Bitter Gertrude

Sep 29 2013

Culture, Film

Facts Are for Chumps, Amirite?

Race in casting is an issue I care deeply about. I’ve written about it, more than once. I’ve assigned Racebending to my university students. I discuss issues of race in screenwriting, casting, and directing with my film students over and over. This issue is close to my heart.

So when I saw this, I was excited:

It’s part of a website entitled “Me + You,” which serves as both a promotional site for the film and a fundraising site for the production. I clicked on the video with high expectations.

In it, actor Iyin Landre discusses how difficult it is for Asian actors to get roles that aren’t stereotypical, minimizing, or marginalizing. Amen, sister. Then she goes on to make three statements that are so obviously wrong that I started to re-evaluate my entire experience of the video. Was this satire? Is this a Sarah Silverman-style joke? Is this bait– see how many people fall for it and then reveal that we’ve all been punked? In under five minutes I went from “I’m trumpeting this from the hilltops” to “I better not in case this is some kind of Joaquin Phoenix project.”

If you haven’t already watched the video, here’s what made me start to question it:

1. Playing a lab tech: “The results are back. He’s a B plus. He’s not a match.”

2. “1935 was when Teddy Roosevelt was president.”

3. “1935 was when we still had black and white TVs.”

Imagine this is me. But with more hair. And female. And with, like, seven more question marks.

It’s impossible to believe that no one working on that video knows that a blood type is “B positive,” not “B plus.” Isn’t she complaining, AND RIGHTLY SO, about having to play lab technicians over and over? But she doesn’t know how you say a blood type? That can’t be right. And not one single person working on the project knew that in 1935 Franklin Delano Roosevelt was president, Teddy Roosevelt was dead, and that almost no one in the US had a television until after WW2?

T.R., October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919. One of the most interesting presidents we’ve ever had.

Yes, technically there were a handful of black and white televisions in existence in 1935, but it was well before the average American family included television as part of its life. This was still firmly the era of radio.

Families gathered around radios to listen to FDR’s fireside chats. FDR was president 1933 – 1945.

Even giving her that one on a technicality (I am the soul of generosity) the level of inaccuracy put the whole video into question for me. Once I satisfied myself that it’s not some kind of poor taste satire, I had to conclude these are real, and really glaringly obvious, errors. If you can’t be arsed to factcheck your own money beg, why would anyone expect you to be able to successfully produce a film? Film production requires the ability to manage an enormous amount of detail with both speed and accuracy.

And yet her film is fully funded. While I applaud the concept of funding a film (or an ANYTHING) with an Asian American protagonist, I had to wonder: Why did no one seem to care about those glaring inaccuracies? I’d love to say that it’s because a film starring a person of color trumps other considerations. I’m still holding out the hope that donors said to themselves, “OK, her work is clearly going to be a little sloppy based on her disinterest in factchecking, and maybe she’s not the smartest person in the world, but FUCK IT. I’m sick of Asian actors being marginalized in Hollywood and I’m going to do something about it.”

BTW, There are a ton of projects on indiegogo and kickstarter starring people of color, and/or produced by people of color that have not met their funding goals. I found these in just a few minutes: My Manz, But Not for Me, Inna, I Just Wanna Ball, In the Mind of a Man-Woman, Mad Black Men, For a Dark Skin Girl, Roxe15. There are plenty more.

Whether a filmmaker knows anything about blood types or the history of her own nation, or whether she has any attention to detail, are minor issues, and exceptionally so in comparison to the larger goal of Asian representation in visual narrative art. But these painfully glaring errors nagged at me for DAYS. I spent hours and hours trying to sort out why it bothered me so much. And then I figured it out.

Factual accuracy is dead. No one has even a single, tiny, trembling and lonely fuck to give about factual accuracy. The fact that Iyin Landre had no interest in making sure the words that came out of her mouth were accurate (checking who was president in 1935 takes less than four seconds on google) is not important to most people, not because of the massively MORE important issue of Asian representation but because NO ONE CARES.

Why is that? When did we decide, as a culture, that facts mattered so little that we don’t need to bother factchecking? When did we decide that facts are just decorative?

The result is devastating: Deniers. The pure anti-science nonsense that is the anti-vaccine movement is causing real damage to real people, many of them children (see also this), but deniers who have little respect for rigorous factchecking see a random website quoting unqualified sources as equivalent to the entirety of the scientific community. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan’s obvious lies were discussed so often that Romney campaign pollster Neil Newhouse publicly stated, “We will not let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.” Deniers consider a few fringe opinions about climate change to be equivalent, again, to the bulk of the entire scientific community. There are people who deny the moon landing, the Holocaust, and President Obama’s American citizenship regardless of the avalanche of factual information proving them all. Deniers are the footsoldiers of the aggressively ignorant.

I don’t know if we’ve ever cared about facts, to be honest. The mendacity of the current GOP and its media lapdogs is part of a grand tradition in the US of yellow journalism, not some new occurrence, and we have no lock as a culture or as an era on ignorance by any means. But it bothers me. It’s truly upsetting that people just do not care. It’s troubling that people cannot (or will not) evaluate sources, or understand that they’re believing an unqualified source over a qualified one simply because the bullshit source is telling them what they want to hear. I tell my students all the time: Being educated means asking yourself every day, “Why do I believe what I believe?”

See? Question your beliefs about EVERYTHING.

Listen, I want to be right as much as the next nerd. I want to be right so much that I’m willing to be wrong now in order to be right later. If I find out that something I believe to be true is incorrect, I will kick it to the curb with gleeful alacrity. I’m wrong all the time, and I want to be right. So I *try* to be right. I try really fucking hard. I factcheck. I listen to people who know more than I do. I worry about fucking up. And I don’t understand why everyone isn’t filled with anxiety about this issue. But they’re not, and I’m endlessly fascinated and disturbed by it.

Another person who wasn’t president in 1935.

I have no idea whether Iyin Landre’s film will be “good” (whatever that means) or not. For all I know, it’ll be the greatest film ever created. And one thing I know with rock-solid certainty is that opportunities for Asian actors in the film industry, while marginally better than they once were, are still alarmingly bleak, and any project with an Asian woman at the center who isn’t wearing a lab coat or working as a prostitute is a fucking breath of fresh air. So overall, I’m glad her film got funded, and I wish the projects above could meet their funding goals as well. (BTW, check out Hero Mars as well.)

But this idea that factual accuracy isn’t important, and its corollary idea– that the only sources that can be trusted are the ones that confirm your own prejudices– need to be questioned EVERY TIME WE SEE THEM. We need to start teaching the importance of factual accuracy, separating fact from opinion, and understanding the difference between a reputable source (all of science) and a disreputable source (Jenny McCarthy).

Sep 10 2013

10 Comments

Culture

Racism for Breakfast

Because my cosplay article has been kinda going crazy the past few days, people are tagging me all over the book of faces in discussions of various cosplay and cosplayers. I’ve been ignoring most of them (because I can’t spend all day commenting on facebook, despite evidence to the contrary), but I’ve commented on a few, usually because they were posted by a personal friend or professional connection.

One of these happened this morning. Someone tagged me in a post about some rando cosplaying as Hitler at Dragon*Con, asking what I thought. I responded that, although I’d love to tell him to eat a platter of dick tacos because he’s cosplaying a symbol of real-life violent racism against me and my family, I don’t agree with the calls to ban his costume from future cons. I don’t think costume censorship leads anywhere useful.

And then all hell broke loose.

I can boil “all hell” down to a few sentences: I was evacuating all credibility I had in my stance against shaming cosplayers for race, size, age, or gender identity because I was “shaming” cosplay Hitler. My call for acceptance of cosplayers of all races and body types should naturally extend to an acceptance of someone’s choice to cosplay Hitler. Expressing my discomfort with cosplay Hitler is bullying and victimizing him.

Now, first of all, this is probably an academic distinction, but I did not actually tell cosplay Hitler to eat a platter of dick tacos. I speculated that I might do such a thing were I to ever see him in person. The chances, however, of me actually having the nards for such a face-to-face confrontation are precisely equal to the chances of me being elected the next Mormon prophet. That said, I do admit that I said in writing that I would like to invite him to such a dining experience. So the distinction is academic. But it exists.

But here’s my point (and I know you’re all relieved that I actually have one): Expressing discomfort at a costume that embodies real-life violent racism against me and my family– and I have living Holocaust survivors in my family– does not make me the bully.

Those of us who fight racism and speak out against the symbols of racism are used to being told that we’re the problem. “Toughen up,” we’re told. “Freedom of speech,” “You’re too sensitive,” “Get over it,” “Stop taking everything so seriously.” But the worst, by far the worst, is being told that we’re the ones oppressing and victimizing by speaking out against racism, its symbols, and its tools. I think it’s very difficult for people who have never personally experienced bigotry to understand what it means for people who have been violently oppressed to be confronted with symbols of that oppression. It’s flabbergasting, though, when they refuse to even attempt understanding and instead blame the victim for speaking out.

This isn’t about the principle of “accepting all cosplay no matter what.” Only the inexperienced think all principles should be taken to their furthest extreme and still hold. There’s always a line. And being able to see that line is almost always about experience and always about understanding. Sometimes it’s the experience of age, sometimes it’s the experience of bigotry and marginalization, sometimes it’s education. There’s no freedom that isn’t curtailed at some extreme expression of it. Freedom of speech, for example, ends at libel, slander, and copyright violation. Generally a given freedom is curtailed when the exercising of that freedom harms someone else, and surely the freedom to wear whatever costume you want without being told by someone, “What the actual fuck are you doing? This is not OK” ends at the moment you choose a costume that is aggressively racist.

I know it’s hard to have compassion for people who have experienced bigotry when you haven’t experienced that bigotry yourself. My son and I are confronted with anti-Semitism in real life all the time. There are people who absolutely believe we don’t deserve to live because of who we are. And Hitler is one of their main symbols. Making a choice to dress as Hitler is making a choice to bully, to victimize, to hurt. People at Dragon*Con posed with that person while making the Heil Hitler salute. This is aggressive, deliberate racism.

Cosplay Hitler is the BULLY, not the VICTIM. It does not undermine my stance against bullying to express that I am personally uncomfortable with a costume that bullies ME DIRECTLY, and the implication that HE is somehow the victim of MY bullying is nonsense-flavored nonsense, especially considering that I am defending his right to wear that costume despite everything wrong with it.

It’s super-common for people who fight against bigotry to be told they’re the ones being the oppressors, that it’s somehow violating someone’s constitutionally-protected freedom of speech to say, “Hey, that’s racist,” as if freedom of speech protected them from the consequences of that speech. So I should have known better. I should have been able to predict what would happen, because it happens all the damn time. But frequency doesn’t lessen the pain.

I went back into that discussion and deleted all of my comments. I’ve been trying to shake the hurt, anger, and deep, deep disappointment all day. My husband came home and I cried all over again just telling him the story. Racism fucking hurts. Being told that you’ve lost credibility and that you’re the bully because you expressed personal discomfort with a racist act FUCKING HURTS.

Part of the pain and disappointment is being ashamed of myself. I should have stood my ground, but I wasn’t strong enough this time, and for that, I’m ashamed.

So this is what I ask, from the center of my pain and my shame: The next time you see someone say “That’s racist and hurtful to me,” don’t tell them they’re wrong. Don’t tell them it undermines their opinions or their credibility. Don’t tell them that their outcry victimizes the racist. Ask them why it hurts. Stand with them. Apologize. Try to understand. You do not get to decide whether or not bigotry, its symbols, or its tools are hurtful to their targets, or how hurtful they are. Listen, learn, and comfort rather than accuse, blame, or belittle.

We all fuck up, all the time. We all make stupid, bigoted remarks out of ignorance or carelessness, or sit by in silence while others make them. But we have to KEEP TRYING. We have to stop ourselves from saying stupid, hurtful shit like, “toughen up,” or “You’re the bully for shaming the racist.” We have to keep asking ourselves the difficult questions. We have to try hard to understand the bigotry others face. It’s a choice we have to consciously make.

It CAN get better if we CHOOSE to make it better, and that has to be a conscious choice we all make as individuals.

I stand by my opinion that cosplay Hitler should be allowed to wear his costume to whatever con he likes, because I can’t side with costume censorship. And I stand by my opinion that it’s an aggressively racist act to costume yourself as a real-life violent racist murderer and torturer whose victims are still living. And I stand by my opinion that he deserves whatever blowback he gets for his public display of racism. And I stand by my opinion that people who shame cosplayers for their race or size are being colossal jerks. I stand by all of it.

But most of all, I stand by my pledge to try my best to understand the experiences of others and to have compassion for those experiences.

Tagged cosplay, racism

Sep 04 2013

3 Comments

Theatre

Don’t You Want Me, Baby?

This is just here to amuse me.

I’ve written before about playwrights and rejection. I think it’s difficult, though, to understand just HOW MUCH rejection we’re talking about here, and how insanely resilient writers have to be.

Monica Byrne. I stole this picture shamelessly from her blog. I have more official pictures of her, but I just really, really love this one.

Monica Byrne is a writer whose work I believe in. My company is a few days away from opening her fantastic What Every Girl Should Know . Between unsolicited submissions and the plays we request, Impact Theatre receives as many as 450 plays a year to fill the 3 slots we have available (the 4th goes to the annual classic and the 5th goes to a local solo performer). Those odds are just nuts, so you know we must really believe in Monica and her work– and we do. But What Every Girl Should Know wasn’t the first play Monica sent us. The first play she sent us was Nightwork. It was a really interesting play that wasn’t right for us. It made it pretty far up the chain before we sent the rejection. I was intrigued and asked her to please continue submitting. She sent us What Every Girl Should Know.

We’re the first theatre in the San Francisco Bay Area to produce Monica Byrne’s work, and we won’t be the last. My company has introduced dozens of playwrights to the Bay Area early in their careers, including Steve Yockey, Sheila Callaghan, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, and Enrique Urueta. We’ve done world premiere plays by writers like Lauren Gunderson, Lauren Yee, Prince Gomolvilas, and Peter Sinn Nachtrieb. We know how to pick ’em.

The salient fact here, however, is that WE REJECTED HER FIRST. And when I asked her to please keep sending me her work, SHE DID.

Then she wrote THIS. She calls it her “anti-resume.” It’s a blog post that contains a link to a spreadsheet of all her rejections. It starts in 2007. It is impressive. Apart from the obvious bravery, it shows just how much rejection a writer– even a gifted writer who is on the verge of nationally-recognized success in two fields (take a gander at this)– can go through.

So read Monica’s anti-resume. Take it to heart. And keep submitting.

DON’T STOP BELIEVIN’.

Tagged new plays, playwrights, producing

Aug 29 2013

185 Comments

Culture

The Problem with Cosplay Celebrity

My husband and I are both 501st. My initial forays into cosplay were through the 501st, and I became an official member in 2007. We did local events. We did cons. And we branched out early on into other areas of cosplay.

My husband and I out in front of our theatre. Photo by Cheshire Isaacs.

As someone who has always been a nerd, usually in the process of varying degrees of hiding my nerdiness, the cosplay scene was like a dream come true. I’d never been involved in a more openly nerdy, less judgmental activity. It was a way to express your enjoyment of a certain thing and enjoy it along with others. The accuracy, complexity, or creativity of the costume was paramount. I remember examining the craftmanship on one woman’s costume as she proudly told me she learned metalworking in order to create it.

Then . . . it became popular. Mainstream culture moved in, and what happened to cosplay when mainstream culture moved in is what happens to everything when mainstream culture moves in. The values change. The culture changes. And the mainstream dynamic of “popular kids front and center, nerds to the margins” came roaring in. Cosplay went from an all-skate to Superhero Suicide Girls in no time flat.

Long-term cosplayers who voice concerns about the costuming and the fandom aspects taking a firm backseat to the hotness of the girl in the costume are told, repeatedly, that they’re “just jealous” because they aren’t as pretty as popular cosplayers, or are called “haters,” as if expressing dismay at being pushed to the margins of your own hobby is somehow being unfair. I felt exceedingly lucky to be able to remove myself from the whole thing by being 501st (armor is a great equalizer) but there are non-501st costumes I’ll likely never wear again.

Cosplay is now dominated by models and women striving to look like models, who sell seductive pictures of themselves posing in sexy costumes. And you know? There’s not a damn thing wrong with that. My issue isn’t what they do– it’s what we lost when cosplay changed. Cosplay, once a way of expressing fandom with other fans, has become another area of our culture where we privilege the concepts of celebrity, oppressive beauty standards, and the commodification of both over everything else.

Women who are young and beautiful (and, to a much lesser extent, men who are young and beautiful) are the “popular kids.” They’re minor celebrities with facebook fan pages, press attention, and now, web series, films, and video games devoted to them. Their popularity is based on their physical attractiveness. Cosplayers who do not conform to traditional beauty standards are publicly shamed (I will not post the many, many links as they do not deserve the hits), occupying the same position of “marginalized outsider” we occupied throughout our lives EVERYWHERE BUT THE CON SCENE, our little oasis. That was our one place to belong until mainstream culture invaded the cosplay scene and shoved us back to the margins, back to where the “not good enough” are always shoved.

I’m not implying that cosplay celebrities aren’t nerds or fans. Of course they are. Apart from the obvious– that everyone is suddenly a nerd in this cultural moment (I never thought I’d see the day)– I absolutely believe that these women are true fans of the work they represent. And I absolutely believe that most of them have no intention of marginalizing others. I see some cosplay celebrities regularly championing body acceptance and cosplayer diversity, shutting people down for shaming other cosplayers, and encouraging people of all types to get their nerd on.

I DON’T BLAME THE COSPLAYERS. Nor do I expect (or even want) them to stop doing what they’re doing. I’m so committed to not blaming the cosplayers themselves that I refuse to post any pictures of them along with this article, because I don’t want anyone to feel implicated or blamed. Cosplay celebrities are not, however, in control of the culture at large (would that they were), and even the most vocal supporter of nonconforming cosplayers has little power to change mainstream culture as a whole.

The problem isn’t cosplay celebrities themselves, it’s the way mainstream culture requires our celebrities, especially the women, to conform to oppressive beauty standards, the way we commodify women’s bodies, and the way we divide women into categories of “acceptable” and “unacceptable.”

Conforming to traditional beauty standards is the basic entrance fee to celebrity. Our culture demands that women who participate in the kinds of activities that might make one a celebrity conform to these beauty standards or receive a barrage of shaming. Actors, politicians, singers . . . and now cosplayers. Where once upon a time a cosplayer could be anyone with a costume and a lanyard, the rise of cosplay celebrity has brought with it our culture’s oppressive normativity for female (and often male) bodies in display-related activities, and that extends to body size, body type, gender identity, age, and race. Before this change, the display was from fan to fan, largely unseen in the mainstream community. Now it’s celebrity to admirers (or perceived as aspirationally so), bringing with it all the cultural restrictions on who is allowed to occupy that celebrity space and who is not. Mainstream culture demands that we know our assigned places and stick to them or the shaming is fierce.

The cosplay community was never perfect. Don’t get me wrong; there are douches everywhere. And there’s nothing (apart from being publicly shamed: again, not posting links) stopping anyone of any type from slapping on a costume and living the dream. I see cosplayers who don’t conform openly flouting the new oppressive standards, setting up tumblrs for cosplayers of size and of color, with some cosplay celebrities in full, vocal support. I see resistance from lots of sources, and it’s good.

But it would be disingenuous in the extreme to assert that there’s been no change in the cosplay community over the past 5 or so years, or that all change has been positive. And it would be disingenuous in the extreme to pretend that the mainstream dynamic of “popular kids > marginalized misfits” hasn’t taken over cosplay to at least some degree, particularly in how it’s expressed on the internet and in press coverage, which is, let’s face it, MOST of cosplay now. Cons are only a few days long and not everyone can go to them, so cosplay celebrity lives primarily on websites, fan pages, and the like.

And even as they sit at the top of the heap, is cosplay celebrity nothing but good for these young and beautiful women? Their authenticity is questioned nonstop, as if beauty cannot coexist with a love for comics. A young and beautiful cosplayer is inundated with disrespectful attention from the kinds of guys who are at the con primarily to see hot girls in costume– the new phenomenon of cosplay fans. There have always been young and beautiful nerdy cosplayers, and there always will be, but they haven’t always been forced into a cosplay situation that values their beauty far, far more than their craftmanship, or that forces them into competitions they never sought over “who’s the hottest Poison Ivy” or “which Slave Leia is hotter?”

I don’t have a solution. I don’t think one exists, apart from the obvious: keep resisting and keep the conversation going. I think cosplay will slowly become more accepting of cosplayers whose size, age, gender identity, or race currently marginalize them, but only if we choose to carve a place for acceptance of difference in a space where acceptance of difference used to be the norm. I honestly don’t know if that will make it easier or more difficult. And maybe the change will come when mainstream culture gets bored with us and tosses us back onto the scrap heap. Until that time, I’ll stay under my helmet for the most part. But I think you look great– truly.

UPDATE: I approve almost all the comments I find in my moderation queue. I will not, however, despite the fact that they prove my point, be approving the comments I’m getting that are accusing me of being a “jealous hater,” or that are based on reading comprehension errors, such as the assertion that I “hate” that there are beautiful cosplayers now, where before there were none, all of which is demonstrably false and nowhere in the blog post, and is, of course, just another way of calling me a “jealous hater.” I have no problem approving comments that disagree with me– I welcome debate– but I am under no obligation to approve comments that have no purpose other than to attack me. So, gentlemen (and so far, all of the attacks are coming from self-identified guys), that’s what happened to your eloquently worded “Your just jealous” comment, and all comments of that ilk.

Tagged cosplay, diversity, feminism, women are people

Aug 23 2013

4 Comments

Culture, Personal Nonsense

I Ain’t Shit

I read Questlove’s article about Trayvon Martin and how Black men are perceived in America (which also had the byproduct of teaching me who Questlove is) while it was making the rounds of twitfacetagram in July. I thought a lot about it, and what it means to walk around in a body that others perceive as threatening. I’ve been told stories in the past about hearing the sound of car doors locking as you walk by, of women clutching their purses a little tighter. I’ve wondered at that, at what it must feel like. When I read Questlove’s elevator story, it really hit me hard, as things do when privileged people suddenly become aware of a piece of their privilege previously invisible to them. It had never occurred to me that anyone would think that they had to be on their guard around me, fearing MY POSSIBLE FEAR OF THEM and its potential disastrous outcomes.

Soon after that, I went to Kaiser and parked on the 5th floor of the garage. I always park on the top floor of every garage ever because I can never remember where my car is. I stood alone and waited for the elevator to arrive. When it finally did, it was empty save one person: an older Black man with graying hair and a neatly-trimmed graying beard, in work coveralls, who had been cleaning the elevator. He was finishing a wipe as the door opened. We looked at each other and he instantly said, “I’ll leave the elevator to you,” holding the door as he stepped out. Time slowed. I knew he had no reason to leave that elevator since there wasn’t a damn thing on the top floor of that garage save a handful of parked cars: no office, no storage closet, no nothing. I knew he was doing it because he was nervous about frightening ME, about what I might say or do or accuse him of. Without thinking, I smiled and started teasing him, “You’re not riding with me? Is it me? I’m not good enough for you?” He smiled back and got back into the elevator, smiling and flirting with me the entire way down, calling me “good eye candy.” In one respect, it was one of the best elevator rides of my life (nothing will beat 33 floors with Malcolm McDowell), because who doesn’t want to be called “good eye candy” by an older gent? But I think about this man over and over and over, and I feel sick. I feel sick that he felt nervous around me. I feel sick that our culture has given him good reason to be on his guard around me. I feel sick that I had so much power in this exchange. HE’S the elder; HE should be the one deferred to, the one with the power. Who am I? I’m NO ONE. I have no power. But the racial dynamics in the US being what they are, I have power I do not deserve.

Whoever you are, elevator cleaning guy at Kaiser Richmond, you made my day with that “good eye candy” comment. You gave me the second best elevator ride of my life. And I’m so, so sorry.

Tagged racism

Aug 18 2013

2 Comments

Personal Nonsense

Hotel Discovery: A Photo Essay

My husband and I just got back from a little anniversary getaway. We went to our favorite B&B right on the beach. I’m not a “lay out in the sun” kind of person. I’m more of a “soak up the magic of a gorgeous, chilly, foggy day by the ocean” kind of person. Luckily, my Viking-descended husband is exactly the same way. So our spot is where we can listen to the crashing waves all night while the fog rolls in. It’s gorgeous.

Oh hell no.
(photo cred: 123rf.com. In case you couldn’t sort that out from the watermark that is my Mark of Cheapness)

Oh hell yes!
(photo cred: aphotoathought.blogspot.com)

We’ve been to this B&B many times, so I was surprised to discover something new this time: in a cabinet was a second, older TV and a set of four Shakespeare plays:

The Tempest, Othello, King Lear, and The Tempest. I CALL PROSPERO.

Husband with Shakespeare

Ooh, King Lear! One of my favorite plays in the whole wide world!

But wait . . .

Wha . . . ?

Hmmmmmmmm. Suspicion sets in.

ENTIRELY SHAKESPEARELESS.

Not only did we discover that someone has manufactured VHS cases that look like classic literature so you can hide your collection of cheesy movies and porn behind a veneer of CULTURE, but we also discovered that VHS tapes evidently STILL EXIST. Who knew?

(For the record, I’m not hating on movies at all. Shaun of the Dead is better than Comedy of Errors. SERIOUS FACE.)

Despite the crushing lack of Shakespeare, we still found plenty of stuff to do.

Art by Brad Slavin

Tagged personal nonsense

Aug 12 2013

59 Comments

Theatre

What Actors Aren’t Telling You

Recently I posted on The Book of Faces that I was considering writing a post about audition tips for theatres, and I was deluged with responses from actors: horror stories, pet peeves, constant annoyances, along with gratitude for moments of kindness, special consideration, and respect. I had comments both publicly, on the post itself, and privately, in messages and emails, by the tankful. Actors shared with me their ups and downs about the entire process, not just auditions, and it was quite an education. Going through them all, one thing stuck out to me immediately: No one is telling anyone else the truth about any of these things.

This is where I always come in, right? My brother likes to call this “career-limiting behavior.”

Career limiting behavior. Part of JD Hancock’s awesome Stormtroopers series.

So here you go. The things actors are thinking but don’t ever tell you.

Note: I invented exactly none of this. Everything you see below comes directly from the actors themselves. And while I’m certain there will be actors who disagree (“What? I LOVE having to come in for 6 callbacks for a show that pays $250.”), I only included issues mentioned by multiple actors.

Also: This is for producers and directors, and I include myself in that (obviously). I’m in no way perfect and make mistakes all the time, so don’t think I’m castigating you from on high. I am but the messenger. I have many posts with advice for actors (this one, also this one, here’s another one, yet one more), so don’t worry– I’m an equal opportunity meddler.

AUDITIONS:

Directors, we need to be realistic about callbacks. If you’re directing for a LORT and have big AEA contracts to give out, yes, you are entitled to three callbacks. If you’re working for a small theatre paying a $500 stipend for the whole shebang, you can bring the same actor back to see the same people once. You get a second callback if it’s significantly different from the first in the material covered or in the approach to it, or if the actors are there to be seen by different people (for example, a dance callback on a different day than the vocal callback). However, if you’re asking actors to come in for a second or third callback to do basically the same things for the same people they saw in the initial audition and first callback, some actors are starting to think you just don’t know what you’re doing, you don’t know what you want, or both. They start to wonder if working with you will be a good experience. You might want to address with actors specifically why you need to see them do the same stuff over again. Maybe having to articulate it will help you understand what the issue is, and might even guide you to making your decision without additional callbacks.

Another oft-cited problem with auditions in general and callbacks in particular is poor organization. This takes two forms: Disrespect for the actor’s time and disrespect for the actor’s preparation. When our callbacks are poorly organized, we run behind and end up making actors wait– sometimes even for hours– past their slot. Actors have time commitments just like anyone else– they need to get to work or pick their kids up from school or meet friends for dinner. If you told them they’d be there from 7-7:30PM and they’re still there at 9PM, you blew it. But wait! All is not lost! Did you apologize profusely for blowing it, or did you act like an entitled jerk? A sincere apology goes a LONG way.

Disrespect for the actor’s preparation often stems from running out of time. If you ask an actor to prep five sides, that’s a HELL OF A LOT OF SIDES. Actors will spend a significant chunk of time prepping that massive callback for you. If they get into the space and only get through 1 and 1/2 of those sides before you send them on their way, they are not happy. So be realistic about the amount of time you’ll need for each audition and the amount of material you’re giving each actor to prep. And again, a sincere apology when you blow it really goes a long way. Let’s face it: We all blow it sometimes.

Another pet peeve actors have about auditions is when directors ask them to perform material they haven’t been asked to prep. Again, a sincere apology goes a long way here, and there are always exceptions. An actor’s not going to get cross with you if you call him in to read for a small role and decide on the fly to have him read for the lead. But actors WILL get cross with you if you ask them to perform “something” from a show you see on their resume (“You mean the one I did five years ago? In college?”). Another pet peeve of actors is when directors ask for outlandish adjustments, such as asking them to perform the monologue they just did for you, but this time as a spider. If you know you’ll want actors to do improv work or extreme, unusual adjustments, tell them in advance. If you decide on the fly you want to see something unusual, be cool about it and understand that you’re asking a lot.

Cold reads are so problematic I’ve given them their own post. Send your sides out in advance.

What actors love about your audition: Being treated with respect and kindness. Free snacks (a simple bowl of mini Reese’s peanut butter cups was mentioned as an especially nice touch). Available water, bathrooms, and seating. Directors who pay attention during the monologue rather than text or eat. Directors who respond to an actor after the audition either way. An offer is always nice, but a timely release is appreciated as well, as difficult as they are to send.

We’re auditioning for the actor as much as the actor is auditioning for us. Think of it as a blind date.

Your blind date is less likely to end in happily ever after if you text through the whole thing.

REHEARSALS:

Directors, you should probably know that a lot of actors don’t want to pretend their characters are animals, especially experienced actors who already have their own character creation processes developed over years of trial and error. Being forced to choose an animal seems twee to many actors. It works for some, but not (from what I’m hearing) most.

“Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York. Squeak.”

The most popular complaint, though, was time-related. “Mind if we stay late tonight?” I’m hearing that directors ask actors to stay late in the middle of rehearsal, or even at the end. The actors who pointed this out as a pet peeve fell into two basic categories: people who use public transportation and people who have early morning jobs. If you hold actors until 11:30, it makes it difficult for them to get home using public transportation (in the Bay Area, at least. Sigh.). Actors who have early morning jobs are already stealing from sleep to be at your rehearsal and are not at all excited about going in to work tomorrow on 4 hours of sleep, especially since you’ve scheduled another rehearsal that next night. No one wants to be the one who has to say, “Yes, I mind.”

Another issue is lack of concern for safety. This includes things like refusing to bring in a fight director and making untrained actors stage their own fights; making an actor perform blocking they feel is unsafe; making actors wear a restrictive costume that makes them feel unsafe (such as restricting vision). I’ve already blogged about why you need to hire a fight director. Otherwise, we need to remember to listen carefully and respectfully to actors when they tell us they feel uncomfortable or unsafe, and check in with actors when we’re asking them to do things that might be difficult or uncomfortable. And actors, if you’re reading this, please be honest with us. Lying to directors about your comfort level serves no one.

Lack of respect and hostile work environment. Just because you’re the director does not mean you can yell at an actor until she cries. You can’t throw fits, scream at your tech people, call your staff names, or make racist. anti-Semitic, or misogynistic comments. Learning how to direct by watching movies about directors is ill-advised. I understand there’s cultural support for bad behavior by directors (the auteur being SUCH A GENIUS that he is allowed to be horrible to everyone around him) but it’s actually not OK. Producers: WHY WHY WHY do you hire these people? There are brilliant directors all over. Give someone else a chance. You really don’t need to allow someone to treat your people poorly.

WATCH ME! IT’S SO SIMPLE! GIVE ME THE PLAYBACK!

What actors love about your rehearsal process: Respect. Being treated as collaborators. Having a clean, safe rehearsal space with bathrooms and nearby, easily accessible places to get food and beverages. Having a detailed rehearsal schedule sent out in advance.

DURING PERFORMANCES AND AFTER:

Refusing to do maintenance. Yeah, you kind of have to make sure the laundry gets done, props get repaired or replaced, etc. It’s not the actor’s job to do any of that. It’s our job as producers.

That’s what I get for doing another blood show . . .

Refusing to honor contracts. I’m not going into details here, but I’ve personally seen contract violations of both AEA and non-AEA contracts, in addition to the people who added this to their list of pet peeves. Honor your agreements.

What actors love about performances and after: Being allowed to use PR shots for their websites; producers who are accessible and approachable; a reasonable comp policy (no one expects 100 comps, but no one expects zero either); staying in touch after the show closes; recommending an actor to other companies; being paid on time with a check that doesn’t bounce.

We will not make our processes as magical as Batman riding a robot unicorn, BUT WE CAN TRY, DAMMIT.

Of course we all screw up from time to time. I’m no exception. I make 12 mistakes every day before breakfast. The overriding message I’m getting, though, is not that actors expect you to be perfect, but that they want to be treated with respect and dignity, and are happy to forgive you if you apologize sincerely for your mistakes.

Also of course, every actor is different. What one actor finds odious is perfectly fine for another actor. Talk to your actors and listen to what they have to say. Do your best to create an environment where your actors aren’t afraid to come to you with issues. Ask questions. Use your actor friends as a resource if you’re unsure. Communication is key.

Tagged acting, actors, auditions, producing

Aug 04 2013

11 Comments

Culture, Film, Theatre

Stand Like You Mean It!

I don’t know a lot about Lena Dunham or her work. And this post isn’t about her specifically. My point is the fact that in this major portrait of a powerful young woman shot by Annie Fucking Leibovitz, the photographer who shows up to tell you you’ve ARRIVED– she is posed like THIS.

This familiar, infantilizing, pigeon-toed stance that is one of the ways we pose young women to make them look hapless and charming and harmless. The semiotics of that pigeon-toed stance are clear and culturally very well-defined. And of course everything in this photo is deliberate. Leibovitz is a master photographer, not your aunt shooting holiday snaps. Both of these women know what they’re doing, and deliberately chose a pose with a specific cultural meaning.

As I’ve said, I don’t know much about Lena Dunham and I’ve never seen Girls (because I suck at watching TV) but I’m fairly certain that this woman who is well on her way to heading a media empire is, if anything, sure of herself.

Why does it matter? Why do I have any fucks to give about a person I’ve never met and the pose she’s throwing in her Annie Leibovitz portrait?

Because: How we portray powerful women MATTERS. This is a portrait of a young woman who is newly very, very powerful, and she is posed in such as way as to ameliorate that power. Lena Dunham is a very powerful, very young, very wealthy woman now, and whether she herself chose to ameliorate that by using a childlike pose and Leibovitz agreed, or whether Leibovitz posed her that way deliberately and Dunham agreed, it sends exactly the wrong message.

We have a lot of trouble with powerful women in our culture, and even more trouble with powerful young women. We pose young, powerful men in ways that celebrate their power (this, this, this, this, this, and this). We pose young, powerful women in ways that sexualize or infantilize them (or–ick–both). See this, this, this, this, this, and this.

I understand that Lena Dunham’s character in Girls is all about straddling the line between adolescence and adulthood. I get that. But this is not a portrait of her character. It’s a portrait of a powerful writer, producer, and actor.

I understand that it’s her choice to pose how she likes, and Leibovitz’s choice to shoot what she likes. I understand that Dunham is likely considering her branding in this image, and uses the helplessness and winsomeness she’s portraying here to aid her success in an industry that’s famously skittish around powerful women. I understand the “don’t mind me; I’m harmless” branding choice. I understand branding yourself that way makes powerful men in the industry less nervous, and makes potential audience feel protective and charmed.

Understanding all this is part of what makes me so frustrated with it. We only ask women to ameliorate their power in this way. Only women need to soft-sell their power. This is gendered branding.

What would make it suck a lot less for me, personally (because this whole blog is, of course my personal opinion, and YMMV)

DID YOU JUST READ THAT?

DID I JUST TYPE THAT?

OK, I’m stopping myself. I have a blog that’s read by more people than I ever imagined possible. I’m in the middle of a post about the portrayal of women, and how it sucks that we’re encouraged to soft-sell our power. AND I JUST MITIGATED MY OWN OPINION IN THE MIDDLE OF WRITING IT. This training runs deep.

In the facebook discussion leading up to this post, I was told by an older man that my “style of criticism” was “over the top.” Whenever women speak out, whenever women claim our own power, whenever women voice an opinion without a meek “Well, it’s just my opinion,” someone is there to tell us we’re wrong for it. Often, we do it ourselves. This training runs deep.

I’m choosing to own my power. This is my critical read of this image and this branding. Full stop.

Deep breath.

What would make this a lot less frustrating for me would be if the imaging and branding of men and women were less gendered. There’s nothing wrong with a woman posing for a portrait in an infantilized way in and of itself, but at this cultural moment we’re faced with the hard, cold reality that women– young women especially– are instructed to present ourselves in ways that mitigate our power, and are met with a wagonload of disapproval if we do not, while men are encouraged to do exactly the opposite. This kind of gendered branding sucks for women AND men.

I’ve spent quite some time this morning looking through images of young, powerful men and women. I’ve flipped through hundreds of images of dozens of people. And the one that seems to sum it all up is this:

This photo of Tom Ford, Scarlett Johansson, and Keira Knightly, shot by Leibovitz for a Vanity Fair cover in 2010, sums it all up nicely. The parody shot Leibovitz did later also speaks volumes about how we portray powerful men vs. how we portray powerful women. It’s funny because of the ironic juxtaposition.

It’s the same kind of humor we get from this bit of awesomeness:

Created by Theamat on Deviant Art

and this:

What is all the Avengers posed like artists draw female superheroes?

What if all the Avengers posed like artists draw female superheroes?

And this:

The man in the above photo is fantasy author Jim C. Hines, who has an entire series of photos of himself posing the way women are drawn on book covers. It’s glorious, so check it out here.

There are numerous examples of men posing or dressing the way women are posed and dressed, all creating humor out of the ironic juxtaposition and all (hopefully) highlighting the sexualized and infantilized ways we create images of women. Check this out, and this, and this.

Lena Dunham is a powerful young woman, and an Annie Leibovitz portrait is a potent, lasting statement of one’s celebrity. I just wish they had chosen to frame her within that power, rather than mitigating it.

UPDATE: To my astonishment, 3000 people read this post within the first 48 hours it was up. So far I’ve read and/or received dozens of comments on it in various venues. The people who agree with me are a mixed bag of genders. The people who disagree with me are, so far, 100% men. That was, I must say, completely unexpected. I assume there will eventually be women who disagree (or, more accurately, voice their disagreement to me), but the fact remains that it’s gone this long with only male voices telling me I’m wrong, scolding me for “reading too much into it,” or taking me to task for “attacking” Lena Dunham. Interesting, right?

Tagged actors, feminism, women are people

Jul 25 2013

Awesome People

My Friends Are Awesome: Part One

For some reason I will never understand (Maybe they just like slumming it? Maybe it’s the cupcakes?), I have friends who are doing truly incredible things out in the world. I’ve decided that every so often, I’m going to point to one.

Oh, look! NICOLE GALLAND.

Nicole Galland. Photo by Eli Dagostino.

I’ve known Nicole since we went to grad school together. After grad school, she became a very successful writer of historical fiction. Her research is insanely deep, her characters are detailed, and, even better, I can’t predict the narrative from page one, which is saying a lot since narrative is where I live. Her books include the incredible I, Iago, a must-read for anyone working on Othello, The Fool’s Tale, Crossed: A Tale of the Fourth Crusade, and Revenge of the Rose.

Her latest book, Godiva, just came out. I asked Nicole a few questions about it, and about writing in general.

It seems most people think women in medieval Europe had far fewer freedoms than they actually did. Is this what attracts you to writing about women in this period? What were some surprising discoveries you’ve made about medieval women throughout your research for your books?

This gets complicated. In Britain, Anglo-Saxon women were better off than the general impression we have of “medieval women.” Things went downhill for them after the Norman Invasion. There is a bit in The Fool’s Tale addressing this from the other border: Welsh women, too, had more rights in that era than did Anglo-Norman women. But since the Normans were the victors and the victors write history, the sense we have of all women’s fates in medieval England comes from a selective reality. Women other than women-known-to-Norman-writers had freedoms we would not expect. Some of their rights are shocking, by modern standards. My favorite example: in Wales, a woman who caught her husband with a mistress could legally kill the mistress as long as she did it herself, not via a third person. Men did not have the same rights – a man who caught his wife in infidelity had to follow a more conventional judicial process.

So the discovery is less about how well women fared, and more about the discrepancy between the official story and the underreported ones. We all know a well-spun “master narrative” can brainwash or mislead. It happens that women’s roles in medieval Britain are a dead-easy example.

Or example, the traditional Godiva legend falls apart when you question the source. The original story is based on a Norman monk’s depiction (more than a century after the fact) of Norman property laws, in which Godiva’s husband, by virtue of being both her husband and her lord, had the power to impose a tax on Coventry. But actually, Godiva was Anglo-Saxon and under the laws of her time, her husband had no such power. So obviously if she really made the ride (and OK, maybe she didn’t) something else was going on– something other than “husband is lord while wife is feisty but compliant chattel.”

And that’s just Britain. It gets even more complicated when you move into various parts of Europe, Constantinople, the Jewish population, the nobility vs the commoners, etc.

I love that you’ve retold the Godiva story in a way that’s so empowering (ugh, I hate that word, but there it is) for women. What drew you to the story, and was that your plan from the beginning, or something that naturally grew out of exploring the narrative?

No plan, really. Godiva surprised me as much as she surprises most people she introduces herself to. I was drawn to her almost accidentally and had no idea where the interest would lead. The original story was about Edgiva, the Abbess of Leominster. When I realized that Lady Godiva has been the patroness of Edgiva’s abbey, I just wanted to add her for some background color.

But that meant having a very clear idea of who Godiva was and why she would have made her ride, and once I was (excuse the term) on that horse, I went full-tilt. As I said above, the original legend doesn’t hold up historically, and I needed something that did, so suddenly I was deeply invested. In terms of simple research, the deciding factor was my realizing, “Hey, these Anglo-Saxon women kicked butt. I better step up to the plate and honor that about them.”

I see so many writers create very bland, generic relationships that exist as a thoroughly uninteresting backdrops for their narratives. The relationship between Godiva and Leofric felt very real to me, and was rich with specificity and detail. Likewise, the relationship between Emilia and Iago in I, Iago felt absolutely real, although completely different in almost every way from the Godiva/Leofric relationship. How do you approach creating these romantic relationships that are so richly realistic and detailed?

A truthful but sappy answer is that the Emilia/Iago relationship was finessed, and the Godiva/Leofric relationship was created, while I was falling in love with Billy [Galland’s husband, actor Billy Meleady], with whom I have the best relationship of my life. I don’t mean to imply you need to experience something personally to write about it of course, I’m just saying sometimes it’s easier to sketch an image when you have a model to draw from.

Shakespeare gets some credit for Iago and Emilia, although the relationship is tricky to interpret; I’ve seen it played vastly different ways. In fact on the book tour for I, Iago, I’d have friends perform the handkerchief scene between the couple, twice– first with Emilia as a playful, almost cheeky wife, and then a terrified, deeply abused one. Same text, same actors, completely different story. It’s all in the details. Choose quirky specifics and invest in them; the payoff is very satisfying.

I know a lot of aspiring writers read this blog. Do you have any words of advice for them?

It’s so cliched but: don’t give up. Just keep on keeping on, even when you believe you suck and have no chance of success. Especially then. My first novel came out the year I turned 40; I’d started it in college. Along the way I was a (not untalented, and yet not successful-enough) actor, director, screenwriter. As a screenwriter, when I got the largest single paycheck of my life, I had $52 left in my bank account. 36 years old, Harvard grad, 52 bucks. Don’t give up.

Another cliché, but just as true: don’t compare yourself to anyone else, regarding talent, success, or circumstances. Ever. Period. It’s a waste of time and energy. End of discussion.

And finally: disregard the hot new mantra to “Find your voice,” because I’ve been hearing that a lot lately and it doesn’t help; in fact, it makes me horribly self-conscious; I feel like I am being told to brand myself (another big concept these days). Just do what makes your heart feel good, even if that means you use many different voices.

I’ve provided links above to purchase Nicole’s books online, but both of us urge you to check out your local independent booksellers! Hell, we urge you to check out your local independent EVERYTHING.

Jul 03 2013

8 Comments

Theatre

WOMEN PLAYWRIGHTS: I Challenge You

Arwen Anderson and L. Peter Callender with Marissa Keltie, Julia Brothers and Robert Parsons in Circle Mirror Transformation by Annie Baker, at MTC

Marin Theatre Company, a LORT here in the Bay Area (and let’s give them a round of applause for how much local talent they hire, shall we? YAY) has two prizes they’re giving out for new plays. No submission fees, and the submission process is simple and online.

Here’s the deal: No matter what the thing is– prizes, contests, festivals, open calls– plays by men make up between 65% and 75% of the submissions. I’ve experienced this personally, seen it measured in studies, and had it quoted to me anecdotally by other ADs.

While I’m sure there are some contests out there somewhere achieving 50/50 submissions, the norm is nowhere near parity. If we want 50/50 productions, the first step is to make sure everyone has 50/50 submissions.

Start with MTC.

Bowman Wright (Lincoln) and Biko Eisen-Martin (Booth) in Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks, at MTC. Photo by DavidAllenStudio.com

I’ve issued my challenge on my facebook. All you need to do is submit to one of the two prizes MTC has going and then comment “DONE” on my facebook note. I want to see 100 women submitting to these contests.

If 100 women comment on my facebook note that they’ve submitted, I’ll do profiles of three playwrights, randomly selected from the list, on this blog. I’m no Adam Szymkowicz, but still.

Here’s the link to the facebook note. LET’S DO THIS.

Tagged new plays, playwrights, women are people

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