Two recent stories have got me thinking about these things this week...

First, the "women-only" screenings of Wonder Woman. I understand that an oppressed minority celebrating themselves is really not that big of a deal to most of us, but my sense of fair play makes me wonder why this is okay...Women-only screenings are, by definition, sexist. How would it be perceived if there were, say, men-only screenings of "Fight Club?"

How is one different than the other? Should we care, or is this a brouhaha over nothing?

****

Second, that a production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? fell apart after the Edward Albee estate refused to allow the casting of a black actor in a key role.

Director Michael Streeter, working within a theater company in Oregon, had intended to use an actor of color in the role of Nick but posted on Facebook that he was “furious and dumbfounded” after being denied the rights.

“The Edward Albee estate needs to join the 21st century,” he wrote. Streeter also added: “There are valid arguments to not cast Nick as black. I believe the positives outweigh the negatives. The Albee Estate does not agree.”

A memo sent by Sam Rudy, representing the estate, to Streeter claimed that he was in “gross violation of standard agreements” for reportedly promoting the play without first obtaining rights. But Rudy also goes on to explain why a black actor would not be suitable for the role.

“...it is important to note that Mr. Albee wrote Nick as a caucasian character, whose blonde hair and blue eyes are remarked on frequently in the play, even alluding to Nick’s likeness as that of an Aryan of Nazi racial ideology,” he writes. “Furthermore, Mr Albee himself said on numerous occasions when approached with requests for non-traditional casting in productions of Virginia Woolf? that a mixed-race marriage between a caucasian and an African American would not have gone unacknowledged in conversations in that time and place and under the circumstances in which the play is expressly set by textual references in the 1960s.”

I think the Albee Estate has a point. Could you imagine a production of A Raisin in the Sun casting a white actor in the role of Walter Lee Younger?

Now, some might say that the latter play is about the "black experience," and so it would be ridiculous to cast anyone but a black actor in that role. That Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe is not necessarily about race at all, and that it wouldn't matter what color an actor is...

What do you guys think?

What is our responsibility to showcase an artist's work as initially intended?

This is also makes me remember the controversy over a publishing house releasing a new print of Huckleberry Finn with the word <N-word> replaced with the word "Slave." I found this to be reprehensible, because by changing that word, you are changing what Mark Twain was trying to portray in that book.

Or am I being unsympathetic, and possibly racist, to people of color with this attitude?

I find the Wonder Woman case to be different than your other two examples in that the Wonder Woman women's only showing is a marketing ploy and unrelated to sexism in art.

The Wonder Woman situation is more comparable to ladies nights at your local bar.

I agree, but i'm seeing some outrage and push-back about this from men, calling it sexist...it IS sexist. So is charging women less money for drinks at a bar - but so what? Should we care about this or not?

I am more irked by the usage of politically correct veneers for profit than the inherent sexism.

I don't think it's a big deal, but it sure seems like these screenings violate public accommodations laws.

With ladies nite type promos it used to bother me because it is sexist and promotes discrimination BUT men often benefit in some ways from it as well like more women show up to the bars, more females playing poker, etc

In the end its not a big deal to me anymore.

I wonder when gay men are going to start hollering discrimination because they cant attend
men stripper shows that are females only allowed to watch .:eek

Reading more on this, it seems this is happening in the city I live, a city which resides in a state that just passed the bathroom bill.

I wonder how many crossdressing trolls are going to show up.

Oppression? Women in America have more legal rights than men, but...

The problem seems to be more about the explicit rules than the implicit rules, but either way, creating divisions for absolutely no good reason isn't good.

We don't live in a country where women should feel "threatened" by the presence of men. That constant dialog and encouragement of those beliefs truly bother me. I know that studies say this or studies say that, but the reality is far different from the perception, and we should really be trying to promote unity instead.

I think that the majority of people don't care. I grew up as a 3% white, had mainly minority friends growing up, etc. To be honest, they don't care and think white people are silly with this trash.

This doesn't ignore the fact that there are people who are too far gone and openly promote hatred of others, but that's not really a function of race (racism points in all directions), but a function of figuring out who Big Brother is.

If Twain and Albee are too complex for the common person to understand, wouldn't it be a better to educate them properly rather than cowtow to their ignorance?

But the play seems a little more strange. I don't know what the director's intent was. If he was planning to explore the dissonance of altered casting and how it affects the mood of the play, then I see that as artistic exploration and possibly parody, but if he was doing it just to be more politically correct, then I'm kind of not sure about it. The difference is minor, but it depends on your belief system about art, which is:

Is art "owned" by a certain segment of the population or is it simply a living, breathing thing that can be updated to reflect modern times, regardless of the hidden truth or apparent sensitivities the original artist was trying to show us?

Personally, I think there is room for many interpretations, but I think that art shouldn't be updated for absolutely no reason. In some ways, I'm a purist, but I demand a new perspective, although I accept my personal perspective doesn't agree with everyone else.

I wonder...

http://www.startribune.com/some-wome...man/424794443/

All I know is there were too many damn white people in that La La Land movie.

Kioshk, without white people in LaLa Land, how would jazz have come about?

I am not sure how racism is involved in the Mark Twain case. Seems mostly a censorship issue for books used in classroom settings.

Though I think the word should have been removed if they wanted a clean version. Replacement with slave doesn't change the original text any less.

Been a long time since I read Huckleberry Finn, but here's an interesting thing from wikipedia:

To highlight the hypocrisy required to condone slavery within an ostensibly moral system, Twain has Huck's father enslave his son, isolate him, and beat him. When Huck escapes – which anyone would agree was the right thing to do – he then immediately encounters Jim "illegally" doing the same thing. The treatment both of them receive are radically different especially with an encounter with Mrs. Judith Loftus who takes pity on who she presumes to be a runaway apprentice, Huck, yet boasts about her husband sending the hounds after a runaway slave, Jim.

The entire book is a knock on Southern attitudes for the time the story takes place. It is a brutal and ugly mirror, but the language does serve a purpose. We, as people the language isn't directed at, feel uncomfortable, and that says a lot about the book's deeper meaning.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advent...n#Major_themes

Every time I see one of these threads/discussions on 2p2 my first thought is always, 'I wonder what percentage of the people posting in this thread are not white males' ? Then when I remember that the answer is somewhere between 0% - a very small minority % I proceed to lol and take most of what's written with a grain of salt.

I won't out the posters, but your percentage needs to be adjusted a lot to accommodate the non-white and non-male.

That you think about the race/gender of the poster before the merits of his/her arguments should tell you much of your own prejudice.

Sorry, you're completely wrong about the 2nd paragraph. ****** Jim is the character's name. It changes everything.

My original post is badly worded and unclear. My point is that changing it to "slave Jim" is not much different than changing it to just "Jim".

Keeping the original would be ideal.

That's just the point though, how much merit can a white man's argument have when it's concerning racial minorities or women, and he has never once personally experienced the things they've experienced yet feels qualified to talk on them in detail and at length.

How much merit would you give to an argument about what an American football team should do for it's next move tradewise to a European who has never once watched a single game of Ameican football?

Who is making the argument has quite a lot of relavence on it's general merit sir, it really does.

You can call me prejudice for saying so if you'd like, but you'd be using the word incorrectly.

So in your opinion, Lincoln had nothing useful to say about racism.

I grew up in the hood. If you don't know what that means, I'm glad of your ignorance and I'm not here to explain it to you.

Come on man, 2p2 is hardly a bastian of diversity. The majority of it's posters are most definitely both white and male, and if we want to go further down the list I feel pretty confident in saying that most are probably cis gendered and hetero sexual as well. I'm not saying they're bad people because of the things they are naturally, but for damn sure we know only a small portion of the total community here is female and from what I've seen in every poker game I've ever sat in ain't too large of a black community represented either.

A decent portion of Asians represented I'll grant you that, but even there although they may not be white they are rarely the minority group being discussed in such threads so I feel like the gist of my point still stands.


We can waste time nitpicking over exact percentages if you really want to, but the majority of the 2p2 community is definitely white males.

And you think that because of that your experiences were exactly the same as the black guys who also grew up in the hood? You genuinely believe that.

Once again, not here to educate you.

So if the only experience one is qualified to discuss is the experience of one's own race, then how are we to come to a concensus with regards to race?

Are male to female transgendered individuals qualified to talk about women's rights?