Annie

It can sometimes take having a solid handle on What Happened When to really understand What People Were Saying.

The 1977 musical Annie includes the following two songs and their associated scenes:

• We'd Like to Thank You, Herbert Hoover: The residents of a Hooverville break out in song to excoriate the former president for his response to the Crash and the Great Depression.
• A New Deal for Christmas: Annie, Warbucks, and others gush over the idea that the new president's policies will improve the upcoming Christmas season.

Leaving aside historical accuracy or lack of same, it is surprising how it unabashedly cheerleads for a point of view that is absolutely in favor of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's policies. It's not like he still needed the help forty years later. It's even more surprising since, evidently, the original Little Orphan Annie comic strip was much more conservative and the cartoonist, Harold Gray, was not a fan. Indeed, Daddy Warbucks was "killed off" in 1944, dying of despair when FDR was re-elected - although he came back (waking from a "coma") after FDR's passing the following year.

The setting of the play in 1933 is clearer still with a definite anchor like what is on The Grid, which may make it easy to recall that 1) FDR had just become president 2) his term started several months into the year 3) he worked to get his policies (particularly securities reform) implemented as soon as possible. Knowing that during the course of the musical's year there was a lot happening with the new president makes it more fitting, somehow. In any case, we can know that he was recently elected and conversely Hoover was recently out of office, so for some this looks like an historical document.

(Granted that other dates could have been chosen for the previous Crisis. Then again, 1929 and 1941 weren't used because they are already well-known dates. Every year during World War II had distinctive turning points with memorable details, which might be usable in the same way. There are other FDR innovations that could work similarly. Most of them wouldn't be as helpful with comprehending Annie's situation... )

The latest movie version, meanwhile, is smack in the middle of this Crisis. (The previous two film versions, perhaps coincidentally, were at the end of the Second and the middle of the Third, respectively.) It may play very differently than those others, which could be seen as sentimental and nostalgic, in their time. This one, though, would have to deal with the current economic situation, which might be a little too close to be comfortable.