My Empress-has-no-clothes-imo Monologue:
I saw the last three quarters of the Vagina Monologues last night. I have to say to somebody, and you're elected, that I hereby declare to the world that I think it was at best adolescent; that the writing was execrable; that all the substantive and legitimate commentary in the thing could be paraphrased in a paragraph or two; that the performer was a one- or two- note undeservedly self confident, foisting, talentless big mouth; that the "honorific" piece to the rape victims in Bosnia and Kosovo was the worst piece in the production, which is saying something, and actually managed by its sheer cheapness to expunge emotion from events at the outer extremity of emotion in their nature; that the sensibility was on a sixth grade level; and that the most basic ideas are cartoon versions of the truth.
Did I mention that the entire production is a monument to false consciousness? Was profoundly vulgar, and I don't mean because of its subject or its use of words like cunt and pussy, I mean because of the crudity of its 'analysis' and foisting inadequacy of its 'art.' It was cheap. Someone, an artist, could have written a Vagina Monologue that would have been moving and true. What I saw last night was, to me, unmoving and a dumb caricature of the truth. My explanation for why so many women liked it is that 1) many people like shlock, and 2) it feels good to play victim, and 3) PC has drawing power and a big constituency.
There was no talent manifested. Except for a talent for exploiting trendiness and PC and for self-promotion.
I simply hated it. It was vacuous self-dramatization, imo.
It was dishonest. It was unfair. It was dimwitted. IMO!
A friend and I have the fantasy of doing some interviews and writing a Penis Monologue. Eve Ensler thinks men have it easy? That's a joke. The Penis Monlogue would have to be written by women because men would be attacked and ridiculed if they aired their penis grievances.
The "ideas" in that production were, imo, all, without exception, cliches, and were developed with no originality and bad art. Very bad art. Bad art, bad analysis. Cheap.
All of the above is IMO, and I feel better now.
I know it doesn't matter, btw. The world is full of shlock. But very little of it is taken so seriously as is this piece of speciousness.
You may ignore this. It's ventilating. I should go put Vagina Monologues into Search and see where they're talking about this, actually.
EDIT: I just did a Search. There's a lot on it. I have to work today, unfortunately and won't be back on until tonight, if then. I did make one post, to Neocon, who kind of liked the darn thing. |
