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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   30268 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 1, 2024

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So there's a musical on Broadway, called Suffs, about the Women's Suffrage Movement in the US in the 1910s. It won a couple Tony's last month (https://playbill.com/article/shaina-taub-wins-best-original-score-at-2024-tony-awards-for-suffs). Alas, even the stage is not immune from impromptu protests, as a far-left group of demonstrators interrupted the show and unfurled a banner for approximately 20 seconds before being escorted out. (https://apnews.com/article/suffs-disrupted-broadway-whitewash-05c6df87a220c253b66807f312948a80).

The group's website (https://www.cancelsuffs.com) alleges that the show is whitewashing the history of the suffrage movement. They point out two historical main characters Alice Paul and Carrie Chapman Catt excluded Black women from the NWP and believe white supremacy would be strengthened by the movement. They also bring up Woodrow Wilson's efforts to segregate the federal government and his screening of The Birth of a Nation while the suffrage movement was still ongoing. They also suggest that the 19th Amendment opened the door to women-centered factions of the KKK.

Has anyone here seen the musical? What are everyone's thoughts about the depiction of controversial historical events as entertainment? Is there any merit to this far-left group's position?

I imagine the motive here is to further deny the white public from admiring their supremacy in any way. It is a reminder that you can’t have white heroes or stories, not in the foundation of the Republic (what we saw a few years ago) and not even in the misguided women’s rights movement, and certainly not in pseudohistorical entertainment (Bridgerton, Hamilton). You have to let them know that every white achievement is stained in blood and evilness. So to have a musical — the culture of the wealthy liberal base — extol heroic white women is a faux pas that must be balanced by blackening their reputation. Expect an update story and cast in future productions. At least to me this genuinely has the most predictive power for which things are criticized and altered. It’s not actually about purity spiraling, as we know (for instance) that MLK was a pro-rape plagiarist [2]. There won’t seriously be change to the connotation of MLK because of this.

So to have a musical — the culture of the wealthy liberal base — extol heroic white women is a faux pas that must be balanced by blackening their reputation.

I think there is some merit to the opinion that a Broadway musical is not an appropriate venue to tell such controversial stories. It's am entertainment product, first and foremost. It exists to make money before anything else. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to put such a show on as a truly non-fictional retelling at a museum or non-profit cultural center, where they have staff that can evaluate the script, characters and cast, sets, music etc. to be period correct and sensitive to context.

Women's suffrage is controversial?

Controversial in the sense that its history not exactly cut and dry. It's certainly not controversial that all women should have the right to vote.

I guess that depends on the group of people your asking. On this website? Probably a bit. Within the general public not at all.

Normies will say stuff about race before they express opposition to women's suffrage.

I would agree. I would also assert that while a lot of normies are more racially aware than is PC to admit I don't think there is any hidden opposition to women's suffrage in a significant amount of people. (IE I can't imagine <5% of the population seriously think women shouldn't vote) I could be wrong about that but I don't think that I am.

You also have to factor in people with alternative ideas to universal suffrage that aren't about taking the vote away from women but would effectively lead to that for the vast majority of women in practice. I.e. those who support the idea of limiting the franchise to those who are net tax contributors.

Male normie republicans will, after a drink or two, admit they think women's suffrage was a failed experiment to a friend, in private, about half the time. So maybe low double digit percentage of the population at the high end? Definitely a much smaller one than will openly advise a young woman not to date black men because they'll beat her, or who don't trust homosexuals near children, or who think the government did 9/11 to take our rights away.

Male normie republicans will, after a drink or two, admit they think women's suffrage was a failed experiment to a friend, in private, about half the time.

Maybe this is a regional thing? I am from the northeast and know more than a few people who have and share with me some, let's call them, charged opinions and even they don't think that. In my experience "women shouldn't have rights" is an opinion that exists solely in the reactionary corners of the internet vs IRL.

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I'm taking a history of modern (well, post-1600) theater class right now, so come back in a week or two and I'll have something more specific to say about this! My initial impression of what we've talked about so far in class is that telling controversial stories was in fact a central component of at least one modern theater movement, but overall, the history of Broadway seems to be more rooted in American melodrama more than anything else, of which your opinion is a fairly typical representation. So that's a fair take. But more broadly, "making money" and "entertainment first" are not general theatrical principles, and they tend to be more American-specific than universal. What form and content these kind of performing arts have taken and included is usually more closely linked with what society is going through.

For example, there's this fascinating history in England of a few successive movements and genres that reflect the anxieties, restrictions, and feelings of the era. You had Puritans take over for a while who absolutely and passionately loathed theater, and then when the monarchy was kinda-sorta restored and theater was legal again, you had a few interesting things happen. One, you had people who were tired of the super-strict puritan stuff as well as civil war, they wanted happy endings. So several Shakespeare plays were rewritten to have happy endings (Lear survives, Romeo and Juliet are together, etc). They also let women start to act, and "restoration comedy" ended up getting quite raunchy. Then, Enlightenment ideas start to become all the rage. You had this result in some "comedy of manners" and related genres, where plays started reflecting things like "marriage is a social construct/contract". Also, you get "sentimental comedy" as a sort of backlash against the excesses of restoration comedy, where they really weren't very funny but were often set up as a means of preaching moral lessons to people to make better choices. But wait! Enlightenment ideas started to lead to some crazy revolutions and unrest, paired with the beginnings of industrialization and urbanization. Cue Romanticism! Now we're back to emotion over intellect, instinct over reason, basically angst about Enlightenment ideas that seemingly made a mess of things. Shakespeare makes another comeback, plots grow more fantastical again, and this dovetails with advancements in the spectacle and technical side of the stage and increasing popularity.

It is only within that context of changing ideas of "why should I watch theater" and "who should watch theater" (which are extensive and beyond the brief overview here) that soon melodrama was born. In fact what would later become musicals first became popular because, bizarrely, in England for a long time only two (and a third in the summer) theater companies were licensed to do theater, and other play performances were illegal. Yet this only applied to spoken text, so if they threw in some songs here and there, it no longer counted as a banned play, but instead something, uh totally different. Yes your honor, totally different. As another side-note, technically an entire field called "dramaturgy" exists and is exactly what you describe where scripts, cast, sets, etc. are evaluated in context! These people are often attached to theater companies directly, though there are also some in academia, etc. How much they are employed or utilized, well this depends. However, they exist already within the theater community, so this idea that "oh that's the nonprofit realm, get away from my entertainment" is not very accurate.

I think there is some merit to the opinion that a Broadway musical is not an appropriate venue to tell such controversial stories.

This is that ship, sailing away at high speed.

To me, that's an exception to the rule. Hamilton has a diverse cast and a unique style of music (and written by a non-caucasian man) that made it extremely marketable.

I don’t quite understand your position here. To summarize, a Broadway musical might not be an appropriate venue for a controversial story, unless the cast and author are non-white, in which case it’s okay because it will make a lot of sales. If the cast and authors are all white, the play should be relegated to a museum, where the story can be told with sensitivity (i.e., told in a way that makes its worst critics happy), regardless of profitability.

You seem to be subtly merging two different criteria (ethical and financial) to judge whether a play is appropriate to perform on Broadway. No one would disagree that an unpopular play shouldn’t be performed on Broadway; the question is whether a financially successful play that upsets leftists should be allowed to be performed. In other words, the question is one of censorship, not popularity.

There's been immense/intense backlash in the decade since, though.

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