Talk:Free, White and 21

Untitled
Uh... forget it, Delete it, speedy delete it. 129.177.61.123 13:58, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Exactly why is this listed for speedy deletion? 129.177.61.123 13:56, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Five years on, evidently action has been less than speedy.

I found the article useful. Though I'd agree, the film sounds forgettable.

I've heard numerous--mostly ironic--uses of the phrase. Given the repetition in different sources of a less-than-obvious sequence of words, I assumed it was referring to something. But what?

For example a line on Soft Machine's LP Volume 2, in the song "Hulloder" after musing, "If I were black/And I lived here..." (i.e. the States) "...I'd want to be a big man in the FBI/Or the CIA." Ultimately concluding "I don't need more power than I've got" due to being, of course...Free White and 21. (Fairly typical of singer/drummer Robert Wyatt's wry & occasionally Dada sense of humor, and intended as a comment on American racism I would assume.)

Today I happened to come across the phrase yet again--in an obituary of Robert Novak, by Alexander Cockburn (just a quote...it wasn't either of them who'd said it)--which provided impetus to do the search which led here. So, finally, I know at least a bit about the origin of the phrase.

Is it of great significance? Hardly. But if that were an important criterion for inclusion in Wikipedia, we'd all have a lot more deletions to work on. Like, was the Star Wars Xmas Special "canon", etc.

If it doesn't warrant its own article? Well, one could imagine a compendium of English idioms. drone5 (talk) 19:27, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Removing refs to phrase "free, white, and twenty-one"
This article is about two things: the movie Free, White and 21, and then there's a section about the phrase "free, white, and twenty-one". But we don't construct articles like that. There should be a disambig page and two separate articles. However, the article about the phrase would just be dicdef. (In addition, the movie, which after all grossed just $40,000 is probably not notable, but that's a different issue.) So I removed the section about the phrase, beyond a mere mention with a link to the Wiktionary entry.

The removed material, which was entirely uncited, was:
 * ''This phrase has a historical basis which predates its use in motion pictures.


 * The phrase is used in the 1922 film Foolish Wives'', with the retort being "Well, I'm married--sunburned--and forty-one--"


 * The phrase "Free, White and 21" is also used in the 1932 film I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang'' starring Paul Muni. Muni stars as prisoner who escapes from a chain gang and falls in love. While on a romantic outing with his young love, Muni asks the young lady if there is anything that requires her to be home and she responds by saying she has no responsibilities, she is "free, white and 21".


 * The phrase is used in the movie, The Conquerors'', a 1932 Radio Film, by character Matilda Blake, played by Edna May Oliver. The phrase is spoken in the last five minutes of the film. Ruby Keeler utters the phrase in the film "Dames" (1934).


 * ''The phrase is also spoken by Henry Fonda to Bette Davis in the 1937 film "That Certain Woman".


 * ''Ginger Rogers declares "I'm free, white and 21," as Kitty in the 1940 film "Kitty Foyle" to assert her right to make her own decisions. Similarly, Inger Stevens utters the phrase to Harry Belafonte in the 1959 film, "The World, the Flesh and the Devil".

I see the Soft Machine lyrics here, and the Wiktionary entry has a cite. It's possible that an article about the phrase could be created. It's an interesting social artifact. Herostratus (talk) 05:43, 30 November 2011 (UTC)