Here is an interesting article I found. There will be more in the future.

This is an article posted to King and I message board on November 21, 1998 at 10:51:04 by:

Chalermsri Chantasingh
American Studies
Ph. D. candidate
University of Kansas
Lawrence, KS 66045

832 Sunset Drive
Lawrence, KS 66044
Tel. 785 842 2672

THE KING AND I: An American Frontier in Disguise.

The well-known and much acclaimed musical THE KING AND I by Rodgers and Hammersteins has been brought back into the limelight recently. According to The Topeka Capital Journal (November, 10, 1998, p.7-A), Twentieth Century Fox is planning a re-make of the 1946 movie version of Anna and the King of Siam (starring Rex Harrison and Irene Dunne). Apparently the company would like to film this movie in Thailand. The National Film Board of Thailand, however, refused to let 20th Century Fox film this movie on location. The board did not agree with Fox's revised script of the movie on the ground that "it insults their revered King Mongkut" (Rama IV, 1851-1868), and "it still has the potential to insult the monarchy." For most Americans whose idea of monarchy is restricted to the sensational news that involves the British Royal Family, the sentiments of Thailand's National Film Board must have sounded ridiculous to their ears.

20th Century Fox had great success with the 1946 movie, Anna and the King of Siam, which was based on Margaret Landon's novel of the same title. Its 1956 musical film, THE KING AND I (an adaptation of the 1951 stage performance), has immortalized Yul Brynner and re-created a whole new image for Brynner. The musical itself has been accepted as the best of R & H's musicals. It has been revived time and again on Broadway, and, unlike several other first-production hits which could never draw big audiences for their later revivals, has met with great success for every revival. Most American theater critics see this musical as an entertaining, beautiful stage performance with a spectacular ballet scene, glamorous setting and costume, and wonderful music. Both the 1946 Anna and the King of Siam, and the 1956 musical version of THE KING AND I, have been shown repeatedly on television. What is more important to people living in this area is THE KING AND I is coming to the Lied Center in Lawrence, as part of the R & H celebration at KU. The Lawrence Journal World printed an article advertising the show, stating that "East Meets West in classic 'King and I'" (November 15, 1998, p. 4D). The article also lists the numerous awards this musical has received over the years.

But why? Why did Thailand's National Film Board reject it? Is there anything wrong with this musical, really? If so, why has it remained so popular among Broadway audiences for the past fifty years?

The Genesis of the 1951 musical THE KING AND I is Anna Leonowens's four articles, "The English Governess at the Siamese Court: Being Recollection of Six Years in the Royal Palace at Bangkok" published in the spring and summer 1870 editions of the Atlantic Monthly. Mrs. Anna Harriet Owens, known as Anna Leonowens, came to teach English at the court in 1862. She left Siam in 1867, presumably on a six-month vacation. When the king passed away in October 1868, Leonowens was in New York. One of her students, Prince Chulalongkorn, was selected and enthroned as the new king. She wrote him a condolence letter. He graciously replied with a thank-you letter, but he did not invite her to resume her teaching position at the court. Therefore, to earn her living, Leonowens started her writing career in New York, before moving with her daughter's family to Canada where she lived until her death in 1915.

Leonowens' articles were very popular among Victorian Americans in New York. They were expanded into a book and was published in the same year with the same title. Not long after the publication of the book, Leonowens became a literary celebrity of New York City. In 1872, she came out with two more articles for the Atlantic Monthly, "The Favourite of the
Harem," and "L'Ore, a Slave of a Siamese Queen" (September and October 1872 editions). Like the first four articles, they were well-received by the reading public who believed in the author's claim to complete veracity. The articles were again expanded into a book and published later in the same year with the title, Siamese Harem Life. Does the East really meet the West in Leonowens' story of Anna and the King of Siam?

Well, more or less. Leonowens' book is not a well-knitted, or well-organized unified story with chronological development. It is rather an unrelated, episodic, and repetitive compilation of incidents and stories that she claimed to have experienced personally. The book was written with Victorian Americans as its target readers. Her financial needs and eagerness to please her publisher may have been an inspiration for the self-contradictory details and deviation from historical facts. To the American reading public, the book was a sensationally exciting piece of literature.

They accepted the story as it was told, and the author as she had presented herself. Her story had left a deep imprint in the mind of her American audiences over time. Recently, researchers and historians begin repudiating her story and challenging her claim of historical veracity. Several of them, both Thai and Westerners, published books and articles disputing and discarding Leonowens' alleged "historical facts" about the Siamese court and the king.

But the 1870 book and the 1951 musical are two different stories, in details of plot and characterization. The themes of the 1951 musical are also modified from those of the original version. In the later version, the Americanization of this narrative is more evident. Actually the Americanization process started vigorously with Margaret Landon's re-creation, Anna and the King of Siam (1944). Landon added into the original story some episodes from Leonowens's second book with the Siamese locale, Siamese Harem Life (1872). The haughty, humorless British governess with a high-handed attitude was changed to a more feminine, pious, and liberated republican, who admired American democratic ideal more than British political system. In the 1946 film version, the British governess is glorified even more with the great achievements and numerous contributions she has allegedly made for the Siamese heathens. By the time Anna appeared on Broadway in 1951, she was completely transformed, both in personality and ideology. The love story of Tuptim and Lun Tha was added, along with the ballet scene which was claimed to be "a Siamese adaptation of 'Little House of Uncle Thomas.'" More importantly, the romantic innuendos between the king and Anna were subtly suggested in the scene "Shall We Dance." All of these episodes were purely R & H additions and adaptation. The character of the king, at any rate, has not gone through many changes. Despite its claim to complete veracity, the story does not really depict the "real" King Mongkut of Siam.

Mongkut was revered in Siam because he was an enlightened and a comparatively liberal monarch, which was in contradiction to his conservative nature. He was interested in Western knowledge and cultures. Before his accession to the throne, he spent almost 27 years in monkhood, during which time he travelled the country, excelled himself in Buddhist doctrines, and
learned a few foreign languages, namely Sansakrit, Pali, Latin, French and English. He also studied the Bible and other Western subjects, such as modern administration, astronomy, and ship-building. He considered them instrumental to the development of the country.

Evidently the versatility of the king's character as a scholar, and a competent statesman in his own right is not adequately represented in the play. It also fails to mention an important fact that Siam, under Mongkut's initiatives, remained the only country in the region that had never been colonized by any Western powers, when other countries around her had fallen to the
British, the French, the Dutch and the Americans. Instead, the musical depicts him as a savage, whose promise of enlightened character and nobility is manifested only when he agrees to embrace Western cultures, ethics, manners, and language.

But veracity and authenticity was not what R & H wanted to concern themselves. In his memoir. Musical Stages (1975), Richard Rodgers reveals a few simple facts about this musical and its creation. It was produced as a vehicle for Lawrence Gertrude, who bought the rights to stage production and sent her lawyer to commission R & H to produce a musical for her
from this story. Yul Brynner came to their audition for the king's part. Both R & H instantly fell for him. He fit the producers' image of a "noble savage," which they had perceived to be the character of the king. Both agreed that Brynner would make a terrific king for the role in this musical. They were right. And the rest is history.

The Americanization of this musical is also plainly evident in the production plans. Rodgers disclosed that it was never his intention to adhere to authenticity, that he wanted to produce a musical about the Siamese court in the similar manner that an American artist would paint a Siamese scene--through the eye and the interpretation of an American artist. He never
intended to use Siamese music either. Rodgers believed that the "strange high-pitched" notation of Siamese music would not have been agreeable with his American audiences. Thematically speaking, the narrative has several interesting underlying motifs. The themes of West VS. East, and the West as superior culture, extending its arm to "educate and civilize" the East is overwhelmingly predominant. This is a common formula used in several American films and novels.

Embedded in this theme is a rather more interesting motif of the American frontier and the winning of the uncivilized land. The story of Anna at the Siamese court fits the formula of a Western novel. The formulaic Western narrative has simply been given a new locale and dramatis personae. Anna represents the power of righteousness while the king represents the force of evil. Instead of a six-gun, she is armed with Western knowledge, American ideals of the Four Freedoms, and Christian beliefs. The landscape, the dark "frontier" she has to tame, is an unknown land, allegedly untouched by civilization. According to her story, Anna is the first person to bring the light of ethics and virtues into this uncivilized landscape. Prior to her arrival, the monarch of the land does not have any knowledge of Western etiquettes or does not possess any ethical values. As a matter of fact, Anna spends more time teaching the king than she does his children! For example, Anna has to coach him on how to rule with justice, how to make a political move, and even on something as simple as how to use silverware at a dinner table. The author, however, failed to tell her readers how she herself had acquired all those skills. Neither did she reveal how the king could not have learned all this from other people in his life including numerous Westerners who had been residing there long before her arrival in the country.

However, amidst this vice-ridden Siamese frontier, with its despotic, polygamist, slave-driving autocrat (who is also a heathen!!), Anna manages to win every battle between them with the help of her "weapons." The end of the story is very significant. The king dies while Anna decides to stay on to help "enlighten" his people. The usual moral is obvious: the force of evil is defeated while righteousness prevails. A promise of civilization is evident in the new ruler of the land who is supposedly a disciple of Anna.

The underlying motif in American popular myths confirms the argument that the American frontier has not disappeared or ended, as Frederick Turner stated in his famous 1893 Turnerian frontier thesis. Only certain details and strategies of its expansion have been changed. Metaphorically speaking, it has only been transformed into other "imaginary Wests" already existing in American society in novels, TV series and movies. From The Great Train Robbery (1903), to Stagecoach (1939), to Shane (1949), and to Gunsmoke in the 1950s and 1960s, the familiar and popular narrative line remains unchanged: the hero from the civilized world coming into a vice-ridden untamed land, living among the barbarous or uncivilized people, with a
determination to restore civilization for mankind. And THE KING AND I is obviously one of them. The only different is: in this musical the hero is a female crusader.

THE KING AND I is a piece of literature that was created for an American audience. The authors' awareness of their audience confirms the argument that the story projects more characteristics of American society and its ideals than those of the Siamese people and culture, of which there is no resemblance in this musical. Like many legendary American heroes
created by the machinery of popular entertainment and media, from Christopher Columbus, to Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Colonel Custer, or even Lawrence of Arabia and Pocahontas, the character of Anna is memorable. And as usual, people simply enjoy the re-created and publicized images of these characters. Not many people care to seek for historical
facts behind the legends. They love to hear about these figures because their stories confirm what they want to believe about America and its history. They are not sensitive to, or even aware of, the damage these re-creations have cost other people who may have been victimized in the propagation process. In the case of the musical THE KING AND I, the legendary Anna has enjoyed half a century of acclaim and success at the expense of a respectable monarch, his people, and his culture.

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