Vagina Monologues
Well this was certainly an interesting, and shocking piece. Shocking in that it delivered exactly what I expected it to, which is indeed an all-together different type of shock. I think as a male, it’s hard to assess the piece. Well, at least as a inartistic male. While I do believe that the message is powerful, I’m not sure that the way in which is presented is the most tactful. Now I know that’s exactly the point of it, the shock-factor is very purposeful and no doubt meant to draw extreme focus to its ultimate message of female empowerment but I just can’t get away from how socially crude and atypical it was. It almost seemed like shocking for the sake of shock, which, to me, takes away from its truly important message. Those monologues that utilized humor were more meaningful to me because they took such a serious issue and removed some of the taboo nature gently so that the core idea was what stuck out. Also, it’s not as though I feel like the vagina, sex or any of those things are taboo and should never be discussed in such a setting, but I’m realistic to know that such schemas exist in today’s society. That while denotatively these issues are a fundamental part of human, and specifically female, experience, one still must take into account the connotative, social aspect which is still one that may not respond so well to this type of subject matter.
posted by Jon Greer @ 12:23 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
I couldn't agree with you any more. I really thought that the issues were important, but could have been less in your face. "Reclaiming Cunt" and "Flood" I thought was a couple that could have been left out or replaced with something more empowering for women. As a female I was disturbed by some of the monologues and I could only imagine as you a male felt. I think the cause was appropriate and understandable, but some of the monologues did nothing to empower women, but were put in for humor. What do you think would have made this more enjoyable?
It seems like you contradict yourself here. You say that you didn't like how controversial the play was but you then say that you dont see why the manager changed the name of the play to Hoo Ha instead of Vagina. It seems like, going on your first view of the play, that you would be in support of a name change to a less in your face name like "vagina".
Also, I feel like the play being somewhat in your face and controversial is what has added to its success. I feel like it aims to talk about things that are otherwise not talked about publicly. I feel like if the play was entirely about empowering women and went about in a non humorous and non in your face way, that it would be very boring and wouldn't set itself apart from a documentary on the Lifetime channel.
As controversial as the play was, that was obviously the point. Everybody has thier own thoughts on how they should get their own point across or if they should even bother. I don'd think that the reason for the show was to gross anyone out or to put anyone in an unconfortable position, but everyone does have the right to do so. It seems to me that everytime you hear about the Freedom of Speech, someone is pissed of and complaining about what something somebody has said or done. People just like you and ol' Eve Ensler are just what make this country so damn great.
This performance was obviously meant to be controversial. I think that is something that everyone can agree on. However, I believe that the amount of in your face ideas and vocabulary actually took something away from the performance. I think that this only served to alienate the male audience. I recognize that this was not meant solely for men to see. However, I think that domestic violence and oppression of women is something that we have much more to learn about than do females. The more men that become aware of this kind of problem the less it will occur and I think the performance shoots itself in the foot in a way.
Post a Comment
<< Home