"Dream Girls" pander to male fantasies -- in song. Guys in musicals tend to wax poetically about some girl who's away, or the ideal mate who just hasn't come along yet.
Composers and producers discovered that audiences wanted a ballad early in the show. How can you write a gentle love song for characters who have either just met or don't know each other at all? One answer was a love song to the unknown girl-out-there, the girl they fantisize about.
As a modern woman, of course, I'm always skeptical of these songs. Love ME, not the fantasy you then want me to embody. And writers picked up on that -- sometimes, the girl that the guy falls for is very different than what he imagined. Ruth ain't no "Quiet Girl," Annie Oakland is quite different than the girl Frank envisioned he'd marry.
In Bye-Bye Birdie, a teenage girl dreams of being one of those women. Girls, you can set better goals than to be "what they're whistling at."
There are female counterparts of course -- Marion the Librarian's "My White Knight," The Man I Love. We'll save those for another time. If you have suggestions, email me at janean@kpbx.org.
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