Actors, playwrights and feminists, oh my!

So, where do I begin? I have never been good at writing in a blog, perhaps due to lack of motivation, time or interesting topics, but I always try to start one and it never works out. So when I began thinking about what I wanted my first blog post to be on, I struggled. How do I write about something in my life that I am so passionate about, using both Women’s and Gender Studies as well as activism? I can barely do two out of the three in that equation. However, as Julie Andrews once said (and yes, as a theatre major, it’s a must that I quote musical celebs), “let’s start at the very beginning, it’s a very good place to start.” I don’t feel that I can write about anything, activist filled or not, without telling you about myself and where I come from in life. Being an only child in a fatherless family, I have learned independence as well as women’s strength at a young age. My mother worked three jobs to pay the rent and is still to this day, the strongest woman I know. It makes sense then that from a young age, I could consider myself a feminist and an activist for women’s rights. Now that I am older and have seen the world more, I realize how much of an activist for human’s rights I am, and now consider myself a humanist more than necessarily a feminist.

            While I continue to follow my dream of being a successful actress, I have noticed the unfairness this profession is to female actors. After being assigned this first blog assignment, I now have the desire to spread the awareness of this problem throughout different mediums. First, identifying and knowing the problem exists is a huge step. I notice as I continue to go to more auditions, that directors tend to favor men and their work more than women. Men and women are stereotyped into certain groups based on how they look, women more so than men. Much of my experience has been with how I look for the part, not necessarily based on my talent or ability. With men, while much of it is still based on looks, they are considered based on their talents more so, because they can be altered to fit the role. Why is that not possible with women? Also in auditions and readings of scripts, men tend to have more parts available to them as well as more lines in general.

            For those that have never taken the time to open a script this problem might not seem like a big deal. Many people are not aware of the problems women face within the actual text of a given play or work. First, before we even hit the lines or “meat and potatoes” of the story, women are “judged” based on how they look. Where the characters are listed often gives descriptions of the characters (so you can appropriately cast the play) HOWEVER, the men are often described by their age and personality traits—example: “Mid 30 year old man, smart, witty, hard-working bank teller”, while the women’s characteristics are described by how they look—example: “20 year old women, tall, pretty, dresses well.” Why is this? Why are women based on HOW they look, versus how they act? Does it not matter to playwrights as much? Even though most of these stereotypes are out of an actress’ control, playwrights need to take note of them playing in favor of men.

            When you get into the actual story of a play, women often have fewer lines compared to men. In general, their dialogue is often “stereotypical” and women take on roles such as bitchy girlfriend, teacher, mother or other “caring” roles. As an actress, it can often be hard for me to find roles that I really recognize with. As I advance my range of play knowledge, I am beginning to find many women playwrights who are activists within their work. Eve Ensler, who is a huge advocate for feminism all around, has written phenomenal plays about and involving strong women characters. I find myself really interested in this kind of work and even though college doesn’t allow me to do it as much as I like, I have been introduced to it and hope to continue to work with it and possibly write some of my own in the future.

            Okay, so long schpeal, right? But I didn’t think that I could justify writing about feminism and activism without telling you where I was coming from and why I wanted to take this class in the first place. To be an advocate for the arts (1.) and to begin creating a discussion about how we move on from here, either through myself or through other mediums (2.) Women have been fighting for their rights in general for a long time, as well as recently fighting for their place in the arts. Lets continue that fight. Also, I have included some links for you, about Eve, about feminist theatre and about the arts in general. Look at it, get educated and understand where I’m coming from.

The first link is all about a great activist writer, whom I mentioned earlier, Eve Ensler. This site lets you know all about Eve and what she is doing right now. I love this site because it links you to her blog, facebook, twitter and other mediums to keep up with her. I check this daily. It’s great.

http://www.eveensler.org/

This site (or better labeled journal article) talks about the history of modern feminist theatre. If you don’t know about anything about theatre, or more specifically feminist theatre, this is a fantastic, easy read article!

http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/iacd_2005F/modern_drama/feminist_theater.pdf

This is another great article about feminist theatre, but from a feminist’s point of view. It’s so powerful and moving, and this is actually one of the first articles I read. I think that if you are an advocate for both feminism and theatre, you will enjoy this article.

http://www2.edutech.nodak.edu/ndsta/bemis.htm