“People are terrified to
write about other. It’s scary.” (Crowe, 11/10/2014). They often don’t
discuss diversity, and in worse case scenarios don't even acknowledges its
existence or importance. One could make the argument that we are in an era of
diverse stories, plays, and other such media; however, there is a severe lack
in sexual, racial, and economic minority tales being told. There is an
abundance of epic male action movies, a heap of heteronormative love stories,
and one-to-many-for-my-liking dramas about the lifestyles of yore. The issue is
not in the fact that these stories exist, but rather that there is a lack of
anything that diverts from this track of everyday socio-stereotypical tales.
Until artists start to self-produce their own sundry stories; our artistic
culture will not progress.
Before we can begin talking about
advancing, we have to understand how far we have already come as a society when
it comes to diversity and art.
" Coining the
phrase 'the political is personal, the personal is political', the second wave
of women's movement championed to the fight to bring recognition to women's
lives, arguing that our collective experience is a legitimate part of the
American experience." (Seely, Chapter 2 Page 42).
The second wave of feminism, 1960's-1990's,
was a time of huge growth for artists; specifically in marginal communities.
Going hand and hand with the civil rights movement and the equal wage movement,
the second wave crashed on society's shore and washed over its sandy banks of
white-washed feminism. Born from the second wave was the Chicana movement, the womanist
movement, and Title XI. It was the era of Wendy Wasserstein, Tina Howe, and
Westbeth Playwrights Feminist Collective Theatre. There still is a decent sized
following in all women’s theatre today: however they seem to be receiving less
and less mainstream attention. The shows are still running, but no is coming to
see them; mainly, because no one has heard of them. So that leaves the
one-woman show with an audience of four, and this pushes women farther and
farther away from a sustainable career in the arts. Of course, by now our
culture is familiar with the tale of the unhappy housewife or the story of the repressed
darling dame, something in which I have dubbed “The Nora Effect”. From the era
of Ibsen to today: women have not changed in plays, but only our perception of
them. The strong woman has finally become a stereotype.
“The role of stereotypes
is to make visible the invisible, so that there is no danger of it creeping up
on us unawares; and to make fast, firm and spate what is in reality fluid and
much closer to the norm than the dominant value system cares to admit”. (Dyer,
Page 16).
The proud ladies of plays have fallen prey to this
definition. Their iconic radical look has forever been etched into our
culture’s mind and has divided the gender into two types of equally painful
pigeonholes. On one side of the binary, there is the radical feminist with her
“bossy” attitude and her “screw men” monologues that leave nothing but busted
balls and dust in her wake. She is empowered, but she is always on her own. On
the other side is the submissive lady who always leans upon her peers and her
lover, never truly wanting or needing for herself. This binary that our culture
has created leaves out a mass majority of women, those being the gals who
identify as LGBTQ; those who are survivors of domestic-abuse; and those who are
currently in a physical position of suppression whether it be due to location
or religion or any other interlocking system of oppression. As a culture we are
very well aware of the female plight; thanks to third wave feminist groups such
as F*ckRapeCulture, The Third Wave Foundation, and The March for Women’s Lives;
and we attempt to encapsulate it on the screen and on the stage. We are striving
for strong female roles in our entertainment industry. The problem here is
this: Why do we search for the stereotype of a strong woman, rather than just
writing a woman who is strong? This extends far beyond gender as well. We look
for tales to fill our “diversity quota”, but when we search for these stories
we only search for one type.
“My friend Neff. Who is
an African American film maker--- and I have really interesting conversations
with him. He told me he doesn’t want to be seen as an African American film
maker. He doesn’t want to make things about African American people. He just
wants to make movies! He always points out that there are a lot of African
American actors that I like, and he goes ‘of course you do! You like Morgan
Freeman and Viola Davis, who are always playing roles that are friendly to the
white person. The helper, non-threatening roles’ and he’s pointed that out to
me, and I don’t see that without it being pointed out to me. And when he
pointed it out, I started seeing it. And the problem isn’t with these specific
stories per se, the problem is is that those are the only stories. There aren’t
enough voices being heard”. (Crowe, 11/10/2014).
There isn’t a sudden drought of female artists, or those
who are racial and sexual minorities--- so why is it that we aren’t hearing
about them more? For this, I openly blame the producers, the board of
directors, and those who have the position to choose what is seen and heard. In
a survey taken in November of 2012, it was reported that 67% of Board Directors
jobs were occupied by men; Artists Directors took up 64%. Only 24% of directors
employed by theatres during 2011-2012 were women. (Sedghi, TheGaurdian.com).
It is a cycle of oppression, where the people in power keep the power to
those alike them: normally, white-heterosexual-upper-middle-class men in their
mid to late 40’s. Men are not the source root of all evil, but it is shown
throughout history that often times men will hand down power to other men, just
as women would to women. We need to start looking at qualifications, rather
than the qualitative nature of gender and sex.
“There are a lot of
women coming into the arts, I don’t think that’s the problem. I think that women
getting roles that are artistic director, director, or female driven plays-
female written plays: that’s what I want to see happen. Its not that there
aren’t enough women here, its that there aren’t enough women being heard: in
the position of power, to choose what to be seen and produced. To get more
women in power, we sometimes need to take a creative woman and place her in an
administrative place and that’s also taking away her power to create. That’s
difficult.” (Crowe, 11/102014).
However, not all is lost. We are starting to draw attention to
this major issue in our society through film, theatre, and other such media.
Films like The Life and Times of Rosie The Riveter, that document the
untold stories of “five former ‘Rosies’ who movingly recall their histories
working in Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco.” (Clarity
Films). Plays as well have joined in on bring light to such a dark subject.
Plays like The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler and Anton In Show
Business by Jane Martin; who discuss what it is to be a woman in theatre as
well as discuss the different ways women are viewed in media. However these are
only a few plays in a sea of media that is only viewed in monochromatic shades.
These plays pose a question and give us no answer. They open up the
conversation, and it is up to us as a culture to converse.
“T-ANNE:…If I didn’t do the plays that offended my
color or politics or sex or religion or taste, I’d be shit out of work.” (Martin,
Page 32).
It is up to us to share our unique stories and follow in
the footsteps of our second-wave mothers. We must start a new flood of
accounts, anecdotes, narratives, and novels and swim in a pool of diversity
that we must create.
“People are terrified to
write about other. It’s scary. If you’re a man and you want to write a strong
female character? You try and you get it wrong, I bet there will be ten women
in your class telling you how you got it wrong… or if you’re middle-class and
writing about Detroit’s economic crumble: you are gonna find people telling you
that you don’t know and questioning your right to write about it. We want more
roles and representation, but at the same time the people who are writing are
scared because of they don’t get it right, it’s just as big as a foul of not
getting it at all. So we need to encourage the inclusion of people: more
representation. (Crowe, 11/10/2014).
We are scared to write
other, but I think the time has come for us to stop being afraid.
Bibliography: Works Cited
Crowe,
Rani. Interview by Hayley Michelle Trachtenberg. 10 Nov. 2014.
Dyer, Richard. "The
Role of Stereotypes." The Matter of Images: Essays on Representation
(1993): 11-18. Print.
Martin, Jane. Anton
In Show Business. New York: Samuel French, 2000. Print.
Phenix, Lucy, dir. The
Life and Times of Rosie The Riveter. Prod. Connie Field. Clarity Films,
1980. Film.
Sedghi, Ami. "Women
in Theatre: How the '2:1 Problem' Breaks Down." The Guardian 10
Dec. 2012: n. pag. Web. 16 Nov. 2014. <http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/dec/10/women-in-theatre-research-full-results>.
Seely, Megan. Fight Like A Girl: How
to be a Fearless Feminist. New York: New York.
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