Weird NY School suspension case involving The Vagina Monologues
Mon, 2007-03-12 02:39
#1
Weird NY School suspension case involving The Vagina Monologues
Mon, 2007-03-12 02:39
#2
Here's the story. Eve Ensler, the playwright, will speak to the schoolboard on behalf of the involved students.
[url=http://www.cbc.ca/arts/theatre/story/2007/03/10/vaginamonologues-ensler....
Since when did the word "vagina" become obscene?
How, exactly, does one perform selections from The Vagina Monologues WITHOUT using the word "vagina"?
What would the principal have considered an acceptable alternative title:
"The HOO-HOO Scenes"?
"The Down There Monologues"?
"Crotch Talk"?
Mon, 2007-03-12 03:07
#3
Wow, we wouldn't want "young girls" to hear the word "vagina"!
Here's my question - if you're that concerned about what "young girls" are hearing, then why are you allowing young girls to go watch the show? It's the "vagina monologues"! (Actually, check the article below - as it turns out, there were no young children in the audience anyhow.)
I agree that there are several of the monologues that are not appropriate for young children because they deal with rape and other violence. But that's not about the word "vagina", that's about traumatic subject matter.
I'd love to have seen his face if they'd done the "cunt" dialogue. [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]
[url=http://www.cbc.ca/arts/theatre/story/2007/03/07/students-suspended.html]... earlier article[/url] tells us what the context was for the word:
quote:
The girls took turns reading an excerpt from the play, then said the offending passage together."My short skirt is a liberation flag in the women's army," they read. "I declare these streets, any streets, my vagina's country."
God but I don't miss elementary school and high school, with all the idiot little dictators running around in front of classrooms and in the office. I had some pretty amazing teachers, but I don't think there's a school out there that doesn't have at least a couple of these kind of assholes pulling their petty little power trips over their captives.
[ 12 March 2007: Message edited by: Michelle ]
Mon, 2007-03-12 08:05
#4
Catchfire
[url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6347649.stm]The Hoohaa Monologues rolls off the tongue so much more smoothly...[/url]
quote:
Stage play The Vagina Monologues has been renamed at a theatre in Florida after a complaint about the title.It will be known as The Hoohaa Monologues - a child slang word for the female organ - after a woman in Atlantic Beach complained.
Bryce Pfanenstiel from The Atlantic Theatre told local TV station Channel 4 the woman said she was "offended" when her niece asked her what a vagina was.
Edited to add: I should also add that even if you changed that NY line from "vagina" to something less "offensive," the "My hoohaa's country" line should raise alarm bells to anyone who knows what "country matters" really are. (Hint: say it slowly to yourself)
[ 12 March 2007: Message edited by: Catchfire ]
Mon, 2007-03-12 08:55
#5
Maysie
Goddess of cats what the hell is going on?
I know, I know, I shouldn't be surprised, plus I heard all this anti-woman anti-vagina crap a few years ago when the play was making its rounds here in Canada, and a few years before that, when the book became well-known.
We of course don't need the visionaries in the US to tell us that a woman's body is obscene just as it is. Or that saying the word "vagina" is offensive, but killing and raping women in Iraq and other occupied countries is not.
"Think of the children!" Give me a fucking break. The violence portrayed in an "Itchy and Scratchy" show on the Simpson's is okay for the children, but "vagina" of which, um, half the children are owners of, is not okay?
Mon, 2007-03-12 08:56
#6
M. Spector
[url=http://www.hardbeatnews.com/editor/RTE/my_documents/my_files/details.asp... Powell's daughter to appear in VM[/url]
Mon, 2007-03-12 09:02
#7
quote:
Originally posted by Catchfire:
[b]... anyone who knows what "country matters" really are. (Hint: say it slowly to yourself)
[/b]
Didn't Hamlet say that to Ophelia? The pun is as old as Shakespeare.
Mon, 2007-03-12 11:18
#8
Catchfire
You got it.
Mon, 2007-03-12 14:04
#9
It's hardly even a pun. The two words come from the same linguistic origin, meaning "bountiful opening", so I was told. The connection between them is conceptual and not incidental.
Wed, 2007-03-14 01:56
#10
Does that mean that an Englishman will punch me out if I call him "a stupid bountiful opening"?
Wed, 2007-03-14 02:46
#11
I havn't seen it, but isn't it all about vaginas? So they were allowed to hint about viginas, but not say the word? Is it a state school? sounds like a private religious school to me!
Wed, 2007-03-14 03:42
#12
Yeah, it seems to me that it would be difficult to even credit the writer or the play the excerpts come from without using the dastardly word. I mean, the whole frigging show is called "The VAGINA Monologues"! How did they get around that!?
Wed, 2007-03-14 04:49
#13
Maysie
"The V*****a Monologues"?
Wed, 2007-03-14 07:07
#14
quote:
Is it a state school? sounds like a private religious school to me!
Southlander, this is the USA we're talking about. The differences are very blurred.
Wed, 2007-03-14 14:18
#15
That's really sad.
Back in Acting 10, I performed in a skit that was about a 2000 lb. statue of a phallus that mysteriously appeared on the grounds of a private girls school. It was the most popular skit of the year. [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img] Good times.
[No, there was no prop]
[ 14 March 2007: Message edited by: West Coast Greeny ]
Wed, 2007-03-14 16:35
#16
quote:
Originally posted by Michelle:
[b]Yeah, it seems to me that it would be difficult to even credit the writer or the play the excerpts come from without using the dastardly word.[/b]
" T** V***** M********* B* E** E***** "?
[ 14 March 2007: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]