I always was confused about that opening scene when Fanny walks onto the stage and pretends to be gunning-down her audience with a machine gun. What is the meaning of this? Did she really feel hostility towards her audience? Is that based on fact? It was unlike Fanny to show a violent side. Any ideas?
shareNo, Fanny Brice didn't have a "violent side," and the opening scene didn't mean she wanted to kill anyone - not literally, anyway.
There was a song in the original Broadway production ("The Music That Makes Me Dance") in which she noted, with some regret -
"...I'm better on stage than at intermission."
I think the opening scene illustrated her desire to "kill" the on stage portion of her life so she could devote more attention to (and hopefully be more successful at) the off stage, or intermission, portion. She even verbalized this desire to Ziegfeld in their final conversation -
FANNY: I don't even know if Nick wants us to go on, but if he does - I don't want to make the same mistakes. So if it means giving up the theater, I hope you'll be a sport about it.share
I thought it symbolized the fact that Fanny had no personal life because stage-life WAS her life? And she resented not having a personal life?
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