I WAG this was a movie in the 1960’s? I vaguely know it better as a title to some novel. What’s the premise, and why are there frequent allusions or references made back to this story? - Jinx
Argh.
Virginia is the chick’s name, not the US state.
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was a play written by Edward Albee.
Virginia Woolf was the famous author of To the Lighthouse and A Room of One’s Own, among others.
Oh, I forgot to answer the other part of the question.
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf is about two couples, one young and one middle-aged, who engage in some rather heated discussions one night. It’s astonishingly well-written and dramatic – the dialog and subject matter was considered quite revolutionary for its time.
It was a play (later a movie) by Edward Albee in which Richard Burton played a tweedy college professor. Elizabeth Taylor played his wife. They had another couple over for drinks and as they proceeded to get drunk, their inhibitions dropped away and their hostility toward one another came out. They got into really nasty fights. It was kind of ugly.
The title comes from the point where Elizabeth Taylor is fairly well drunk, and to tease her college-prof hubby she starts dancing around and singing the Walt Disney tune “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf” but substitutes “Virginia Woolf.” (This isn’t really a Spoiler, is it?) By taking one of the icons of modern literary intellectuals and turning it into a goofy kids’ jingle, Albee made mock of the modern intellectual establishment. Maybe he was suggesting that they were silly and futile. Or that they were afraid of being portrayed that way.
Somehow I’m reminded of Hermann Hesse’s short story about “Harry Haller, the Steppenwolf” who is an animal caged in a zoo. He is famous for smashing busts of great cultural icons like Mozart, Goethe, Beethoven. Crowds gather expectantly around his cage and aren’t satisfied until he busts a few busts.
Dear Jomo Mojo.
As I recall, it was Richard Burton, not Liz Taylor,who danced around singing the “Virginia Woolf” song.
Furthermore, because the Disney people would not allow the use of their song in such a dark and satirical context, poor old Dick had to sing it to the (un-copyrighted) melody of “Here We Go 'Round the Mulberry Bush.”
I haven’t seen the film version in about a million years, so if anyone knows that I am wrong, please let me know.
You might enjoy some answers direct from an Interview with Albee.
Martha(Taylor) sings the song first, but later in the act George(Burton) sings it.
So everyone is right.
OK, but is everyone afraid of Virginia Wolf, and/or why should they be afraid? Is she psycho, like Fatal Attraction…or something? - Jinx
Nobody has yet said it directly, but it’s just an intellectual pun. Disney’s Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? is made into a jingle whose words are Who’s Afraid of Virgina Woolf? A pun. Not a slur on Virginia Woolf.
Or are you just whooshing us?
If you think that “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” is an important literary reference that you ought to know, wouldn’t it make more sense to get a copy of the play (or a videotape of the movie) and read or watch it, rather than ask us questions about it?
IIRC, in the movie, Disney wouldn’t let them use the song, so they sang the line to the tune of “Here We Go 'Round the Mulberry Bush.”
It’s still a very good play - and movie. The clothes and some of the morals regarding the couples are a bit dated, but the essential story still holds. Middle age crisis, failed careers, trouble with kids growing up, relationship without love. I was to young, when it first came out, but I guess it was the ‘American Beauty’ of its day.
Rent it.
Others have explained the essence of the play. George is a middle-aged English professor whose career has stalled. Martha is his shrew of a wife. They’re both miserable, they both enjoy tormenting each other… and they’ve been together long enough that they know just the right buttons to push to hurt each other.
They play all kinds of imaginative games with each other. One supposes that, when they were a young, happy couple in love, these were enjoyable games. They probably shared a rich fantasy life, and had a lot of fun sharing their imaginations. But now… their games are no longer fun. Their games are brutal! The purpose of their games seems to be to inflict as much pain and humiliation on each other as possible.
When Martha sings “Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf,” she’s mocking her husband’s life work. He’s devoted his life to the study of literature, and she’s reducing his the thing he cares about most to a feeble, cartoonish joke. She knows that the surest way to hurt him is to tell him that his one-promising career as a scholar is all but over, and that the things he thought were important are laughable.
P.S. One theory (take it with a grain of salt, if you like) is that “George” and “Martha” are supposed to make us think of George and Martha Washington.
IF that’s true, the play is a reflection on the United States. The son that George and Martha speak of (but never really had) might represent all the ideals that America once stood for, but which has fallen by the wayside.
The Bathroom Reader claims that Albee found the title as graffiti in a Greenwich Village bathroom. That may well be an urban legend, though–Albee certainly didn’t confirm it, for example, in the linked interview above.
I enjoyed the play myself, though I had never read it until a few years ago when it was put on the summer reading list of the school where I teach. (It is no longer on the list.) Remembering it as a play not too difficult to read, I assigned it as a paper topic last year to a student who has a bit of trouble reading longer works. When the day came for her to tell me what her focus question (a question that she would then set out to answer in her paper) would be, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, when, obviously not having read any of it, she handed in this question: “Who is the Virginia Werewolf and why is everyone so afraid of it?”
I’m not kidding. This was a junior in high school.
“I am, George. I am.”
I’ll have to get this one out and watch it again. Rough stuff.