Theatre and Culture from Scotland, starring The List's Theatre Editor, his performance persona and occasional guest stars. Experimental writings, cod-academic critiques and all his opinions, stolen or original.
Friday, 25 April 2014
Buzzcut Thoughts (1): The Thing and The Human Torch
Yeah, but who "really" owns a story? After all, if there's more than one person involved, who really owns it? That might be applied to many pieces of work from live art to film and books, but surely it depends on how much you respect the people to whom it belongs... or something along those lines. It's a problem; it's sort of like that book called 'My year as a man' (or some similar title) which caused a bit of a ruckus in the trans* community because it was written by a cis woman who just did it in order to write a book about it. Surely that would be like a personal piece by Robert Softley about his lifestyle as a disabled artist was reappropriated by a person without disabilities? Maybe it's just a matter of 'authenticity' or 'being genuine', which is quite absurd in a theatre space, but it might also be a matter of 'how can you possibly know what the person whose story it is has gone through'? Then again, that seems to become a question of acting rather than experience - if four girls with non-migrant backgrounds performed Glasgow Girls, how would you know? Would it even matter if the message was the same? If Nic Green hadn't pointed it out, would you know they weren't her stories?
Yeah, but who "really" owns a story? After all, if there's more than one person involved, who really owns it? That might be applied to many pieces of work from live art to film and books, but surely it depends on how much you respect the people to whom it belongs... or something along those lines. It's a problem; it's sort of like that book called 'My year as a man' (or some similar title) which caused a bit of a ruckus in the trans* community because it was written by a cis woman who just did it in order to write a book about it. Surely that would be like a personal piece by Robert Softley about his lifestyle as a disabled artist was reappropriated by a person without disabilities? Maybe it's just a matter of 'authenticity' or 'being genuine', which is quite absurd in a theatre space, but it might also be a matter of 'how can you possibly know what the person whose story it is has gone through'? Then again, that seems to become a question of acting rather than experience - if four girls with non-migrant backgrounds performed Glasgow Girls, how would you know? Would it even matter if the message was the same? If Nic Green hadn't pointed it out, would you know they weren't her stories?
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