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re: NYT: Yes, Some Musicals Are Unwoke. That’s Not a Writ to Rewrite Them.
Posted by: singleticket 06:54 pm EST 02/16/22
In reply to: NYT: Yes, Some Musicals Are Unwoke. That’s Not a Writ to Rewrite Them. - MockingbirdGirl 09:14 pm EST 02/15/22

I actually like what Billy Porter is quoted as saying about "In the Life". It seems like an insight that might make a revisal more powerful and not less.

I'm wary of McWhorter's critique of anti-racism. It's certainly seductive because the largely elitist (and largely white) institutional orthodoxy on anti-racism was due for a drubbing by critics of color. There's a lot of antipathy towards the contemporary jargon of anti-racism in communities of color. Eric Adams' victory is a good example of it. Yet at the same time, I'm seeing more pieces by BIPOC critics of left anti-racism in elite publications like the NYT's and the New York Review of Books (I just read a stunning one in the NYRB about Frantz Fanon) and I don't know quite what to make of it.
Link Has Anti-Racism Become as Harmful as Racism? John McWhorter vs. Nikhil Singh
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re: NYT: Yes, Some Musicals Are Unwoke. That’s Not a Writ to Rewrite Them.
Posted by: libbymaebrown 11:03 am EST 02/17/22
In reply to: re: NYT: Yes, Some Musicals Are Unwoke. That’s Not a Writ to Rewrite Them. - singleticket 06:54 pm EST 02/16/22

Ooooh, I'll bite--what is the Frantz Fanon book you read? I am interested...
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re: NYT: Yes, Some Musicals Are Unwoke. That’s Not a Writ to Rewrite Them.
Last Edit: singleticket 12:34 pm EST 02/17/22
Posted by: singleticket 12:32 pm EST 02/17/22
In reply to: re: NYT: Yes, Some Musicals Are Unwoke. That’s Not a Writ to Rewrite Them. - libbymaebrown 11:03 am EST 02/17/22

It was Kwame Anthony Appiah's review in the New York Review of Books of a new translation of "Wretched of the Earth". It was a near complete assault on Fanon and his very wide influence on post-colonialist and anti-racist thought.
Link How Frantz Fanon came to view violence as therapy.
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re: NYT: Yes, Some Musicals Are Unwoke. That’s Not a Writ to Rewrite Them.
Posted by: Pokernight 07:16 pm EST 02/16/22
In reply to: re: NYT: Yes, Some Musicals Are Unwoke. That’s Not a Writ to Rewrite Them. - singleticket 06:54 pm EST 02/16/22

FINIAN'S RAINBOW is most unwoke, but has such a marvelous score. I have the DVD of the film version, and nothing beats Al Freeman, Jr. delivering a mint julep. Brilliant.
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re: NYT: Yes, Some Musicals Are Unwoke. That’s Not a Writ to Rewrite Them.
Last Edit: singleticket 07:21 pm EST 02/16/22
Posted by: singleticket 07:20 pm EST 02/16/22
In reply to: re: NYT: Yes, Some Musicals Are Unwoke. That’s Not a Writ to Rewrite Them. - Pokernight 07:16 pm EST 02/16/22

I love FINIAN'S RAINBOW as well but I wouldn't say it was un-woke... I would say it is an anti-racist musical from 1947. Blackface has been historically used by a lot of white left critics of racism in theater pieces... whether that's an appropriate thing to do is another question.
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Tell that to YIP
Posted by: stevemr 09:43 am EST 02/17/22
In reply to: re: NYT: Yes, Some Musicals Are Unwoke. That’s Not a Writ to Rewrite Them. - singleticket 07:20 pm EST 02/16/22

YIP Harburg would certainly take issue with the suggestion that Finian is un-woke. But I'm sure he'd come up with a marvelous rhyme using semi-made up words to respond.
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