["My son is involved in a Christian School Play and he tells me that the major roles which are normally played by males are being played by females. I don't think there is a shortage of males available - even if there is a shortage, does this make it right?"]
Your justifications are warranted.
Females should *never* play male roles.
Today's "Christian schools" are not what they used to be (although I have always been a proponent of having young Christian men and women grow up among unbelievers in public school to build toughness and grit); I would be wary of anyone trying to sell me on a religious education today unless I knew, by courseload what both classroom and extra curricular activities would be.
Although I would not pull your child out, you should make your criticisms known to the school administrator and explain to your son what the proper roles for male/female are.
Our society is submerged in a sex-drenched culture so hedonistic that we are, in many respects coming close to "Rome."
Drama is an *excellent* tool for teaching poise to young men and women ... but proper roles should not only be defined but vigorously defended.
86 comments
Now, consider the alternatives, and the fundy responce to them.
1 - make girls play "men" parts.
2 - Change the play to include fewer male parts
3 - Cancel the play
Clearly, the only choise is to pray for god to send more boys to the school, right now.
Does he think "Rome" is only a TV show and not an actual place?
And public, private, I don't care, but if they're serious about finding a coed school that doesn't have way more girls than boys involved in its drama program, they'd better be prepared to really toughen the little Christian soldiers up and move to the Village.
Shakespeare seemed to think differently.
Also, associating the arts with feminity, especially theatre/drama, tends to drive young boys away from it thus resulting in a shortage of boys to play male roles. It really doesn`t help that people like you call young men who love theatre gay. Yes, that does have a serious impact on young men and boys who simply enjoy acting.
Oh, and Rome came up with Christianity in the first place.
"...unless I knew, by courseload what both classroom and extra curricular activities would be."
Unless you knew by courseload?
"-Boy this guy would have a heart attack if he ever saw a authentic Japanese Kabuki play or how they performed Shakespeare originally, where there are no women and the men play both male and female roles.-"
I don't think he paid attention in class when they was talking about plays during that time period, if he did, then he wouldn't overreact like this, but if he was to look at it now, his head would literally explode on visual contact
Oh, but it was fine for men to play all the parts during Shakespeare's day and in Ancient Greece, where drama was invented, right? Women were not even allowed on stage as extras. But all of a sudden, when it's the other way around, now it's a catastrophe.
Get a grip.
... I have always been a proponent of having young Christian men and women grow up among unbelievers in public school to build toughness and grit...
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA... Oh, classic.
Also, sex drenched? You do realise that sex is vital for procreation and propagation of the species, right? There is a very good reason why people think about sex a lot. If we didn't, we'd die out. As for gender roles, go fuck yourself.
"
Every single person has a sex! OH MY GOOOOD!
#1158814
What exactly are single-sex schools meant to do?
The plays will be rewritten to exclude ANY female roles (Mary will be played by one of the boys' mother)- girls shouldn't even BE in school - they don't need educatin' to cook and pump our babies, dont'cha know
OMG! Has Brother_Mark ever looked at history?! In Shakespeare's time it was MALES who played all of the FEMALE roles. Women didn't come fully onto the stage until the late 1600's and early 1700's. But of course, like fundies everywhere, Brother_Mark will only apply his own standards to the world and NEVER research the past or other points of view.
"Females should *never* play male roles."
What about males playing female roles because that's how it was done until fairly recently.
"Although I would not pull your child out, you should make your criticisms known to the school administrator and explain to your son what the proper roles for male/female are."
The men folk are supposed to strut around and act macho and the wimmin folk are supposed to be barefoot in the kitchen makin' a sammich, right Mark? Or were you talking about theater roles? You know, that place where people pretend to be people who they really aren't.
"Our society is submerged in a sex-drenched culture so hedonistic that we are, in many respects coming close to "Rome.""
I doubt seriously that you know anything of Rome outside of your Wholly Babble's depiction of the Romans.
"Drama is an *excellent* tool for teaching poise to young men and women ... but proper roles should not only be defined but vigorously defended."
An argument similar to this is why men were dressing up as women to play the female roles in theater not long ago. It wasn't "proper" for a woman to be on stage according to polite society and fundy nuts such as yourself.
From Wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabuki
16291673: Transition to yaro kabuki
The modern all-male kabuki, known as yaro kabuki (young man kabuki), was established during this period. After women were banned from performing, cross-dressed male actors, known as onnagata ("female-role") or oyama, took over. Young (adolescent) men were preferred for women's roles due to their less masculine appearance and higher pitched voices compared to adult men. In addition, wakashu (adolescent male) roles, played by young men often selected for attractiveness, became common, and were often presented in an erotic context.[6] Along with the change in the performer's gender came a change in the emphasis of the performance: increased stress was placed on drama rather than dance. Their performances were equally ribald, however, and the male actors too were available for prostitution (to both female and male customers). Audiences frequently became rowdy, and brawls occasionally broke out, sometimes over the favors of a particularly handsome young actor, leading the shogunate to ban first onnagata and then wakashu roles. Both bans were rescinded by 1652.[7]
@SleepNeed
pretty young Kabuki actors also did other "feminine" things for men
"Brother"_Mark's head would explode
oops, #1158977 beat me to it
"Our society is submerged in a sex-drenched culture so hedonistic that we are, in many respects coming close to "Rome." "
Awesome! "Rome" was great. You know, until they "adopted" that "monotheism" thing.
And see, I can do random quotation marks too! It makes things MUCH easier to understand for the layman.
Yeah, to think that the Romans somehow found the time to be so advanced in every aspect of life during their 1,200 years, than what your sky fairy cult had done during that same amount of time, all the while boozing away, conquering the entirety of the Mediterranean and holding public sex orgies...sorry, they win.
I think this guy has managed to mix himself up...
By male/female roles, the OP meant characters that are male are played by female students, and vice-versa. They didn't mean that men were in kitchen and women were out operating heavy machinery.
Someone can't handle the thought of Pantomime Dames or Principal Boys!
This speaks to me of people who are thoroughly uncertain of their sexuality and seek to impose their uncertainties on the rest of the world. Sick!
Having directed drama in a Christian school once upon a time, I can tell you that the problem is usually homophobia. The male population of fundamentalism tends to equate the theatre with homosexuality and therefore it is next to impossible to find boys to try out for shows. They are terrified of being labeled gay. And one line in a play could do it. So you get almost all girls trying out. I had a girl play a character that was a former pastor once. Let me tell you, all hell broke loose. We had to change the reference from "pastor" to "missionary", since women are allowed to be missionaries.
Also...drama is used for evangelism.
1. Males used to play female roles during the Middle Ages, because it was considered shameful for women to be on stage.
2. Glad you don't support isolating Christian kids from other kids. That makes you slightly less crazy than some other people I've heard of.
3. "Proper roles" for men and women vary widely with the culture. 100 years ago, it was unheard of for women to ever wear pants or for men to teach. Both things are common now.
4. Rome is a very bad example to use. Rome survived as a pagan society for about 1000 years. It didn't fall until shortly after Christianity became the official religion of the Empire (i.e., a "convert or die" situation).
@ #1158837: Rome did not "come up with Christianity." It simply changed Christianity from a small, informal Greek-speaking religion to a structured, widespread Latin-speaking religion.
In a high school production of Cinderella, I had to take a male role because at 5'10", I was a full six inches taller than the next tallest girl, and they didn't have a dress long enough for me. That and a considerable lack of males in the chorus department. The only problem had was that at a larger C cup, it took two of the mothers helping out backstage to ace bandage me down for my male costume.
"Your justifications are warranted. "
Right there. The stupidity actually exposes itself BEFORE this pig even starts his rant.
And not for the first time I find myself thinking that there's no way in hell I'd let a child anywhere near a person with this much sexual hatred. I'm tellin ya, this guy's got a picture of a lost puppy and a bag of lolly pops in his car.
This play is at a Christian school, yet you think the play or the casting has something to do with society being sex-drenched? Maybe you should send your kid to a monastery, since you can't even bring yourself to trust a Christian school to be homophobic enough to suit you.
It was fundie-think which caused the prohibition of women on stage in Shakespeare's time, and hence men performing all of the women's roles then. You people are never happy.
"you should make your criticisms known to the school administrator and explain to your son what the proper roles for male/female are."
Exactly. You should explain to him that the female's role is to clean his house, pump out babies, and get him a sammich.
I know something so painfully obvious as this probably won't mean anything to a clueless, cultureless dimwit like you, Mark, but it needs to be said anyways--
SHAKESPEARE!!!!!
Good god, there are no "proper" male or female "roles" -- we're all perfectly well entitled to do what we want, regardless of gender, now kindly STFU.
Becoming close to Rome. You meaning a shining paragon of civilization compared to our neighbors, with running water, paved roads, and other conveniences? Wow, sounds terrible.
"Females should *never* play male roles."
The 'Principal Boy' has a long tradition in the uniquely British phenomenon of Pantomime, in which the lead male part is always played by a woman (clearly obvious, but her clothing suggests masculinity, somewhat). Similarly, the 'Pantomime Dame' is always played by a man.
The latter has had an even longer tradition, originating from the fact that in Peking opera and Japanese Kabuki and Noh theatre, males always played the female roles.
In ancient Japan, flower arranging and dance were part & parcel of the training to become a Samurai. Even disguising oneself as a female - very convincingly too - was not uncommon for ninja (especially those clans that didn't have 'Kunoichi', or female ninja) You wouldn't call them women to their faces, would you?
Uh, yeah, but it was okay for the plays in 1600 England to have only males playing ALL roles, right? And who the fuck are you to define 'proper' roles?
Gee, and here was me unable to get cast as a woman. I should have /demanded/ that we import guys to take all the good roles.
Actually, practice playing women would be good in co-ed uni. They won't cast me as a man anymore, because I don't look like one, and am not acting genius enough to steal good roles from actual male actors.
Still: What kind of stupid rule is that, Mark? I wanna be Hamlet!
@LadyJafaria
"@stupidroro: I believe you mean the Renaissance, not the Reconnaissance."
Unless Leonardo Da Vinci flew a U2 or SR-71.
X3
I'm an actress in an ameteur youth theatre, and we once put on a performance of "Bugsy Malone". I played three minor characters, none of which were female, and many of the girls ended up playing male gangsters.
And most probably, the school is going to say:
Don't you worry your pretty little head, Markie boy: your precious misogynists will learn the lessons of male dominance and female inferiority, all right, just the way you want. Society will teach them.
For everyone else's information, it's "sex-drenched" because a female showed up. A girl's presence automatically turns everything into a sex orgy, because females have no other purpose than to provide men with sex.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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