When I was growing up, I thought it was normal for your dad to wear make-up, dress up as a woman, and mime along to some very, very cheesy songs with all the other dads every now & then.
Nope, apparently, not so much.
Every year, my primary school would manifest a very dramatic mime cabaret, with the parents as the actors. Both my parents would dress up in horrifically OTT costumes and mime-perform a comical act to either a classic tune, or a really silly one.
Picture this. Your 5ft 5", very straight, average-guy dad wearing metallic green knickerbockers, a frilly shirt, a pirate hat, and a whole lot of eyeliner, playing the er, different, pirate in Ray Stevens' The Pirate Song;
or my mum strutting around on a stage with all my friends mum’s in nothing but a body towel and a hair towel singing along to ’I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out Of My Hair’ from South Pacific; or both of them dressed in drag for an Australian classic: a Priscilla: Queen of The Desert number, ‘I Love The Nightlife’.
Then there was my year 6 teacher, a huge man usually seen sporting footy shorts and a beer belly, dressed up as Dolly Parton in ‘Nine to Five’, using bent arms under his shirt to mimic her rather large chest. As a 7 year old, this was rather outrageous, and severely traumatic.
Having experienced said trauma, however, they did introduce me to some great music that I still have nostalgia for now. Whilst there was definitely too much ABBA used, the Beach Boys, Queen, Billy Joel and Madonna featured prominently. It was all cheese, but hey, it’s lovable cheese. The problem is now that whenever I hear any of the featured songs I am forever stuck with the image of my parents acting like children in front of a few HUNDRED PEOPLE at a very IMPRESSIONABLE AGE. Scarred MUCH…!
Besides the pop-cheese learnt at my primary schools’ self proclaimed “Great Night Out”, it was all Ray Charles, Nat King Cole & The Beatles at home; at least a slight kicker higher in the what-parents-taught-their-children awards.
THANK YOU FOR THE MUSIC PARENTAL ADVISORS.
-Leilani Williams