I grew up watching old musicals from the 1950s. That’s probably a bit unusual for someone my age, but I loved them. Sitting on the couch, watching those movies connected me to my mom and grandmother, who both grew up with them. The music, costumes, AND big Technicolor sets—they all felt magical to me. At that age, I didn’t know what feminism was yet, but I knew what felt unfair. In gym class, I was always “the fastest girl” or “good for a girl,” even though only one boy in my grade was faster than I was. I was faster than the rest of the boys in my class, but that didn’t matter, so they still put me in a separate category. Even as a kid, that difference irritated me.
There was one musical in particular that captivated me: Annie Get Your Gun.
The score is iconic, of course, and the costumes and sets have that classic golden-age-of-Hollywood spectacle—romance, beauty, and pure theatrical magic. But many old MGM musicals possess those qualities. What made this one different for me was Annie Oakley.
Annie Oakley was loud. She was confident. And most importantly, she was better at something than Frank Butler. The entire world recognized her as the greatest sharpshooter alive. She stood firmly on her own two feet. Yet she still had hopes of fitting in, being loved, and accepted, which made her feel deeply human.
Now, the ending of Annie Get Your Gun isn’t exactly a feminist triumph. Annie throwing the final shooting match so Frank can keep his pride feels frustrating from a modern perspective. But the show was created in the 1940s and gained popularity through the 1950s, and for its time, Annie Oakley was actually a remarkably progressive character. Later Broadway revivals even changed the ending to make it more openly feminist.
But long before I had the words to call any of this “feminism,” Annie Oakley was showing me something important.
She showed me that it was okay to be loud, confident, and proud of excelling at something. She served as a contrast to my childhood fear of being “too much.” Watching her, I began to realize that maybe being “too much” wasn’t something to apologize for at all.
Looking back now, I realize that Annie Oakley may have been one of my earliest lessons in feminism, even before I knew the term. She was unapologetically talented, undeniably confident, and unafraid to take up space in a world that expected women to be smaller. Even with the compromises the story makes, Annie still stands as a character who refuses to hide her abilities or dull her personality. Watching her as a kid helped me understand something I would only later learn to articulate: being strong, loud, ambitious, or passionate doesn’t make a girl “too much.” Sometimes it just means she’s refusing to accept the limits others try to place on her.
