Why Plays are Better for Feminism than Magazine Think Pieces

Beth Dixon, Virginia Kull, and Amy Brenneman

This has been a gender filled week. First, Anne Marie Slaughter broke the internet with her polemic, "Why Women Still Can't Have it All" in The Atlantic. I read the article with as much interest and agreement as most of my friends, but felt that something was lacking.  Though I couldn't agree more with Slaughter's assertion that some biological differences keep women from prioritizing their careers, I disagreed with her premise. Why should any one--man or woman--who wants to "have it all" be able to? Do we as a society really want to treat people who choose to be parents equally as people who don't have such familial obligations? Slaughter's article came off as a bit self-righteous and scolding. Though it was necessary for her to present personal anecdotes that illustrated her situation, these anecdotes ultimately felt incomplete. Could we really trust someone who was giving prescriptive remedies to tell the whole truth about her own problems, which she hopes to solve through these solutions? At the same time, I still found her piece to be well-argued compared to many other feminist bloggers/writers out there who seem to use their platforms to merely whine about life. 

Then I caught RaptureBlister Burn at Playwright's Horizons.  Gina Gionfriddo's play is a livelier and more thorough exploration of contemporary issues in feminism than Anne Marie Slaughter's article. This work of fiction highlighted the problems that feminist writers who draw from life have when writing magazine articles. Amy Brenneman stars as Cathy, a fortysomething successful talking head/feminist theorist, who takes a job at a "fourth tier" liberal arts college in her hometown to look after her elderly mother.
Catherine reconnects with two friends from grad school, Don and Gwen, who are now married with two kids.  Don now supports the family as a dean of the liberal arts school while Gwen stays home with the kids. This sets the stage for all three to brutally examine the choices they've made over the past two decades. Who is more fulfilled: the mother or the career woman? Throw in some grad seminar sessions between Cathy and a twenty-one year old female college student, and Gianfriddo manages to cover the whole spectrum of contemporary feminist issues while avoiding the traps of the magazine think piece format. 

Unlike a serious think piece, Rapture Blister Burn can make fun of itself. As a comedy, it doesn't take itself seriously. Along with that comes the freedom for Gionfriddo to expose each character's flaws. A writer can't self-deprecate too much without losing credibility. But in the play, Cathy jokes about her sluttiness, her alcoholic tendencies, and her fears of dying alone. Avery (Virginia Kull), the college student, delivers some of the bawdiest lines as she exaggerates her ignorance of women's issues and her youth ("If Betty Friedan said women should have choices, why can't they choose to suck cock on screen?"). 

Multiple characters also give the work multiple perspectives. A solo magazine article inevitably reflects the writer's own demographic the best. In Rapture Cathy espouses her view that all relationships must have a "leader and a follower." Society imposes a double standard to condition men to lead and women to follow. Men who sacrifice their careers to follow a woman are labeled "users," while women who follow a man are "being supportive." Avery objects to this classification by saying something I've heard many of my twentysomething girlfriends say: "I think it's great that guys want to make sacrifices; I'm just personally not attracted to those kinds of guys." "Exactly," Cathy shoots back. 

Gwen makes an offhanded observation at the beginning of the play: that as a fortysomething, she has reached the point of her life where she starts to question the life that could have been. By the end of the play, some women are in relationships while others are single. Gionfriddo doesn't say which position is better. It's this retreat from agenda pushing that makes Rapture Blister Burn more effective than any blog post on women's issues. It raises the issues in a compelling way, and leaves it to us to think about the answers.

Can Girls Escape Sex and the City's Shadow?



Girls: Allison Williams, Jemima Kirke, Lena Dunham, and Zosia Mamet

Fourteen years ago, a show about the sex lives of four women in New York City premiered on HBO. Though many lavished it with praise, it also came under fire for being too white, being too privileged, and being secretly anti-feminist. Three weeks ago, another show about the sex lives of four women in New York City premiered on HBO. Though many lavished it with praise, it also came under fire for being too white, being too privileged, and being secretly anti-feminist. The first show was, of course, Sex and the City. The second, Girls. But wait--I thought Girls is supposed to be an anti-Sex and the City: gritty, not glamorous; perspirational, not aspirational.

If Girls is supposed to transcend Sex and the City, why are we talking about it in the same way?

I have a couple theories about this, neither of which bodes well for the future of women on TV.

First, maybe Girls is fundamentally not that different from Sex and the City. The four women here suspiciously resemble their older counterparts. Hannah, the main protagonist is--like Carrie--a writer of essays based on her life, often a mess who relies on her friends (asking Marnie to make her an STD test appointment), and self-obsessed ("I may be the voice of my generation"). Marnie, like Miranda, is the hypercompentent best friend with a boyfriend who loves too much. Jessa--the only blonde--is promiscuous in a Samantha-like way. She has HPV and isn't afraid to admit it ("All adventurous women do.") Finally, Shoshanna is an even more naive version of Charlotte, admitting she's a virgin in the second episode. These similarities worry me. Can women only be portrayed as either lost and confused, scoldingly bitchy, slutty, or innocent?

The show is also similar in its ambition to SATC. It tries to explore female agency by showing women having sex. Where Sex and the City tried to show women as powerful exercisers of their right to sleep with whomever they want, Girls shows how female agency has resulted in a hook up culture. Both shows must linger on the sex scenes to get its point across.  No one really had as much guilt-less sex as Samantha, and no one really has as much awkward sex as Hannah (at least not with one partner), but that's not the point. But it does make me wonder: is examining their sex lives the only way we can say anything about women?

Second--even if Girls is really doing something different from its predecessor--maybe the state of the world hasn't changed much. The objections today to Girls echoes the objections critics had to Sex and the City because society feels the same way about women on TV the same way then as it does now. Some of this is good because it shows that critics had high expectations from Dunham. You don't see the same scrutiny of 2 Broke Girls. Because of the dearth of women on TV, people project all their hopes onto a female-led show. Most of the critiques are rather PC, claiming that the show completely white washes Brooklyn. These are fair criticisms, but they also illustrate the problem that audiences are more willing to critique shows with women simply because there are so few of them. There was never any rage over Entourage's all-white ensemble because there are enough shows by men out there featuring men of color (mostly The Wire).

More worrisome are the critiques from feminist circles. In 1999, Wendy Shalit, a conservative feminist, wrote that Sex and the City is "a lament for all things of inestimable value that the sexual revolution has wrecked, in this city and beyond." Her critique was simple: for a show about sexual freedom, the women of Sex and the City spent an awful lot of time "complaining about insensitive men." Maybe women couldn't really have it all because we were still hardwired to want commitment. Now, thirteen years later, some things have changed for women. There are more women breadwinners, for instance. But with these great changes comes a similar anxiety. This time Katie Roiphe, writing in Newsweek, speculated that Girls is part of a trend of women seeking "sexual submission" in culture. "It is intriguing that huge numbers of women are eagerly consuming myriad and disparate fantasies of submission at a moment when women are ascendant in the workplace," Roiphe writes. In other words, Maybe women can't really have it all because we are hardwired to be dominated.

Though many people disagree with Shalit and Roiphe, this kind of conversation still illustrative of how people think about culture made by women. I'm glad that there is a show written, directed, and starring a very talented women of my generation, but it may take more time before we can just critique such a show strictly for its art without the political baggage attached.

Is Plotlessness OK in Mad Men?

Don looking as perplexed as I feel in "Far Away Places."

Since the fifth season of Mad Men premiered a month ago, the "super viewer" blogosphere has sung its praises. Like it did the last four seasons. Just this past week, AVClub wrote, "There are few shows on the air more effective...at portraying how the feeling of everything spinning out of control can seem completely normal in the moment." Slate's TV club gushed, "This was an episode with two marvelous set pieces--Roger's excellent adventure with Jane, and Don's Howard Johnson noir."
I've been watching too, but with less enthusiasm than the typical super viewer. Though I agree that Mad Men gives you great set pieces, are these set pieces enough?

Since Season Five premiered, it has featured episode-long story arcs that beautifully depict how a particular person reacts to a particular set of circumstances. This week, there was the acid-trip that showed Roger's struggle to be hip when his age betrays him. Meanwhile, Don's trip with Megan suggested that he still abides by some classic fifties concept that a husband can control his wife. Last week, the office wet blanket, Pete Campbell, was beautifully pilloried in a series of awkward sexual encounters, culminating in his getting beat upon by Lane Pryce, the company's treasurer. Each of these vignettes highlights some aspect of the characters' personalities. But is this what we really need five seasons in? We already knew that Roger was insecure. We didn't need three episodes this season showing him buy people's loyalties with cash. We also learned that nothing comes easily for Pete the first time he unsuccessfuly flirted with a woman who wasn't his wife in Season One. Five seasons in, the sets are still gorgeous; the costumes are historically accurate, but the plot is starting to stagnate.
Mad Men wasn't always this way. While the show has always been relatively slow paced, there was some mystery and surprise. I was originally hooked by Don's secret in the first two seasons. Would his co-workers and wife find out that he's a Korean War deserter who took on another man's name? How was Peggy going to climb the corporate ladder after bearing Pete's illegitimate child? Now that these story arcs have been resolved, the characters need other challenges that force them to evolve--not just interesting situations that allow them to stay the same.

More and more, Mad Men is starting to resemble the John Cheever short stories that critics have linked it to since inception. Each week features a character in a challenging social situation (the surprise party, the long-absent husband's homecoming, the multi-racial sleepover). How he or she responds (getting embarrassed, kicking the husband out, hesitating before leaving the purse with a black girl) gives us insight into the characters, and his or her environment. In this way, each episode is actually a terrific introduction to the characters for uninitiated viewers. Indeed, last week episode, "Signal 30," even ended with Ken Cosgrove reading out loud from his Cheever-esque short story.

Though I love Cheever, and I love short stories, I'm not sure I want my TV shows to dramatize them. After all, this is a medium that gives writers nine hours over the course of 13 weeks to craft a couple compelling narratives with a beginning, middle, and end. Why waste them telling longtime viewers what they already know when they could be used to create richer challenges for the characters?

Damsels in Distress a Disappointing After 14 Year Wait

Sometimes, an artist's newest work differs so much from his previous work that it makes me wonder if I had misinterpreted all of the previous work. Fifteen minutes into Whit Stillman's latest film, Damsels in Distress, the self-doubt started to creep in. Was I really watching a Whit Stillman film?

True, the film is littered with Whit Stillman signatures. Like his previous work, Damsels is about bourgeois young people trying to figure out their places in the world. Like his other films Last Days of Disco (made in 1998 but set in the early 1980s) and Metropolitan (1990), Damsels goes for a retro look. Much of the film looks like it was shot through Vaselined lens, harkening back to classic Hollywood. Set on a college campus, the film's coeds are dressed anachronistically in button down shirts, cardigans, and pleated skirts. Even the main character, played by Greta Gerwig, looks like the protagonist of Last Days of Disco (1998), played by Chloe Sevigny with their shoulder length blonde hair and expressive round eyes.

But beyond the visuals, the plot and characters seemed like a bad imitation of Stillman. While Stillman's characters have never been sympathetic, They are usually well drawn and realistic. Stillman’s previous three films, Metropolitan, Barcelona (1994), and Last Days of Disco all feature spoiled twentysomethings who think they have profound ideas. They make unsavory remarks like "I've always planned to be a failure. That's why I plan to marry a very wealthy woman." One young man's existential crisis in Barcelona is whether he has been shaving incorrectly his entire life. The audience is typically invited to laugh at them and not with them.

If Stillman is trying to make a broader statement in his previous films, it is that our culture has made these young people this way. Metropolitan might be the most obvious example of this. It follows a Princeton student, Tom Townsend, the holiday week between Christmas and New Year’s when he is at home in New York City. Tom is invited as a date with his friends on the deb ball circuit. However, Tom's background presents a problem since he's from the Upper West Side with an artsy father while all his friends are from the classier Upper East Side—a classic fish out of water story. The fundamental absurdity is that Tom is even considered an outsider in the first place. This absurdity condemns the entire concept of "society." The characters' bad behavior can be attributed to the strict, arbitrary lines drawn by society.

Damsels sticks with the young people as fools formula, but lacks any real heft. Here, the main target of audience laughter is Violet (Gerwig), a self-righteous coed who heads a suicide prevention center on campus. at one point, she tells a professor that Richard Strauss invented the waltz and that a man named Charleston invented the Charleston. Both these statements are false. The plot--if you can call it that-- is that Violet and her two pals invite a fourth girl, Lily, into their circle. The four engage in various dalliances with boys throughout. these dalliances are mostly absurd, invoking no sympathy for any of the girls. Despite her pretentious, Violet is in love with a dumb frat boy who goes around saying inane things. Lily lets her love interest convince her that his religion only permits anal sex. There may be a general critique of the college hook up culture, but this critique is lacking when it doesn’t link to the characters at all. Indeed, there’s no sense of why the characters act the way they do. Some flashbacks suggest that Violet was an abandoned young child, but why is she so obsessed with the suicide prevention center now? Damsels is full of obvious laughs. The opening credit sequence introduces the young ladies as “The Damsels” and then the young men as “Their Distress.” Damsels does provide plenty of laughs but very little food for thought.

Clybourne Park: A Hollow Hope

The quest for the great American race relations play continues with the Broadway debut of Clybourne Park. Bruce Norris, the playwright behind this 2011 Pulitzer Prize winner, has said that he wrote this play in conversation with Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun. Indeed, the first half of Clybourne Park is set in 1959, the same year Raisin debuted on Broadway. Clybourne Park discusses race through the lens of gentrification. Though Norris should be admired for highlighting these issues on a national stage, the one-note portrayal of many characters in this play ultimately raise the question of whether it's even possible for a white playwright (like Norris) to shed light on race relations in a non-cliched, meaningful way.

Clybourne Park was critically applauded when it was first produced Off-Broadway. In addition to the Pulitzer, the Times called it "a spiky and damningly insightful new comedy." Funny, it is, but damningly insightful I take issue with. Clybourne Park starts out promisingly in 1959 as a white couple, Bev and Russ, (Christina Kirk and Frank Wood) prepare to move out of their quaint, single family home. Their day is interrupted as some neighbors, Betsy and Carl (Annie Parisse and Jeremy Shamos), come to warn them that word on the street has it that the buyers of the house are "colored." Carl goes on to try to convince Russ to sell to the neighborhood committee for moral reasons. After all, once one black family moves in, the white families will flee, driving down housing prices. Things get awkward as Carl insists on asking Bev's black maid, Francine (Crystal Dickinson) for her opinion.

Much of the racial tension in this first act is subtextual, perhaps reflecting the repressed emotions of the era. This works since it leads to room for ambiguity. Russ and Bev do decide to sell the house to the African-American family, but it's unclear how much of their decision is based on their colorblindness. Underlying their decision is the pain of their son's recent suicide upon his return from Korea where he was accused of killing civilians. The revelation of this secret adds some depth to Russ and Bev, and some insight to their current situation. Unfortunately, Bev is prone to some physical tics, which I found distracting. These physical tics are clearly attributable to the director and not the actress, but I can't figure out for the like of me why the director would want Bev to wave her hands around over her head every time she speaks. She also jerks her head back every time she's about to open her mouth. Maybe she is supposed to be drunk? Nonetheless, this first act is a complete story all to itself with well drawn main characters who have believable motives.

But the second act is rather useless once the initial conceit is exposed. As the curtain rises, it's 2009. We see the same set, but this time with graffiti covering the 50's wallpaper. Six people--the same actors in different roles--sit around in chairs. They are discussing the gentrification of the neighborhood--particularly two characters' impending desire to renovate the house into a McMansion. Isn't this neat, you think. In 2009, white people are trying to get into the same neighborhood that black people couldn't break into fifty years ago. The ensuing escalating arguments about race then show how conversations about race stay the same, even as political correctness has taken over. Message conveyed in about five minutes, the next forty-five are filled with gratuitous jokes that come at the expense of reducing each of the six characters into a stereotype.

Most stereotyped is the renovating white couple (Parisse and Shamos). She is the Whole Foods liberal armed with politically correct platitudes. "Half my friends are black," she remarks. Shamos plays the angry white man pissed that he can't say the N word when black people say it all the time. He spends most of the time trying to tell a racist joke, much to his wife's chagrin. Their black counterparts (Dickinson and Gupton) are no better. Dickinson plays a self-righteous protector of African-American culture. Gupton's character is the snide deflector of tense racial conversation. christina Kirk's deadpan portrayal of a one-upper lawyer is the most credible. When some characters mention a retarded man they know, Kirk responds "My niece has Asperger's." The banter is fun, but ultimately covers much of the same material that other plays about race address.

Earlier this season, The Submission by Jeff Talbott ran at the MCC's Lucille Lortel theater. This play about the consequences of a white man submitting a play under a black woman's name addressed issues of affirmative action and white privilege. In The Submission, Jonathan Groff played the playwright who was fed up with what he saw as affirmative action for women and minorities. He held many of the same attitudes as the white characters in Clybourne Park. Why couldn't he say the N word when black people can? His foil, the black actress he hires to pretend to be the playwright (Rutina Wesley), judges him for the distince lack of slavery in his family.

When it comes to race relations, these plays leave me wondering if it's possible to tell a meaningful story without resorting to angry white man, and angry black woman stereotypes. Is there a way to do it without resorting to once edgy racial jokes that have had their corners softened by overuse? Clybourne Park doesn't transcend these constraints. I won't be waiting with bated breath for a play that does.