Well, my little town made The New York Times. In a nutshell, three people complained about the local high school’s fall production of Grease, the supe watched a video of it and decided that, yep, it was probably inappropriate :rolleyes: and so decided to put the kibosh on the spring play, The Crucible, I suppose because it included an off-stage extra-marital affair.
What are they doing instead? A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I like Shakespeare as much as the next geek, but how is that any “cleaner” or “less objectionable”, according to the standards of the type of yahoos who complained about Grease, than The Crucible?
My favorite quote from the district weas…er, superintendent:
All he had to do was tell the original three complainers (one of whom hadn’t even seen the play) to fucko off, no one else had a problem with it. Instead he capitulated, and now here we are, brewing a lovely little tempest in a teapot.
The only beef I’d have about Romeo and Juliet is that it’s been done and done and done to death. Other than that, I don’t know what this guy’s got a problem with. These are highschool students. I’m sure they’ve been exposed to faaaaar more mature content on TV.
Hell, I remember when I was in highschool we watched one Romeo & Juliet film where you actually saw Juliet’s boobies in one scene. AFAIK nobody was corrupted by that. :rolleyes:
I read this article the other day, and was outraged. It is a classic example of how a tiny minority (from one church) can suppress the rights of others. But the War on Christmas is a big deal - the war on art is nothing. These fascist Christian types are pure hypocrites.
Grease, by the way, for those who don’t read the article, is the number two play put on by high schools - the Crucible is #3. We know why that was banned - nothing to do with the off-stage affair, but more, no doubt, for the nerve Miller had in attacking religious intolerance.
Makes me ashamed to say I’m from Missouri (through not Fulton, from STL now in Columbia). We put on some plays in my highschool that had innuendo and smoking and cursing,etc, and a lot of the drama kids were actually very religious but they realized IT WAS A PLAY damnit. They are ACTING and it’s not hurting anyone. Ugh. Hasn’t just about every reasonably young kid seen Grease in some form before?
That would be the Zeffirelli version. IIRC Olivia Hussey had a problem getting admitted to the premiere because the movie showed a boob. Apparently her plea “But it’s my boob!” didn’t cut it with the Guardian of the Portal.
That church didn’t suppress anyone’s rights. They wrote 3 letters… 3 letters of complaint to a school superintendent, at least one of which came from a person who admittedly didn’t watch the show at all. After getting three letters the Stuperintendent decided to cancel the next show to avoid becoming “mired in controversy”. Yes, having to wade through three whole letters in a week is such a fucking trial, isn’t it?
Much easier to cancel the show and have to deal with dozens of reporters from all over the nation. Moron.
I’ve got nothing to add to the theater aspect of this thread, but my old school district’s superintendent is so bad, a number of people put together a website dedicated to getting him fired. It’s called fireartis.com.
So why was the Crucible, a play taught all over the country and even in that school, cancelled at the last minute? The Superintendant was chicken? True, but I suspect he wasn’t all that dumb. I’m sure he feared that if he did not react the churches would pile on him. Perhaps the OP can tell us if this is plausible. I doubt there would be any press coverage if he ignored the letters - unless the churches raised a gigantic stink, that is.
Remember the teacher cleaned up the script before any of this happened. If the Times article is to be believed, there are rumors that the teacher’s contract might not be renewed for the terrible sin of staging Grease.
Most censorship stems from those who fear to step out of bounds in the slightest way for fear of being smacked down. The teachers in this school seem to be looking over their shoulders now, fearful of staging a play that anyone could object to.
Tell, me, why do you think the Superintendant acted the way he did.
Interesting question. I had the man for 8th grade Social Studies; his big thing was weekly “Anti-Ignorance” tests, wherein he would quiz us on things like current events, politicians, basic historical facts, and whatnot. As a teacher and a tennis coach, he was one of the “cool” teachers; effective in the classroom and friendly with the kids.
I can only conclude that becoming an administrator has caused him to completely lose his mind.
Well, okay, not really. Fulton usually has a “mind your own business” way of doing things; I’d wager a guess that those three complaints about Grease are probably the first complaints of that sort that have ever landed on his desk. He probably figured, well, okay, I’ll throw these folks a bone and tone it down for the spring show and we can all get on with life.
That was his first mistake. His second was the way he just announced the change, not giving the teachers or students any chance to talk it out and argue their case. He said So Be It and expected that to be the end of it, pissing people off in the process.
Bottom line (and this is my totally WAG), the drama department is not one of his priorities (he’s a sports guy) and he probably figured it wasn’t any big deal, he could shut the complainers up and the kids could just do something else, not realizing how much work and pre-planning goes into putting on a play (and Fulton high school has some very talented people). And now it’s all jumping up and biting him in the ass.
Oh, don’t tempt me…Actually I wouldn’t make a very good politician, I don’t like people, but my husband has been thinking of running for public office…
We watched the Playboy version of Macbeth in English class.
…okay, so the worst part of it was that the witches were naked, but still…
Oh, and we can’t forget the bedroom scene in Mel Gibson’s version of Hamlet!
I find it so funny that Christians get so worked up over The Crucible - we read it and watched the movie version in my Christian Ethics class at my Catholic high school.
Or you have a few pissed off people who want to get rid of the superintendent because he is making hard choices in a time when school districts have almost no money to spend, and teachers have a lobby that rivals Big Tobacco’s.
I’m just sayin’… Could go either way. But piss off teachers and I guarantee you a bloody, vicious bar brawl.
Like I said, could go either way, and I personally have no idea. But with public school districts, petty power struggles between administrations and teachers seem to be the rule, rather than the exception.
Actually, I have a problem with staging Grease in high schools. Not because of the sexual content, but because its underlying moral seems to be, “You’ll be a cooler, better person if you have sex,” or possibly, “If you’re in love, you should radically change your personality to better suit your beloved,” or maybe, “Only repressed prudes aren’t having high school sex.” Not things that are true, and things that can be harmful, and ideas that are already too common in teen minds.
Then again, it has cool music and costumes, and is fun to perform, and if the wingers are against it, it makes me want to be for it.
I’m betting these people are the hardcore fundies who think that Catholicism is the antichrist.
Idiots. My sister was in Grease her sophmore year-she played, let’s see, a lunch lady, a chair dancer, and a couple of other minor roles. She also played the part of Bonnie in Anything Goes the following year-probably THE raciest role in the production.
