We are two part-time academics. Ellen teaches in the English department and Jim in the IT program at George Mason University.

all the shirley temples · 9 November 05

Dear Miss Vane,

For poetry day on WWTTA (Tuesdays), I put another poem from the volume A Wider Giving: Women Writing after a Long Silence, and asked what was meant by the title and refrain: "all the shirley temples." Fran W., a list member (whom I’ve quoted here before), reported that

The Shirley Temple the man refers to earlier in the poem is an alcohol-free cocktail, apparently first made for the child star by the bartender at Chasen’s restaurant in Hollywood. It basically sounds very sweet and nasty: grenadine syrup and some kind of pop soda with a bit of cherry and fruit decoration. It pops up a lot in period films and books.

She thought in the last line, the woman’s use of it seems far more ambiguous [than the man’s]. I agree. What do you think, Harriet?

Here is the poem:

all the shirley temples

by Sadie Wernick Hurwitz

It was time, time enough to have long forgiven,
but the poem, unforgiving, bitter as the stubborn

memory, cold as a decade of suppers waiting, had
won for me Recognition, a prize in fact and I

was ego bound to read it all aloud to him
And he asked the white plastic bag inside the

basket by his chair, ‘Why do you write only
about the bad things.’ And he reminded the

morning paper ‘How about all the Saturday night
reservations at René et Jean’s when we dressed

the kids and ourselve up to the teeth and we’d
let them walk in ahead of us watching people

smile at them and then at us and the
Maitre d’ woud bow us to the table and the

head waiter was already chilling the sauterne in
the ice bucket and even before we ordered they

served up shirley temples for the kids

Once a thousand years ago, with the shining
evidence of what was still beween us tender

touching, before he brought a vandal to my door
before I saw me old in a shattered mirror on

wall that almost fell apart, I unlaced to him
forever my self in welcome wide, as even now

beside the split bag I bent gentle to the
hawking old man with the new leg prothesis.

Slightly, ever so slightly, I felt the grey
stubble scratch my mouth and smother my apology

‘I had forgotten all the shirley temples’ I said

*********

When I remember Shirley Temple nowadays I think of the Little Miss America pageant, and a review Graham Greene wrote where he exposed the not-so-hidden libidinal teasing of adult men by those who exploited the young child’s strong exhibitionist tendencies.

Miss Sylvia Drake

--
Posted by: Ellen

* * *

Comment

  1. I agree with Miss Sylvia Drake. This poem reminded me of child beauty pagents and the eroticization of little girls. Shirley Temple was an erotic toy in her very early films. The films she made before she worked with major studios were part of a series of shorts, the kind of films that were played before the main feature. In this series small children reenacted adult dramas including kissing. I saw an exerpt of some of these films and it was revolting. Later Shirley Temple started making bigger studio films and became a star. At this time the out right erotic stuff was played down, but it is still there. As for the drink shirley temple, this is a drink that is served in drinks glass in restaurants. Because it is non-alcoholic and sweet, it is served primarily to little girls. It’s another erototization of little girls to see them sipping the adult-looking drink through the small cocktail straw. A drink that contains a cherry, which brings to mind a vernacular phrase "breaking (her) cherry" to refer to a man breaking a hymen. In a sports bar, where one can see macho behavior at its most obvious, sending a rival group of fans a round of shirley temples is an extreme insult. It is an affront to a male’s sexuality. They become "little girls."

    I am still thinking about this poem. It cuts to the heart. It has moved me the way I am seldom moved by poetry.

    Catherine Crean
    — Catherine Crean    Nov 10, 5:52am    #
  2. It is NOT an eroticization of little girls to serve them shirley temples. It’s a friendly way of including them in the drinking. Any parent of a young girl would understand this, that the alternative is to have her feel bad about being left out. On the other hand, who can say what fantasy goes on in the minds of non-parents who witness this scene?
    — bob    Nov 10, 10:30am    #
  3. Catherine, it would also be a serious insult to a group of women to send them a round of shirley temples.
    — bob    Nov 10, 11:10am    #
  4. Dear Bob and Catherine,

    My "better half" (aka Jim—or Edward/Mr Drake as I like to call him on the blog sometimes) agrees with Catherine. He says taking such figures and encouraging children to imitate them is erotizing them. I quote: "If you want to give children a drink they enjoy, give them a coke."

    For myself I hadn’t thought the drink itself through. I merely saw it as sickeningly sweet from Fran’s description. Coy, cloying, yuk. But the kewpie doll is itself just what is probably meant. (I was bought one at a circus and the memory of it stayed with me. Who knows if it didn’t contribute to my anorexia?) At any rate these connections show once again that those who vote with their pocketbooks for people like Bush and the kinds of movies & TV thrust on us know very well what they are seeing -- and don't in the least mind it.

    I agree with Catherine about the roles Shirley Temple played in the hidden erotic life of the 1930s-40s. Greene’s column is right on and that he incensed people suggests he was on target. What gets me is how Americans at the same time get hysterical about sex between adults and minors: Freud would say this proves the point (though this is perverse reasoning by which one can prove anything).

    Elinor
    — Chava    Nov 10, 6:22pm    #
  5. "a friendly way of including them in the drinking."

    First of all, is a bar a suitable place for a little girl? And for what reason would an adult want to "include a little girl in the drinking?’ When I was a little girl I felt squeamish when I was treated like a little adult. Imagine getting all dressed up and going to a matinee with Daddy and four similarly dolled up sisters. Daddy is quite the show off showing off his quiverful. Lunch at Sardis includes Shirley Temples whether you wanted them or not. In no way did I feel that this was done in a friendly way.

    By the way, in what friendly way do you include boys in on the drinking? What special drink to they get? A freddy bartholomew perhaps.

    To get back to the poem, the father’s nostalgia

    "morning paper ‘How about all the Saturday night
    reservations at René et Jean’s when we dressed

    the kids and ourselve up to the teeth and we’d
    let them walk in ahead of us watching people

    smile at them and then at us and the
    Maitre d’ woud bow us to the table and the

    head waiter was already chilling the sauterne in
    the ice bucket and even before we ordered they

    served up shirley temples for the kids"

    Let’s look at this memory. The family is all dressed up and going to a restaurant. A nice restaurant where there is a maitre d’ who chills wine and bows. Dad is proud of his dressed up offspring. The visit to the restaurant is a treat. Not for the kids, for him. The experience is a ritualized display of his erotic toys. What fun.

    I find the last line ironic. Dad is just so proud of those shirley temples (two meanings.)

    Catherine Crean
    — Catherine Crean    Nov 10, 7:55pm    #
  6. I have no idea what Jim meant by this: "taking such figures and encouraging children to imitate them is erotizing them."
    What figures? What imitation?

    And Catherine, who’s talking about a bar? If I had the money to go to a nice restaurant and my wife and I had cocktails (which we wouldn’t) and the waiter asked if the kids would like shirley temples and my daughter and/or son said yes please, I might say, "why not?"

    If you love your children and treat them with genuine interest and respect, it’s not as easy to eroticize them as non-parents might think. After all, children are real people—not literary tropes or characters in a novel—and if you are responsive to their individual realities, an overly sweet drink like a shirley temple is no worse than a lot of the other candy kids like.
    — Bob    Nov 10, 9:21pm    #
  7. Sorry. He meant buying them these dolls and encouraging them to see in Shirley Temples examples to imitate.

    I’m a parent and think it’s very easy to play teasing and unhealthy games with children and have seen it done many times—all the while the very same parent will profess the highest sounding principles. Then you get language like this is just harmless fun. No it’s not.

    I never bought my children overly sweet drinks at all and kept no candy in the house. Really. I bought no Barbie dolls, no kewpie dolls.

    I think such things matter.

    Elinor
    — Chava    Nov 11, 12:49am    #
  8. Bob,

    It is often uncomfortable for parents to deal with the erotic feelings they may have about their children. It is not uncommon for parents to have such feelings. There are adults who have erotic feelings about children and act on them. A well-adjusted parent would never do so.

    If a child is in a "nice" restaurant and adults want her to "include her in the drinking" giving the child a pseudo-alcoholic drink in a drinks glass with garnishes in it strikes me as bizarre. With teenage alcoholism on the rise, we harm our children by making them think it’s ok for them to drink.

    The Europeans handle this in a sensible way. Children grow up having meals with their families. Wine is part of the meal, not a mysterious treat. The kids learn to drink responsibly. A family meal where people enjoy their food and have conversations with each other is a friendly way to include them in the drinking.

    Catherine Crean
    — Catherine Crean    Nov 11, 7:49am    #
  9. This part of the poem puzzles me:

    "Once a thousand years ago, with the shining
    evidence of what was still beween us tender

    touching, before he brought a vandal to my door
    before I saw me old in a shattered mirror on

    wall that almost fell apart, I unlaced to him
    forever my self in welcome wide, as even now

    beside the split bag I bent gentle to the
    hawking old man with the new leg prothesis.

    Slightly, ever so slightly, I felt the grey
    stubble scratch my mouth and smother my apology

    ‘I had forgotten all the shirley temples’ I said"

    Who is the vandal? Is the vandal an aspect of her husband? The husband/father now has a leg prosthesis. A leg can be regarded a symbol for a penis. Has he been emasculated? I wonder why she mentions stubble.

    Catherine Crean
    — Catherine Crean    Nov 11, 7:52am    #
  10. What I object to are knee-jerk responses to literature and life that are based on one’s own experience. I don’t mean to be an advocate for shirley temples or other kinds of drinking: I rarely have an alcoholic drink and I don’t like my kids to drink even Coke. But I don’t think sexism and/or the eroticization of children should be automatically attributed to situations that have so many possible explanations. And I recoil from easy reductionism in a sophisticated place like this.

    I’ve had plenty of erotic feelings toward both my children. How could I not, given that I love them so tenderly? But were I ever to order shirley temples for them, the idea that that should be seen as an expression of such feelings is truly preposterous.
    — Bob    Nov 11, 2:21pm    #
  11. We’re probably going on too much about the poem. It’s obvious to me and far from reductive that the memory of shirley temple and all the star and drink stood for in the woman’s mind hardens her again, brings back justified bitternesses. The image the title and refrain refer to give the poem its hardness. Yes, and that Dad is proud of all this makes her gorge rise again.

    What were these good things like she's supposed to remember. Mostly his pride. And in what? Unlike many apparently memory does not evoke a nostalgia whch makes for forgetting what was for real in her.

    The references to "stubble" Catherine are simple honesty. As she is old and "unlaced" herself to the husband and remembers how she felt, so she looks at him with both fondness and distaste. The stubble on a man’s face scratches and with the strain of lechery in him she’s alienated—all the while seeing she’s old too, now his nurse.

    The emotions in the poem are complicated. It does not say what were these bad things she remembered, except perhaps by reversion. Perhaps what he puts a good slant on is part of what she wrote about with anger. We aren't told.

    Elinor
    — Chava    Nov 11, 3:04pm    #

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