Two big controversies. Sondheim is against the new Porgy at hands of 3 women. Is it a case of a male being against women? One thing is certain, he is definetely against the revision of this "beloved" classic. PORGY AND BESS is the work of White Men (Heyward and Gershwin) but is about the lives of Black People. Surely this must mean that a revision of such a work "must" be needed. The case against this opera is that it is an opera (or is it) and such in need of making it accessable to the people of today. This the gravest insult for Sondheim and other purists. Besides they are making it a musical for Broadway but still calling it Gerswin's Porgy and Bess but the text is revised and some of the action altered, and a new Happy End. Can one really trust 3 highly competent women with a CLASSIC?
THE HELP is a novel by a White Women that should supposedly be about 2 Black Women that work as Domestic Help for White Women. White Women love it so much that they cannot stand hearing other voices, mainly Black voices, complaining of its inaccuracy and racist framework. "No, you are all wrong, I had a Black Help, and she did love ME more than her own children". It is set in early 1960s before the author was born but she still felt competent to write the story with very little research and no real conversation with some of the Black Women that lived that life in Jackson. Just because the author lived her childhood in Jackson in 1970s and had a Black Help, she feels she can write about the pivotal time of the Civil Rights Movement with almost no research. The novel was rejected 60 times before it was accepted but it contains so many wrongs that a a website is on its tale, with so many profe of cringeworthy wrongs so why, oh why, can so many White Women not see it as the travesty it is.
I guess White People just want to believed that we are GOOD PEOPLE without ever having to look hard at our many privileges and work to overcome our biases, and then WORK for JUSTICE for ALL. We expect praise just for seeing ourselves in the mirror and see what we wish to see. THE HELP is no help to see the ugly realities since it intends to hide it.
The battle is not won. Still domestic worker is abused, sexually and with working hours that never ends for little or no money. THIS HAS TO STOP. Still racism puts people in slums and otherwise in dangerous situation. STOP RACISM, SEXISM, HOMOPHOBIA etc!
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