to really not understand why the lady is a tramp?

[somedayma]

I've spent a LOT of time thinking about this and can't for the life of me work out why the lady is a tramp. Does arriving at the theatre on time make you a tramp? Does being too hungry to wait for an 8 o clock dinner make you a tramp? Does not associating with people she hates? Liking the wind in her hair? Refusing to gossip? Dislikes flying?

WHY IS THE LADY A TRAMP?!

Because it's a send up of strict New York City etiquette of the 1930s? And if you didn't follow it, you must be a tramp.

I must be

She won't tell you. "She won't dish the dirt with the rest of the girls". That's why the lady is a tramp.

I never got it either

Good point hellfire good point...

Being a tramp used to mean acting as if you were of a lower class in the bitchy New York 'society' of the time. The singer is taking the piss out of those who say this things about her.

Imagine high society ladies whispering 'Did you hear? She's alone when she lowers her lamp, the scandal!'

I love singing that song...

It's contrasting three things: the behaviour and mores of fashionable society, which is portrayed as frequently selfish or inappropriate (arriving late at the theatre, going to a poor neighbourhood in diamonds and pearls), the tastes of an unsophisticated or unpretentious person(sitting on the bleachers at a ball game), and a notion of proper, considerate behaviour, which is mainly shown up by the things that fashionable society fails to do, although it pays lip service to. The singer's rhetoric is that if you aren't fashionable, you must be a tramp, and I think thats deliberately conflating notions of the immoral and the unfashionable.

But we can all see that the singers behaviour is more moral, in the sense of genuine, considerate and appropriate, than that of the fashionable society she satirises, so we come to agree with her that in fact, the people to look down on are those who behave as fashionable society dictates, with no regard for either their own enjoyment or morality.

Ahem. That was rather an essay, wasn't it?

Brilliant essay GrendelsMum!

Very good Grendel.

I love that song.

FAB thread OP! Loved the essay, too!

I love the song too, the whole sentiment of it

That was very interesting Grendel

She's high society but acts as she wants not how society at the time deemed classy!

I enjoyed the essay too! Every day's a school day

Excellent thread OP!

2 people have said I made an excellent thread. I am blushing smugly

Where the hell does she come from, though, that she thinks California is cold and damp?

Wonderful thread! Is this inspired by the Bennett & Gaga version? I love their duet

yes it is! I hear it everywhere I go so it's constantly in my head! As is the question "why is she a tramp?!" but I think I've got it now. clever mumsnet

People did go to Harlem in ermine and pearls to eg The Cotton Club (no black people went, they were just the entertainers and servants).

RACISM KLAXON

WTF!!!!!

If you're right down by the sea in California it's quite cold and damp from the sea fogs, isn't it?

I've never got that either although I do remember being told in class that there were different meanings to this:

"Penelope hasn't gone for a tramp recently"

At sixteen I thought it merely meant a jolly stroll. Possibly across heather with upper-class dogs. I did read Enid Blyton after all.

At eighteen I began to suspect that it may have meant a sexual attraction.

It took living on a council estate to realise that "going for" someone was the same as attacking them.

Penelope!