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| re: So MAGA to MEGA - Make Equity Great Again? | |
| Posted by: seenenuf 06:49 pm EDT 07/15/18 | |
| In reply to: So MAGA to MEGA - Make Equity Great Again? - theaterbear 02:17 pm EDT 07/14/18 | |
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| It has nothing to do with Privilege. Its called Acting Make Believe How Daring |
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| re: So MAGA to MEGA - Make Equity Great Again? | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 07:16 pm EDT 07/15/18 | |
| In reply to: re: So MAGA to MEGA - Make Equity Great Again? - seenenuf 06:49 pm EDT 07/15/18 | |
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| I guess some of us just don't want to make believe that we live in a world of only white people. To some of us, that sounds like the fantasy of erasing all the people of color from this world. Daring indeed, but not a daring that we should be encouraging. | |
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| re: So MAGA to MEGA - Make Equity Great Again? | |
| Posted by: seenenuf 08:21 pm EDT 07/15/18 | |
| In reply to: re: So MAGA to MEGA - Make Equity Great Again? - Singapore/Fling 07:16 pm EDT 07/15/18 | |
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| It does NOT imply that we want a world of only white people. It does imply that anything is possible. It in no way implies erasing people of color. Alarmist. Hate Monger. |
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| re: So MAGA to MEGA - Make Equity Great Again? | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 09:12 pm EDT 07/15/18 | |
| In reply to: re: So MAGA to MEGA - Make Equity Great Again? - seenenuf 08:21 pm EDT 07/15/18 | |
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| I see your optimism in the power of make believe, but unfortunately we do not live in a world in which anything is possible, and we never have lived in that world. What may have seemed like limitless possibility to one group of people meant that another group of people were being excluded from the stage. I'm sorry to have to burst your fantasy, but when you bemoan the loss of the opportunity for white people to put on wigs and make-up and play people of color, you are bemoaning the loss of a world in which people of color were erased from the popular culture. That may not be what you intend - you're welcome to wrongfully accuse me of hate mongering, but I will not make any presumptions about your intentions - but that is the reality. A production of "The King and I" in which the Thai people are played by white folks is a production that has erased Asian people. It is as zero sum as that. |
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| re: So MAGA to MEGA - Make Equity Great Again? | |
| Posted by: seenenuf 11:09 am EDT 07/16/18 | |
| In reply to: re: So MAGA to MEGA - Make Equity Great Again? - Singapore/Fling 09:12 pm EDT 07/15/18 | |
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| I am not bemoaning the loss of the opportunity for white people to put on wigs and make-up and play people of color. I totally embrace the notion of anyone playing anyone. I am saying that theatre should be about PLAY. No boundaries, No borders. Theatre allows us to create a world where there are more possibilities. Hence, its great power to teach and educate. If I wanted to produce The King and I, because I love the story, craft, and score and hope to extend its beauty to others, and lived in a community with few Asians, should I not? Should not some school in Thailand produce The Sound of Music? |
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| re: So MAGA to MEGA - Make Equity Great Again? | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 09:45 pm EDT 07/16/18 | |
| In reply to: re: So MAGA to MEGA - Make Equity Great Again? - seenenuf 11:09 am EDT 07/16/18 | |
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| For this conversation, it's important to keep in mind that theater is specific to the location and the culture in which it's made. The theater practice in Thailand has no bearing on our practice in The States, because Thailand and other Southeast Asian nations are operating from a different cultural context than the US and other Western nations that practiced colonialism. We could get into a whole side conversation about how the cultural needs of East Asians are not the same as - and are often diametrically opposed to - the cultural needs of Asian Americans, but that's for another time perhaps. If you live in a community without enough East Asians to perform "The King and I", then, yes, sadly, you should not produce it, unless you can find a way to transplant it to a different time and place than 19th Century Bangkok. In the same way that I'm presuming you wouldn't produce "Porgy and Bess" if you didn't have black or brown people to be in it, you shouldn't do "The King and I" with all white people. One is blackface and the other is yellowface. They are the same thing, and they are historically related to practices that created boundaries and borders that prevented actors of color from having a place in the culture or that seriously limited the access they had. If you are aspiring to a world in which there are no boundaries or borders, then the first job is to create an entirely border free playing field for people of all color, and we are a far way from that in America and the West right now. Performing "The King and I" with white people in make-up sends a message, however subliminally, that Asian bodies are expendable or otherwise unreal. It sends a message that they are imaginary and make believe. That phrase may not strike you as fair, but it is on that many, many people of color would agree with. In respect to their wishes, and in observance of the structural barriers that have prevented people of color from accessing Broadway and Hollywood as easily as white people, the least that we can do is not have white people playing non-white people. Theater should be about PLAY, absolutely, but that PLAY must be channeled in a direction other than race. Let's do "The King and I" in an underwater sea colony, or as a story of Leopards and Lemurs, and PLAY all we want. But don't play Asian people if you're white, at least not right now, and possibly never. |
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| THIS!!! (n/m) | |
| Posted by: showtunesoprano 11:00 am EDT 07/17/18 | |
| In reply to: re: So MAGA to MEGA - Make Equity Great Again? - Singapore/Fling 09:45 pm EDT 07/16/18 | |
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| n/m | |
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