like Reagan and Bush before him, Trumpmakes embracing the flag even more problematic (especially since he himself has been known to embrace a flag or two, and by all appearances, all but hump them on occasion. I’d share a photo but why sicken you during breakfast?) In an era when thugs intimidate people into demonstrations of patriotism, such displays run the risk of seeming empty and abhorrent.

That risk has always been there though. Yet can’t symbols, like words to Humpty Dumpty in Alice in Wonderland mean “what we choose them to mean”? Just as I won’t allow millions of most un-Christian Christians co-opt my religion, I won’t let Fascists define what my flag means. MINE means a celebration of the first country in the world that allows you to burn its own flag. You know what was hanging on a pole next to the judge in the courtroom that charged the ex-President with 37 felony counts yesterday? An American flag. He doesn’t own in or define it. Most of his behavior is in direct opposition to the interests of all of the people — ALL of them — whom the flag is supposed to represent. YOU own the flag. If you so decide, it can mean peace instead of war; inclusion rather than privilege; liberation as opposed to the blind worship of authority. Thus ran my thinking for a long period of time. But I fear that its far too late for us to take that tack any more.

We’re approaching the 150th anniversary of that Philadelphia exposition, and also the 250th birthday of the United States. These benchmarks will take place in 2026, firmly on the other side of a crucial election that will decide just what kind of nation it is we’re supposed to be celebrating. Who would have thought when we celebrated the bicentennial in 1976 that we’d be even more divided as a nation fifty years down the line than we were then? And that symbol, which has always contained a collection of disparate ideas, some of them contradictory, now carries so much baggage. Those stars and stripes stand for states, after all. Who’s a fan of states and states rights any more? They’ve all gone rogue, they’re all cooking up local laws to thwart and subvert the Federal guarantees of freedom to be found in the Bill of Rights. That’s where we’re at now. Come to that, can we take some of the stripes OFF the flag? Can I take my hat off to, like, TWELVE of the stripes?

Wait! I just thought of a flag where I can sign off on all of the stripes! One that expresses a vision for the future and not a selective memory of a mythic past! One that has been flown fiercely no doubt on occasion, but never in a spirit of aggression. One perhaps better suited to the vaudeville idea, which is about the inclusion of people of every color, religion, nationality, gender, sexual preference, political creed, age, body type, and category of talent. Patriotism, after all is merely about love of country, which is to say, as Dr. Johnson told us, the last refuge of scoundrels. But there are bigger and worthier ideas than nationhood, even when considering countries theoretically founded on ideals. Come to that, you can bypass nations completely, and go straight to the ideals themselves. As it happens Flag Day also falls during Pride Month. And therefore may I suggest a temporary substitution, which I present not in a spirit of disloyalty, but in a deeper devotion to what I once chose to see in its predecessor.