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(12/10/15 4:12am)
I’ve been trying to write an article about my experience watching Clickshare (the faculty-produced show written by Midd alum Lucas Kavner ’06.5) last Wednesday night. I left the play feeling isolated, frustrated, and shaken. While my peers laughed I found myself more and more disturbed by the choices both the playwright and the director made in the construction of this story. Since Wednesday night, however, I have had many different conversations — including a conversation with the director — which have shifted my understanding of those choices. I have talked to people who think the play is brilliant, to people who were as uncomfortable as I was, and to those who could understand my feelings but did not mirror their intensity. And so, instead of writing a burning piece filled with self-righteous fury, which I was inclined to do, I am going to present some thoughts that will hopefully lead to important questions and conversations. It’s important to know that I don’t present these thoughts lightly. I present them because they are vitally important to justice and equity in our community and our world.
I have written many iterations of this letter, and I think the best way to start this conversation will be to focus on just one of my concerns regarding the play. This concern was born out of the choice to cast a man in the role of Milano, a role that was originally written for a woman. Throughout the show, Milano is referred to using “she/her” pronouns; the actor (Alexander Burnett, ’16) wore a long dress and wig, presenting as feminine. I was extremely curious and concerned about this choice. Throughout the course of conversations about the play, I have heard several reasons posed for that choice. Some thought that it was simply funnier that way. Humor is important, but what about a man wearing woman’s clothing is so funny to us? That feels crude at best, at worst overtly sexist and transphobic. Professor Draper, the director, told me that casting Burnett gave Milano a formidability and age that would be harder to capture with a 20-year old actress. This was a reason that made sense to me, and was fascinating from a gender perspective, as in many places post-menstrual women (middle-aged women) are given traditionally male roles (in some ways, seen as men). Another reason given was that Burnett’s portrayal gave a certain bizarreness to the character; again, I must ask why that is true, and what that means in how we understand those in our community and in the broader world who have what might be understood as “non-normative” relationships with gender. Draper also suggested to me that Milano was not in fact a woman, but a man who chose to present as a woman. He then clarified that Milano was not in “drag.” As we spoke further, it became clear that the complexity of a statement like that, and the complexity of the way gender operates as an identity category in general, was missing from the conversation.
My concern is rooted in the story that is most often told about transwomen in popular narratives, which is that they are men “pretending” to be women, that they are deceptive, that they are “bizarre,” and most importantly, that if they are not these things, it is because they “look like women” (ie, they have boobs, a vagina, and a traditionally feminine face). At best, this is extremely invalidating and disrespectful. At worst, narratives like these contribute to the 21 transwomen killed in the United States just this year. My concern is that the Middlebury theater department entered into a conversation that they were not fully equipped to have, and they lacked the information to know what questions they should be asking in the first place.
I think as artists, we spend a lot of time talking about how powerful our work can be as an agent of “good.” Music heals, theater transforms, stories will save us. I believe this completely. But I don’t think we spend enough time talking about the ways art can destroy. We don’t spend enough time fearing how easily we tell stories that are oppressive, that conform to mainstream narratives of who is valuable, who is loveable, who is in power, who can be a hero, who can be a villain, and who will always lose. And sometimes, when we are trying to tell a story that will break down walls and reconstruct the world, or when we are trying to bring a story that was shoved to the back forward to the light, we lose something in the subtleties and completely mess up. But when we mess up, people get hurt. Maybe not physically, maybe not even today, but in small and meaningful ways. So I appreciate that Clickshare complicated notions of gender in their play. I hope in the future, they come better equipped and with a little more caution.
(12/03/15 2:12am)
Signs directed the way to the Bunker in Freeman International Center as audience members made their way to the premiere of Roadkill, the senior work of Tosca Giustini ’15.5 and Leah Sarbib ’15.5. Running from Nov. 19-21, the devised play explores four different friends’ connections to a girl named Lindsey McPherson, described by Giustini as “a reflection of the other characters, their hopes and desires.” At various points throughout the play, each character shares stories about their relationship with this girl, all of which are sexual or romantic in some way.
The story takes place in a world that producer and director Giustini called “a heightened representation of our media’s obsession with sex.” While the main action follows four friends, played by Kathleen Gudas ’16.5, Lorena Neira ’17, Will Lupica ’18 and Kean Haunt ’17, on a road trip to New York City, the underlying socio-cultural commentary unfolded through recordings created by Sarbib. If these recordings sounded familiar, it is because they were written and recorded in the style of their inspirations, which included the organization Christian Mothers Against Masturbation, literotica based on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, an NPR segment and more.
Sarbib referred to scenes featuring the recordings as “unreality scenes,” since they offered “a good way to make the points that we couldn’t make with the characters and a good way to preserve some of the work we did with the actors in rehearsal.”
The set was cleverly constructed, with metal poles forming the car in which the majority of the play takes place. When four of the characters get in a car accident near the end of the show, the actors meticulously disassembled the metal pieces, transforming the skeleton into a wreck at their feet. Small white pieces of paper decorated the floor, enabling the performers to create a dream-like atmosphere as they tossed them into the air.
Throughout the show, Lindsey McPherson, played by Caitlyn Meager ’17, represents and articulates taboos and myths of sexuality. From everyone else’s point of view, her character is all-knowing and constantly in control. She has also caused her friends a great deal of frustration and anger, leading them to finally confront her at a club in New York City. In this way, the car ride becomes a space of empowerment for the other four characters.
For the audience, these confrontations, while harsh, felt necessary and real. After all, these are people recognizing their hurt and claiming that they deserve better. But once Lindsey McPherson is left alone on stage, we are given the opportunity to see something softer and far more complicated, as she ends the play repeating, “I just want to be loved.”
Last weekend’s performance of Roadkill succeeded in being both funny and poignant. Because so much of the content was drawn from media representations in our lives and from the personal experiences of college students, the work was also vastly relatable for many viewers.
In describing her influences, Sarbib wrote: “… the line between our real lives and our play lives often got blurry – we’d end up talking about the play all the time and things from our lives would inspire ideas outside of rehearsal ... I’ve been influenced by things I’ve seen and lived and this idea has been brewing for so long now that, with a few exceptions, it’s difficult to pinpoint what comes from where.”
(04/10/13 1:32pm)
Sexual assault: sketchy guy at a party starts grinding on a random drunk girl, brings her more drinks and leads her back to his dorm. This is the picture we use to protect ourselves when we go out on Friday nights. But it is a false image. Sexual predators don’t grow out of the heavy beats of Madonna or the spilled beer on the floor of KDR, only to dissolve again in the morning. Approximately 78 percent of rapes nationally are committed by a person the victim knows, and this percentage is even higher at small schools like ours. “The sketchy guys” are us. We coerce, we manipulate and we take advantage of each other’s drunkenness or uncertainty, because we’ve never learned how to choose not to. Sexual assault is never as black and white as we want it to be, and frequently the difference between harassment and an awkward encounter is communication and understanding. Between two acquaintances there is space to exchange narrative — space that must be used to learn about one another and understand each other’s stories. From this understanding we can perceive how our actions will affect our peers and partners, negatively or positively.
These are difficult conversations to have, and we need the support of the administration to create the space. Middlebury’s current policy operates based on the image of the sketchy guy at a party and the drunk girl, and therefore it deals with sexual assault and harassment the same way one deals with the flu: get the shot, wash your hands and hope you don’t get sick. Have a buddy system, don’t drink too much and hope you don’t get sexually assaulted. This message tells the victims of sexual assault how to act, making it their responsibility to protect themselves instead of making it the predator’s responsibility to not assault his or her peers. When we make it the victim’s responsibility to protect him or herself from sexual assault, we also make it the victim’s fault if he or she is assaulted. We’ve all heard of this before — it’s called blaming the victim, and it is one of the most damaging and least effective ways to tackle issues of rape and harassment. It suggests that sexual predators cannot prevent themselves from raping. This is simply not true. The flu virus doesn’t get to choose whether or not it will spread from person to person, but we as Middlebury students can, if given the tools, choose not to assault and harass our classmates. We can do this by looking at sexual predators and asking the question, “why?” Through the answers to this question we can learn how not to be “that sketchy guy.”
We need the administration’s aid to answer these questions. The current “sexual assault and harassment training” should be replaced with an in-depth training that incorporates seminars and panels led by students, professors and outsiders who understand the complexities of college life and can help us have open conversations throughout our college career. The training must focus on ending the oversimplification of consent. Consent is not simple: students have to learn how to give and understand it. They have to learn how to make it work for their relationships. If we can illuminate what consent means, we will hopefully lessen the frequency of these stories: “She didn’t say no. They were both really drunk. They didn’t even have sex. And now he’s been suspended for two weeks. Isn’t that kind of extreme?” Everyone takes a different side to this, and open discussions about different interpretations of consent and the histories behind this single story will prevent us from naming the victim manipulative, flaky or mean-spirited, or from naming the perpetrator horny, sexist or simply evil.
The training can provide the space to talk about social pressures that cause us to hurt ourselves and others. We need to reconcile the mixed messages from the media, our parents, religion and peers that have led us to a very complicated, contradictory and problematic relationship with sex by naming these messages and recognizing where they have influenced our behaviors. We need to talk about the pressure to “score.” We need to resolve the tension between practicing sexual freedom and objectifying our own bodies. We need to come to terms with the contradictory stigmas of being a virgin or a slut/player. These conversations can help us understand what our sexuality means to us and what others’ sexuality means to them, and thereby help us illuminate our and our partner’s sexual desires and needs. This communication will lessen the frequency of misunderstandings that lead to sexual assault or harassment.
I’ve been a Midd Kid for six weeks, and already I’ve heard stories about Delta, the Bunker, Battell; about terrible nights and awkward days; and I’ve heard guys and girls chatting freely about whether or not they think that kid is a virgin or how they “got lucky” the night before. This doesn’t have to be just the way things are. Let’s be honest to each other and to ourselves about what we really want. Let’s question the social norms and pressures that cause our destructive behaviors to reccur. Let’s find a place and a time and together, let’s really talk about sex.
Written by REBECCA COATES-FINKE '16.5 of Northampton, Mass.