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| re: And now I hope we can all look forward to a male-male kiss during the Macy's parade telecast someday | |
| Last Edit: Singapore/Fling 04:23 pm EST 11/23/18 | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 04:13 pm EST 11/23/18 | |
| In reply to: And now I hope we can all look forward to a male-male kiss during the Macy's parade telecast someday - Michael_Portantiere 04:00 pm EST 11/23/18 | |
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| And yet, the American theater has been far more comfortable putting gay stories on stage than lesbian stories. The cannon of lesbian plays is quite shallow, and it wasn't until a few years ago that we had our first musical that foreground lesbian love and existence. This may not be your intention, but I would hate to take away from lesbians finally getting their due by complaining about women having or doing something that men don't or haven't. | |
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| re: And now I hope we can all look forward to a male-male kiss during the Macy's parade telecast someday | |
| Posted by: SRMHAYES 12:07 am EST 11/26/18 | |
| In reply to: re: And now I hope we can all look forward to a male-male kiss during the Macy's parade telecast someday - Singapore/Fling 04:13 pm EST 11/23/18 | |
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| One "n" in "canon" in this usage, please. We aren't trying to blow anything up! ;-) | |
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| re: And now I hope we can all look forward to a male-male kiss during the Macy's parade telecast someday | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 04:42 pm EST 11/23/18 | |
| In reply to: re: And now I hope we can all look forward to a male-male kiss during the Macy's parade telecast someday - Singapore/Fling 04:13 pm EST 11/23/18 | |
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| "And yet, the American theater has been far more comfortable putting gay stories on stage than lesbian stories. The cannon of lesbian plays is quite shallow, and it wasn't until a few years ago that we had our first musical that foreground lesbian love and existence. This may not be your intention, but I would hate to take away from lesbians finally getting their due by complaining about women having or doing something that men don't or haven't." Not only wasn't it my intention, it wasn't what I wrote. I didn't "complain" at all, and you completely misunderstood my point. Also, you spelled "canon" wrong. I'm not even sure your statement that "American theater has been far more comfortable putting gay stories on stage than lesbian stories" is correct. Did you just write that off the top of your head, or have you made a list? If there is an inequality here, I don't think it's a very large one. I can think of several well-known plays and musicals with lesbian characters, including one of the first major portrayals of gay (or possibly gay) characters on stage, THE CHILDREN'S HOUR. |
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| re: And now I hope we can all look forward to a male-male kiss during the Macy's parade telecast someday | |
| Posted by: SRMHAYES 12:10 am EST 11/26/18 | |
| In reply to: re: And now I hope we can all look forward to a male-male kiss during the Macy's parade telecast someday - Michael_Portantiere 04:42 pm EST 11/23/18 | |
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| "Nine". | |
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| re: And now I hope we can all look forward to a male-male kiss during the Macy's parade telecast someday | |
| Last Edit: BroadwayTonyJ 02:00 pm EST 11/24/18 | |
| Posted by: BroadwayTonyJ 01:59 pm EST 11/24/18 | |
| In reply to: re: And now I hope we can all look forward to a male-male kiss during the Macy's parade telecast someday - Michael_Portantiere 04:42 pm EST 11/23/18 | |
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| Another famous play with lesbian characters is the '64 The Killing of Sister George. In the pre-code movie era there are some pretty shocking scenes depicting lesbian activity in films. Two that I can think of off the top of my head are Queen Christina (1933) in which Greta Garbo kisses Elizabeth Allan full on the lips and The Sign of the Cross (1932) where Joyzelle begins to remove Elissa Landi's clothing, dances around her, and touches her intimately while Fredric March watches and is obviously aroused. Years later in the movies lesbian attraction had to be depicted more subtly, generally by a glance or a look, e.g., in Caged (1950) by Hope Emerson and Lee Patrick and in Walk on the Wild Side by Barbara Stanwyck. | |
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| re: And now I hope we can all look forward to a male-male kiss during the Macy's parade telecast someday | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 09:19 pm EST 11/24/18 | |
| In reply to: re: And now I hope we can all look forward to a male-male kiss during the Macy's parade telecast someday - BroadwayTonyJ 01:59 pm EST 11/24/18 | |
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| "Another famous play with lesbian characters is the '64 The Killing of Sister George." Yes, thanks, I thought of that one after I posted. |
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| re: And now I hope we can all look forward to a male-male kiss during the Macy's parade telecast someday | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 05:25 pm EST 11/23/18 | |
| In reply to: re: And now I hope we can all look forward to a male-male kiss during the Macy's parade telecast someday - Michael_Portantiere 04:42 pm EST 11/23/18 | |
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| It may not have been your intention, as I acknowleged, but it is there in the subtext. And I might be more gracious to your denial that this was in the background of what you wrote if your reply wasn't built around attempts to belittle my authority to write on the subject. Where you might consider the ways in which men have an advantage in the theater, instead you further attempt to discredit the idea of a structural imbalance by denying my claim, rather than making a meaningful attempt at bolstering your own point of view. I am not familiar with "The Children's Hour", and I will acknowledge that I wasn't looking too far back into the past, where we have more veiled treatments of sexuality. I was looking at post-Stonewall plays in which gay and lesbian characters are out and proud. I can run off a whole list of gay plays that have been celebrated and put on Broadway (often multiple times, in the case of "Torch Song", and "Angels in America", or at least in the form of a major NY revival, as in "The Boys in the Band" and "The Normal Heart"), but when it comes to lesbian stories, the plays of major standing that come to mind are "Stop Kiss", which only played Off-Broadway and has not had a significant revival, and "Indecent". When we consider that latter play alongside "Fun Home", "The Prom", one of the storylines from "Head Over Heels", and the upcoming "Lempicka" (presuming it makes it to New York), we're starting to see a parity of these stories alongside gay stories (yay), but it is a recent phenomenon. I'm sure that there are some plays I'm not remembering (I guess we could include the Don Nguyen play at Playwrights Realm last year, and of course there is Alexa Junge's adaptation of "Fingersmiths" that is bouncing around the regions), but I could easily rattle off another 30 - 40 gay plays, as well as writers whose entire careers have been dedicated to telling gay stories or putting gay culture on stage at significant venues (Terrence McNally, Nicky Silver, Tarell Alvin McCraney). Perhaps I'm not paying enough attention to the lesbian canon (writing on my laptop now, so typos are less likely to happen, but thank you for the note), but I can't think of nearly as many plays or playwrights that have been engaging in these issues in a meaningful way. And that last note is the most important one. Yes, there are some plays that have put lesbians on stage as characters, but they have not necessarily been driving the story or existing at the center of the story. So while the lesbians in "Falsettos" are emotionally compelling and elevate the storytelling, they aren't necessarily present enough to be included in my list of lesbian plays. |
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| re: And now I hope we can all look forward to a male-male kiss during the Macy's parade telecast someday | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 06:31 pm EST 11/23/18 | |
| In reply to: re: And now I hope we can all look forward to a male-male kiss during the Macy's parade telecast someday - Singapore/Fling 05:25 pm EST 11/23/18 | |
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| "It may not have been your intention, as I acknowleged, but it is there in the subtext." It is not in the "subtext." You created that subtext in your own mind. Please re-read what I wrote -- or not. "And I might be more gracious to your denial that this was in the background of what you wrote if your reply wasn't built around attempts to belittle my authority to write on the subject." Whatever degree of authority you have on the subject has nothing to do with the fact that you completely misinterpreted and mis-characterized what I wrote. "Where you might consider the ways in which men have an advantage in the theater, instead you further attempt to discredit the idea of a structural imbalance by denying my claim, rather than making a meaningful attempt at bolstering your own point of view." Here again, men having an advantage in the theater has zero to do with what I originally wrote. I will repeat: I have often seen it written and heard it expressed that the general audience of non-gay people has a far greater problem with male-on-male kisses than female-on-female kisses in movies, plays, etc. I think this is very true as a general statement, and it doesn't take an expert in social studies or gender/sexual orientation studies to understand why. So while I wrote and will repeat that the lesbian kiss in the PROM number telecast as part of the Macy's Thanksgiving parade was "all kinds of wonderful," I simply remarked that I don't believe it challenged many non-gay viewers to quite the same degree that a male-male kiss in the Macy's Thanksgiving parade would have, and I stand by my statement that such a kiss will be another major milestone when it happens. |
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| re: And now I hope we can all look forward to a male-male kiss during the Macy's parade telecast someday | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 06:36 pm EST 11/24/18 | |
| In reply to: re: And now I hope we can all look forward to a male-male kiss during the Macy's parade telecast someday - Michael_Portantiere 06:31 pm EST 11/23/18 | |
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| You're right that I didn't give you the benefit of the doubt, and for that I apologize. What I should have written was that you seemed to be suggesting that women had an easier road to having a kiss on the parade, which seems unfair. While it might be true that they were able to clear that final hurdle, it has taken them far, far longer to gain a presence as leading characters in their own stories in mainstream theater as compared to gays (which I take it you agree with). I judged your intention unfairly, but I still bristled at an action which seemed to minimize the achievement of lesbian stories in theater. They've had a longer road than we have, and an achievement for them is an achievement for all of us. |
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| re: And now I hope we can all look forward to a male-male kiss during the Macy's parade telecast someday | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 09:17 pm EST 11/24/18 | |
| In reply to: re: And now I hope we can all look forward to a male-male kiss during the Macy's parade telecast someday - Singapore/Fling 06:36 pm EST 11/24/18 | |
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| Thank you for clarifying. I did not in any way intend to minimize the achievement of lesbian theater stories in theater. For what it's worth, I do believe that it was a SOMEWHAT easier road to having a female/female kiss on the parade than a male/male kiss, but only SOMEWHAT easier. And that is not to imply "easy," as we have since read of the negative reactions, which are sad but not surprising. | |
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| re: And now I hope we can all look forward to a male-male kiss during the Macy's parade telecast someday | |
| Posted by: sirpupnyc 01:28 am EST 11/24/18 | |
| In reply to: re: And now I hope we can all look forward to a male-male kiss during the Macy's parade telecast someday - Michael_Portantiere 06:31 pm EST 11/23/18 | |
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| A substantial subset of straight men look at two women kissing and think "That's hot, I want to get in on that." A substantial(ly overlapping) subset of straight men look at two men kissing and think "Ewww, penis!" |
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| re: And now I hope we can all look forward to a male-male kiss during the Macy's parade telecast someday | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 10:57 am EST 11/24/18 | |
| In reply to: re: And now I hope we can all look forward to a male-male kiss during the Macy's parade telecast someday - sirpupnyc 01:28 am EST 11/24/18 | |
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| "A substantial subset of straight men look at two women kissing and think 'That's hot, I want to get in on that.' A substantial(ly overlapping) subset of straight men look at two men kissing and think 'Ewww, penis!'" Yes, that's part of it. Although it is also said that many straight women find male-male kisses in movies, etc. to be romantic and hot, while many men are disgusted by them. I believe there's even a joke about this in the movie of JEFFREY, or it might be in the movie IN AND OUT. |
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