So I figured I’d get into the play, sit down, and sit fuming for two hours about all the bullshit the audience was being fed. But to my surprise, there wasn’t nearly as much of that as I anticipated. In fact, the whole ordeal was pretty un-evocative. I don’t mean just fury, I mean in general. I was actually quite pleased to discover that about two thirds of the play is potty humor.
Yes, there was some bullshit, obviously. Like in the monologue of the woman who gets all offended that no one’s invented a more comfortable tampon. Takes it personally that it’s uncomfortable to go to the doctor’s office. Thinks that it’s a conspiracy against women.It might have been a joke, but it was hard to tell.
And in all the stories about all the abuses men inflict. Every story about rape built up dramatically to it, putting the event on a pedestal from which it could be seen by all men, that they might feel ashamed. They sometimes seem even to go so far as to neglect touching on the woman’s trauma at being raped in favor of using the story to lash out against the male gender.
But for the most part, the Vagina Monologues was just some harmless fluff. Some gross-out anatomical descriptions, some crude references for shock value, some lame potty humor, some cutesy kid-babble, some stupid would-be poetry about the vagina as some sacred something-or-other. Final opinion: Skip it next time. It’s hardly even worth getting mad about.
-Enoch
23 comments:
...Are you kidding?
You are aware that "V day" is about ending domestic violence, right? But hey, that's just fluffy shit, too, apparently.
Maybe you should pay attention the next time, before you go off on an uninformed, embarrassing rant.
i'm embarrassed that someone who can't think more critically than you do goes to drew.
-robin
V Day may be about ending domestic violence, but really it's about pretty much everything the feminist movement stands for, which happens to include ending domestic violence as one of its tenets. Any merit it has is completely obfuscated by self-righteous feminist propaganda.
I don't really know where you're getting your information. For example, how exactly was the lecture on sex toys that was a part of V-Week (which was both informative and hilarious) rhetoric or having anything to do with male guilt?
As for the "Vagina Monologues", I wasn't sure what to expect upon seeing it, but I found it insightful, entertaining and eye-opening. Completely free of bullshit. You're entitled to your opinions, of course, but frankly this just comes off as something almost akin to Ann Coulter.
Chauvinist pig.
'nuff said.
(This is crossposted from the comments on the Livejournal syndicated feed, since I don't know what gets read by the author)
I'm really glad that you're questioning the humor behind My Angry Vagina. It's supposed to make you laugh, it's not "bullshit." It's like those stupid condom jokes about penises throwing up all over themselves or something. Bad analogy, I know, but it was the first thing I thought it.
Rape stories are not "formulated to stimulate male guilt." Very, very bad phrasing there. Formulated is suggesting fabricated, and these are all very real. Stimulating male guilt? To psuedo-quote the monologue My Short Skirt....it's not about you. It's not about threatening the male or masculine, it's about an event that takes place. I'm sure if you were raped, and you had to describe it to someone, you would be describing it with disgust. That's not about trying to elicit guilt from anyone, that's about dealing with violation. Think countries being invaded, how do they describe it? Are they trying to make people feel guilty for it?
Re: the paragraph about abuse. I don't know what you're trying to say and would like you to clarify, because I want to see your point but the sentence fragments aren't relaying it for me and I don't want to misread you.
I'm not even going to touch the harmless fluff aspect.
Lastly, I want to know what you thought of the end, when we asked people to stand up if they knew someone affected by sexual assault. Did you? Did you take a look at everyone in the room? This isn't something that goes away after February.
Also, what do you know about Take Back the Night? And how many unsafe places there actually are on our campus? How it feels to be uncomfortable walking around alone at night? I propose this: Next fall if you're here, attend the Men's Vigil. Sit and talk to the guys (there won't be any yelling and screaming women in the room, don't worry) and just see what it's like to be on the other side. I'm not asking you stay for the whole thing (you might get a little agitated when the women come back and we do have to talk about assault), but I think it's just something that might help you open your eyes.
I did stand up, actually. The thing about that is, I didn't write about sexual assault, I wrote a review of the Vagina Monologues. Get it?
First of all, I think Basil and Mandy made excellent points and articulated the numerous disgusting and uneducated arguments presented by Original Poster much better than I could.
I'm sure my response won't be taken seriously either, because I'm a female who (gasp!) considers herself a feminist and whose vagina has indeed grown "angrier" after reading Eunuch's (pun intended) review of The Vagina Monologues.
I guess addressing domestic violence is pretty fluffy and silly and useless, especially now that the wise Eunuch has uncovered the truth behind the matter-- it's REALLY about blaming men and denouncing the penis.
Never mind that "putting [rape stories] on a pedestal" is an extremely courageous act for those who were raped, had a friend who was raped, or saw a play about an actress communicating the painful-but-true rape story of another survivor. Feel free to argue with me on this statistic, but I think every college-aged student must have heard (or worse, experienced) on of these "exaggerated" rape accounts by now.
I'm deeply offended (not that it matters to Eunuch) that rape/domestic violence/female empowerment, etc. is now believed to be "bullshit" let alone "un-evocative" propaganda.
Will E. apologize for his shamelessly-sexist ranting after receiving enough angry replies?
Unlikely.
Would E. feel differently if he had a vagina? Perhaps.
Will he ever have sex with a respectable woman?
I seriously doubt it.
-CMoney
P.S.
E. is THISCLOSE to failing the Miller Test (see bottom of Nutcracker page, link to Wiki article)
The Miller test was developed in the 1973 case Miller v. California[1]. It has three parts:
* Whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,
* Whether the work depicts/describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions [2] specifically defined by applicable state law,
* Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary and/or artistic, political, or scientific value.
1. Prurient= sick (check)
2. Well, it describes RAPE in an offensive way-- which is probably worse than making a few bad-taste sex comments.
3. Literary value-- nope. I could write another few paragraphs about E.'s grammatical errors/general stupidity.
Artistic- huh. No artistic value, either.
Political- only in an extreme-extreme-right neo-Con and if making a mockery of domestic violence is in the party's political agenda. Again, doubtful.
Scientific- ha!
fin.
Actually as far as I am concerned it is St. Valentine's Day, which does carry religious meaning. It's not all about vaginas.
OP: Sometimes you can't write a review of a play without discussing what it's about. Get it?
This is Spooky D a site admin, writing in response to what cmoney said. This post does have artistic merit, after all it is a persons opinion about a play and a movement even if you don’t agree. Secondly it does not describe the act of rape in any vivid or even descriptive manner. This site promised not to censor others opinions, I’m glad that you all are writing responses. If you feel that it is necessary please submit a full post detailing your criticisms of Enoch’s.
Hey cmoney:
"Will he ever have sex with a respectable woman?
I seriously doubt it."
is hardly respectable. I believe the rules of the site do not allow for slander, hate speech, fighting words or personal vendettas. Enoch did not attack anyone personally. The fact that you did (this has nothing to do with opinion) is uncalled for and your posts are subject to deletion.
Just for future site use.
Thanks,
savagery&grace
Uh.
Two more points:
1. I was being tongue-in-cheek about the OP violating the rules of the Miller Test. Hell, everyone has the right to express their opinions (even if that opinion is "hey, rape isn't so bad"). I guess sarcasm is easily misread through blogging.
2. "anonymous," Seriously? First of all, I have no clue who OP is, so it can't be a personal vendetta (nor hate speech-- personally, I'd consider OP's "review" closer to hate speech than my little teasing remark about how he'll never have sex).
I apologize if my response to OP's post was miscontrued as a personal attack or hate crime; to clarify:
It is my OPINION that OP's review is a pile of chauvinist bigoted bullshit, even though it certainly deserves to be published on a free-speech blog.
oy, Enoch. I'd like to commemorate you on a coherently, well written entry. But, your opinion im afraid comes across as gum stuck on the bottom of proverbially progressive sneakers. V-day is in full swing, and that is a wonderful. Domestic Violence is a horrible horrible thing that should not happen and the public needs to be aware that it does. I, for one, was not aware of how common any of the incidents described in The Vagina Monologues were until i came to drew. I am thankfull for V-day and feel proud to be a supporter of the movement;I have nothing to feel ashamed or guitly of, because I have never done any of those things to another human being. I am thankful to be informed so that i can help put a stop to violence, abuse and rape.
In your first few lines you said that V-day is a movement that tries to make men feel guitly... It doesn't make me feel guitly. Does it make you feel guitly? and if so, why?
A fair question, Dan. It may surprise some of you to learn that, in my opinion, domestic violence (as well as most other kinds of violence) is BAD. The same goes for sexual assault, slave trafficking, ect., ect. And it should be known that such things occur. However, and this is just my interpretation, I felt that the V-Day movement in general had the wrong attitude in their attempts to educate, appearing at times to be more vengeful than proactive. It is this attitude, more than the goals toward which it is employed, that I object to.
As to whether I felt personally guilty, no, I did not, but not for Eve Ensler's lack of trying. Again it is simply an interpretation of attitude, but I feel that in her writing she is not merely outraged at those guilty of violence and rape, but at the whole demographic (males) she percieves to be most guilty. This is sexism, and, in my humble opinion, sexism and similar bigotries are offensive.
-Enoch
Enoch,
I'm glad that you clarified that you were stating your own personal interpretation of V-day in your response to my question. I think that you did a poor job of doing that in your original post and consequently offended many people including myself. I would like an apology.
Secondly:
I'm very interested in learning what you would consider a better attitude for V-day participants to use in educating others about rape and domestic violence.
It's regrettable that you've put me in an awkward position like this, Dan. I'm afraid I can't apologize - I feel it should go without saying that the things I write are my own opinions and not empirical fact unless I cite reliable sources of information.
As to what methods I would employ to get across the positive aspects of V-Day? Quite simply, I'd remove all the superfluous reference to the vagina, and focus on issues that matter - rape, violence, slavery, etc.
-Enoch
Enoch, if you had such strong opinions of The Vagina Monologues, why didn't you come to our talk back the on Friday the 23rd? It was in the Space and it was open to the entire campus. It was a way to proactivly discuss problems we have with the script and show.
We aren't trying to stimulate male guilt Enoch. We're trying to open closed doors about violence against females. The Vagina Monologues also includes empowering stories of women who take control of their sexuality. I love that you reduced Eve Ensler down to "militant" "lesbian" and vengeful". She's also a respected and honored playwright. Vengeful? Why did you even come to the show?
As for being "self-rightous", damn straight I'm self-rightous about mine and every woman's right to be safe.
Also, you didn't actually write a review about the show. Not in my mind. You wrote an opnion piece about feminism. You mentioned one monologue that you didn't even understand and you didn't include any credible information for a reader to go on. You decided for yourself why Eve Ensler wrote the monologues (that's slander, you know). You basically decided why were you going to hate it and when- shocker!- you didn't, you tore it a new one for not being clever enough. Wow. You're going to do really well in the real world of journlism.
Last but not least: "I'd remove all the superfluous reference to the vagina, and focus on issues that matter - rape, violence, slavery, etc."
What was superflous? And Why should women always be put in the victim role? We do the Vagina Monologues to bring the issue of violence against women to the forefront; is it really a bad thing to have monologues that give us hope also? These monologues make us laugh, give us hope, bring us closer, connect men to women, women to women, generations to one another and remind us that violence is not the only thing in the world.
The Vagina Monologues is not perfect, but your article was just opinion and not at all constructive.
Not much better than the Acorn.
sarah-
To address a few of your points:
-Enoch and I went to the show together because there is obviously a huge to-do about the v-day movement and the play in specific on campus. we both knew that we couldnt properly form opninons about the play if we hadnt seen it.
-The reason neither of us decided to attend the discussion event on friday the 23rd is because we went to see the play on saturday.
-Sure, Enoch has strong opinions, and whether or not his writing seems unfair doesnt really matter, because he's not looking at journalism as a career. no big deal.
-Opinion articles are allowed on the nutcracker.
-and i believe most of the references to the vagina ARE superfluous. for example: the vagina-shaped lollipops sold in a prominent area of the u.c.? disgusting! i thought that was one of the rudest, most exploitative, and perverse things i've ever seen. and dont anyone dare say a word against it because they're being sold for charity, if youre against them being sold youre obviously for violence towards women. i mean, the university would never endorse the selling of raging hard-on pops for testicular cancer. we've got little kids walking around campus, for christs sake. i think some of the things done as part of the movement were just a little TOO feministic.
-savagery&grace
Thanks for responding S&G, whoever you are.
First of all, many of the people who attended the talk hadn't seen the show yet. And I think having come to the talk they were able to take some of the monologues with a grain of salt. They understood that there are flaws with the show. Flaws that even a leftist liberal feminist like myself can take offense at. Would you like a few examples?
-Race isn't equally represented in the show. Every reference to a minority woman is done with a stereotype and most of them are negative.
-Lesbian women, bisexual women, transsexual women and transgender women are not equally represented.
-Women who have loving, equal relationships with men are not represented well.
-A lot of the monologues are either about violence or about sexual gratification. This reduces women to their parts.
These are just a few constructive criticisms of the monologues.
About the vagina lolipops in the uc, I'm sorry you were offended. I didn't hear about any complaints however. No one told me I was offending them when I tabled. If there was a table set up about testicular cancer and they sold penis pops of course I would buy one. Yes, there are kids that go through the uc, but that doesn't stop people watching mtv on the tv in the uc, or swearing on the path, in the uc or in the commons. Parents should be able to properly shield their kids from things they deem inappropriate. It's a college campus with young people, they know that, and it seems like they do a good job!
Also, the lolipops aren't in the play. So how is our selling funny lolipops an example of the play refering to the vagina in a superfluous manner? And don't tell me it's the "what would your vagina wear/say/smell like?" monologue. Those are real women's words. Remember, Eve Ensler interviewed women about themselves. The monologues are the results.
And what does "too feministic" mean?
I know the Acorn isn't great, and they absolutely do a shit job editing and fact checking. So far, this site is not impressing me any more. At least the people who write for the Acorn actually say who they are. I was under the impression that "Enoch" was trying to be some sort of journalist, and for some reason I thought you were not an editor. . . but more of a moderator. But it appears you're just good friends who want a forum to complain about Drew. (I also really wanted Enoch to respond. No offense, but I didn't ask you these questions. I asked Enoch.) And we don't even know who you two are!
I'd read rants on badly monitered, one-sided facebook groups if I wanted to read biased, rude complaints.
sarah-
enoch hasnt responded because its spring break and hes got better things to do, unlike me, haha.
if you wanted his response, and not mine, you didnt have to read mine.
does it really matter who we are? a rose by any other name smells just as sweet. we're drew students.
of course the vagina monologues were taken with a grain of salt, thats why enoch didnt complain about the points you just mentioned, he complained about some of his own problems with the show. and neither of us felt it would have been appropriate to attend the talk on friday because we'd have nothing to talk about because we hadnt seen the show, no matter what other people did.
what i meant by my imprecise "too feministic" was: i have a stalwartly feminist friend named joan. i respect her because she defines feminism as striving for sexual and gender equality. fine. i think some aspects of the show and v-week crossed the line and were a bit anti-male.
i am not an editor, or a moderator, nor is enoch. there are no editors but the two moderaters, Outsider and Spooky D. read the mission statement on the front page of the site, this is not supposed to be a revamped acorn.
THE NUTCRACKER ENCOURAGES EVERYONE TO SUBMIT AN ARTICLE, OR POST, OR RANT, AS LONG AS IT ADHERES TO THE MILLER TEST ENOUGH TO SATISFY THE SITE MODERATORS. IF YOU HAVE DIFFERING OPINIONS THAN THOSE ALREADY WRITTEN ABOUT PLEASE SUBMIT AN ARTICLE.
no really, we need more writers. we want everyone. anything you have to say. write an article. spooky d will have a field day.
-s&g
p.s. i'll tell enoch to reply if you want. :)
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