"Vagina Monologues" performed in a Church.
About the only thing I can think more inappropriate than "Vagina Monologues" being performed in a church, is for it to be performed in a high school.
In 2004 Amherst Regional High School was the ONLY high school in the nation to allow such adult oriented material to be performed by teenagers under the age of 18.
Yet now they wonder why kids think it's okay to use the "N-word."
I wonder if the church allowed "The Little Coochie Snorcher That Could" vignette to be performed? You know, the one where an adult female plies a 16-year-old girl with alcohol and then takes sexual advantage of her.
Gotta be some sort of Commandment against that.
Interestingly when Ensler originally wrote her "groundbreaking" work, the girl was only 13. But in response to all the evil conservative criticism she changed her to 16 -- still illegal in most states.
And she also edited out the final line, "If it was rape, it was a good rape."
Has been performed at numerous high schools without the sky falling in. I think churches will survive as well.
ReplyDeleteYeah but look what happened to ARHS ever since.
ReplyDeleteAbout time they dumped that, to this day know body has shown me the value this adds to our children's education! There are so many other pieces that are tremendously more appropriated and definitely better written. If this reemerges I will petition to have the high school perform "The PENIS Soliloquies" and see if that is equally well received. or maybe we can get Lisa Lampanelli to speak at graduation LOL!
ReplyDeleteThere are no plans to perform this at the high school. Larry is a broken record. For some reason he just can't let this go. Like so many other things he obsesses over.
ReplyDeleteYeah, and I wonder why there are no plans to do it at the high school.
ReplyDelete("Sometimes you have to destroy the Village in order to save it.")
So much for you much touted advocacy for free speech.
ReplyDeleteCan't yell "fire" in a movie theater.
ReplyDeleteShouldn't use the N-word or C-word in polite conversion.
And you especially should not be encouraging young girls to publicly yell the C-word at the top of their lungs, and then strike a Mary Lou Retton pose as though they had just done something worthy of applause.
...in your opinion.
ReplyDeleteYeah, and the rest of moral America.
ReplyDeleteFree speech needs to be protected, especially when it's unpopular. Um, wasn't that your position when the Jones wanted to move a children's book?
ReplyDeleteYep. Big difference between free speech and hate speech.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, the law even recognizes something called "fighting words."
Kids under 17 can't see an R rated movie by themselves, or buy a pack of cigarettes.
This is not hate speech. Now you are just being silly.
ReplyDeleteSo you think the C-word (rhymes with bunt) is not a hateful word?
ReplyDeleteHow about the N-word? The full six letter version that ends in r rather than the hip five letter one that ends in a.
How about "Fuck You!" Is that okay? Yes the Supreme Court says it is, but I try to avoid using it. Usually.
You are talking about an award-winning play. Among it's awards is the the Sandra Day O’Connor Award from The Arizona Foundation for Women in Phoenix.
ReplyDeleteYeah, so was "West Side Story."
ReplyDeleteNitwits cancelled that because of "racial discrimination." First time in history.
A good example of what happens when self-appointed spokesman for "moral America" run over free speech. That's why free speech has to be protected, especially from people that are offended by it.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately I did not "run over" VM, but I do notice the kiddies have not "performed" it for a few years now.
ReplyDeleteThe whole point of the First Amendment is to protect controversial speech. After all, non-controversial speech doesn't need it. Thankfully, we are a country blessed with the right to free speech and that allows us not only the Vagina Monologues, but also Huck Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the school had and has the right to perform Vagina Monologues. Maybe it's a sophomoric and aggressive provocation designed to affront and raise hackles. Maybe it's contributing to the coarsification of America, the Fluke-Dunham-Sunny Lane brazenness of our daughters, and the overthrow of traditional moral behavior. Maybe all of these things are true, and that is why, oh why, it is tailor made for a self-righteous and self-absorbed little town like Amherst to stage it and to fan the flames.
ReplyDeleteYep.
ReplyDeleteThe coursification of America refers back to a fictional time that never existed.
ReplyDeleteThen I guess it never was all that groundbreaking.
ReplyDeleteCertainly seems to have lost a lot of steam over the past ten years.
The coursification of America refers back to a fictional time that never existed.
ReplyDeleteBullbleep!
When they were young, our grandmothers did not have to worry about being raped the way our daughters do today. And this is Ed saying this, not some knuckle-dragging, man-hating feminist living off the VAWA largess.
A century ago, both what is now considered K-12 education and those who provide it were respected & valued a whole lot more than today, and this is Dr Ed and not Team Maria saying this.
My grandmother essentially ran the local government, she was respected because she was a teacher == and had a 4-year college degree in a community where everyone else had an 8th grade education.
One of my fondest childhood memories is my father's high school students coming to the front door and singing Christmas Carols and maybe Nina's students do that, but mine sure didn't.
Yes, bad things that happened in the past -- powerful people would simply declare their critics to be insane, women were viewed as objects and not sentient beings -- but I'd argue that the same sorts of things happen today, just in different ways.
But there was a time when young women neither ran around nearly naked nor had to worry about "date rape", a time when teachers were both respected and worthy of that respect, and when it would be inconceivable for the word Charlie/Uniform/November/Tango to be spoken in a church.
People would have expected the Lord to strike them dead on-the-spot with a bolt of lightning. And that might just happen -- maybe we are having a winter like we are because our ancestors are upset with us.
The whole point of the First Amendment is to protect controversial speech.
ReplyDelete1: Protect, not promote -- and there is a difference.
2: Protect from the government. This is a point often missed -- not only are there no protections from individual actions but any governmental attempts to do so themselves constitute a violation.
After all, non-controversial speech doesn't need it.
And obscenity doesn't deserve it -- and there is a difference.
Thankfully, we are a country blessed with the right to free speech
I once belied that and learned, very much the hard way, that we are not. Not at all, we have no freedom of speech in this country -- absolutely none.
The fact that these works advocate political views currently favored by those exercising power in this country "...allows us not only the Vagina Monologues, but also Huck Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird.
This is like saying that Lady Gaga and Molly Cyrus are in the same category as the London Philharmonic Orchestra or the Boston Pops. Yes, all technically are musical performances -- of sorts -- but...
I put TVM in the same category as "Piss Christ" and a KKK Crossburning -- vulgar expressions of hateful political views. Vulgar activities intending to both affirm the prejudicial hatred of their supporters and to offend others.
TVM is anti-heterosexual and hateful of men -- a conservative woman I know personally told me that she considers it nothing but "lesbian recruitment." "Piss Christ" is anti-Christian and explicitly intended to offend persons holding such values, and the Klan are all-purpose bigots who are hateful of Blacks, Jews, Catholics and probably a whole bunch more.
Ask yourself this: would the exact opposite political message be permitted in Amherst? Not would you feel comfortable hearing it, nor would such an opinion be morally legitimate, but could it even be expressed?
The answer is no.
The closest we have come to this was the Yale frat that chanted "No means yes, yes means anal" -- and we all know what happened to that fraternity, don't we?
And for the record, I consider both them and TVM advocates to be equally repulsive.
You are talking about an award-winning play.
ReplyDeleteAdolph Hitler won Time's "Man of the Year" award in 1938 -- and we know how the next decade turned out. Your point is?
Among it's awards is the the Sandra Day O’Connor Award
I'm just thinking how different this country would be today if Reagan had nominated Phyllis Schlafly instead. When you remember who was on the Court at the time, she would have made a good balance, there are a lot of people in Amherst who would have cheered her rulings on things like employee rights, NAFTA, and limits on the power of government.
from The Arizona Foundation for Women in Phoenix.
The only three organizations I have any respect for are Eagle Forum, Independent Women's Forum (IWF & it's collegiate "She Thinks" subdivision, and Clair Boothe Luce.
You know, I think I will try to talk the CBL folks into doing an anti-TVM -- they might just do it.
This is not an issue of free speech. No one is being prosecuted for writing, reading or attending the play. The real issue is was the high school the appropriate venue for something this mature and controversial to be made into a school production. Once the "children", as by law you are a juvenile until 18, are adults then have at it.
ReplyDeleteWhats next? Playing NWA Straight Outta Compton as the classes change? If you can't beat 'em, join 'em right?
MAYBE some advanced placement classes laden with seniors could read and discuss the text..but a productions at that level is/was inappropriate.
Stay classy Amherst....
Maybe the school had and has the right to perform Vagina Monologues.
ReplyDeleteThe government does not have rights -- PRIVATE CITIZENS have rights -- protections AGAINST the government.
The school is the government -- parents have protections AGAINST the school, not the other way around.
Maybe it's contributing to the coarsification of America, the Fluke-Dunham-Sunny Lane brazenness of our daughters, and the overthrow of traditional moral behavior.
Moral behavior which includes prohibitions against both rape and other violence against women -- prohibitions enforced via the legitimate use of force.
Maybe we should have a truly "laissez-faire" approach to interpersonal relationships. Maybe we should let both women and men do anything they damn well please and eliminate absolutely everything including the laws against rape.
... a self-righteous and self-absorbed little town like Amherst to stage it and to fan the flames.
The problem with lighting fires is that they often get out of control. Cathy Young makes a very valid point about rape being so horrific that one simply can not go down the slippery slope and include lesser things with it.
What I fear is that as we do this -- and we are doing it -- it's going to be like speeding tickets which once were fairly serious criminal offenses and now are a budget line item and revenue generators.
What I fear is that we very well may wind up "decriminalizing" rape and that will not be good.
One other thought -- if this is the First Congo -- which was originally Puritan -- this is ironic in a way.
ReplyDeleteRemember that Massachusetts was a Puritan Theocracy until 1855 -- the Congregational Church is the old Puritan one.
To become recognized as a town, the town had to show that it had the money (property tax revenue) to hire a minister and that they had found a minister willing to live in the town.
This is the church that enabled Amherst to separate from Hadley -- it was built and originally supported by Amherst taxpayers.
And Amherst College was formed when some at Harvard thought Harvard was abandoning Puritan values -- so they went out to Amherst where such values would be safe.
Irony....
MAYBE some advanced placement classes laden with seniors could read and discuss the text..but a productions at that level is/was inappropriate.
ReplyDeleteIt wouldn't have to be at the AP level, either.
This is the point that the Black English professor made about Huck Finn -- she both supports teaching it in K-12 while also arguing that no one should ever use the N word. She has a message that young Black men need to hear -- THEY won't use it anymore after hearing it.
Ed,
ReplyDeleteHave you seen the play? Thought not. BTW, Hitler was Time Man of the Year not because he was perceived as a good guy.
It wasn't mandatory to attend, Ed.
ReplyDeleteIt's being performed at a church not in a town building. Don't get your knickers in a twist.
ReplyDeleteI'm not. I was just fondly reminiscing.
ReplyDeleteAbove and beyond why I would want to pay to attend TVM when I can (and have) seen it on UTube clips, it would not be safe for me to attend. In fact, it would be exceedingly stupid for me to do so.
ReplyDeleteNow I likely could sidestep the landmines and get myself out of whatever I stumbled into, but by the same token, I have no doubt I could do likewise were I to drive somewhere drunk out of my mind -- it still would (a) be stupid for me to do so and (b) not something I intend to do.
Let me elaborate a little more on the latter point -- I've had all the special driving courses the cops have, I've driven emergency vehicles, and the added benefit of having been driving longer than many cops been alive -- and I was running up 80K-100K miles A YEAR back then.
I've even been on the Trans-Canadian Highway in a snowstorm...
The powers-that-be have now not only ruled that the officer (*not* APD/UMPD) was completely at fault in that accident but quietly adding that had it been almost anyone other than me coming down that hill, the officer quite likely would be dead right now.
NOTWITHSTANDING that, I'm still not going to drive impaired.
That would be stupid, as would attending (in person) a showing of TVM. Eknu Gelaye and the rest of the Nazis taught me that being innocent is often irrelevant and they taught it well enough for me to never forget it.
Not quite sure what to make of that gibberish, Ed. You're drunk and obsessing over Enku -- again?
ReplyDeleteNo,I am yet again being harassed by Brad DeFlumeri.
ReplyDeleteIf I were drunk, I wouldn't care, but that's a slippery slope I don't intend to go down.
And as to Enku and the rest of the Nazis -- they are evil, dangerous people who have destroyed a lot of lives and none no small amount of damage to mine.
What truly scares me is what all of this has done to me -- I'm starting to think that Alan West is right -- Machiavelli, not Kant.
Not quite sure what to make of that gibberish, Ed. You're drunk and obsessing over Enku -- again?
ReplyDeleteAre you molesting children -- again?
On a more serious note, do you have any idea what it's like to have your words twisted to mean things you never intended them to mean? They even did this to a passage of the King James Bible, in this case a 400 year old translation of a passage in the Jewish Torah.
Rabbis and Talmaduc Scholars have been saying what Exodus 22.2 means for thousands of years -- everybody in the Judeo/Christian tradition more or less agrees that it means a certain thing.
But at UMass, where words mean whatever an administrator wants them to mean, they interpreted it to mean something completely different. That's the sort of thing that makes one want to have disclaimers.
And I will so enjoy watching the collapse of UMass...
God complex much?
ReplyDeleteEd, you seem to have a worrisome mix of persecution complex and overweening sense of self-importance. Perhaps counseling would be in order?
ReplyDeleteIt's also been performed at hundreds of churches over the years too all over the country and lightning hasn't struck yet.
ReplyDeleteHmm, could imply an endorsement from the Almighty.
ReplyDeleteEd, you seem to have a worrisome
ReplyDeleteTo whom? And on what objective basis?
The APA has that little caveat about cultural bias as well you know -- and you are not a Matinicus Lobsterman.
persecution complex
There is that little thing about "Unrealistic" fears -- and the definition is not met if the fears are realistic, i.e. if various female UM Student Affairs folk routinely attribute fictitious threats of violence to male student (and they do) then this is not an unrealistic fear.
Instead, it is a rational response....
and overweening sense of self-importance.
May I suggest a better familiarity with the word "overwhelming"? Furthermore, what the hell is wrong with being proud about things you can do well and adversities you have overcome?
Perhaps counseling would be in order
Perhaps it is even cold in Hell this winter....
I doubt it has been cold enough for it to have frozen over though...
May I suggest a better familiarity with the word "overwhelming"?"
ReplyDeleteOnly if I may suggest a better familiarity with the word "overweening".
Gee Ed, I thought you taught English?
Only if I may suggest a better familiarity with the word "overweening".
ReplyDeleteWhile I know you'd like to have your critics be "egoless, humble, modest, uncomplacent", they'd also be ineffective and irrelevant.
Kinda like the RINOs and mASSgop, but I digress.
I am confident that I am right -- and it might be because I am.
And I will say to you what I've said to more than a few drunken undergraduates -- if everyone else was jumping off the roof (of a Southwest Tower), would you go do it too so as to be in the majority? Or would you have the guts to say "I don't care if they are splashed all over the sidewalk, this is stupid and I'm not doing it."
I have the confidence of my convictions. Want to point out why you think I am wrong, fine -- but don't attack my mental health.
And post your license number so I can send it into the folks in Boston. Or STFU.