Stereotypes: Gender, Sexuality and Race in Theatre - Essay Example

?‘Divergent Paths for Queers and Women, and the Straight White Male: Trauma Response in Contemporary Social Movements and Theatre’ All people have experienced oppression and exploitation, whether based on any combination of age, gender, race and ethnicity, social class, disability, sexual preference, appearance, IQ, language or accent, religious beliefs and practices, lifestyle, political persuasions, or any number of other variables. Experiencing oppression and exploitation involves a confrontation by power imbalance and helplessness. This results in trauma, whether or not it is articulated. Significant or prolonged trauma causes increasing distortion in the experience and presentation of self. Steps to emerge from trauma include, protest, acquiring and using a vocabulary of resistance, the renovation of personal mythology, taking personal responsibility for enacting healing modalities and the re-scripting of behaviour. Play and nature re-connection are two highly effective responses to trauma. Theatre and ecology provide central, contemporary vehicles for adult play and nature-connection, and intuitive tools for addressing gender and sexuality oppression and exploitation in the post post-modern era. This paper will consider current directions of social movements, and how theatre reflects this focus. This paper will also consider the special situation of the straight white male, in relation to these movements, his neglect and damage, the styles in which he is engaged in movements of protest, renovation of personal mythology, and the re-scripting of behaviour, as well as his play and nature-connection, particularly as reflected in performing arts. The central thesis of this paper is that activist-oriented oppression trauma of women and gays and activist oppression trauma of straight white males, have taken two divergent paths, the former that of queer and feminist ecology and the latter that of patriarchal religious re-scripting. These divergent paths are reflected in contemporary theatre and performance ritual. What they have in common is an attempted reclamation of disconnected spirituality. As toddlers, we all learn that people who are bigger (older kids and adults) can exert power over us, and can use all kinds of oppressive attitudes and actions to exploit our less powerful state. It is traumatic. Conformity and cooperation are not always possible or desirable. Sane survival is challenging. The costs may be high. In adolescence, sorting through the implications of oppression and exploitation can lead to identity crises, teen depression, substance abuse, and suicide. Adulthood is a constant battle to climb the ladder of success and acceptance, in spite of socially unforgivable differences. Oppression and exploitation continue, as do our pathetic coping mechanisms. For those who tire of the coping mechanisms, are too intelligent to settle for them, or cannot make them work adequately, awareness may begin to overcome internalized self-loathing, and a vocabulary of political understanding may be adopted. This was the blossoming of political consciousness in the post-modern age. Support groups, protest rallies, petition parties, organized resistance efforts, magazines, consciousness raising sessions, sit-ins, awareness events, street theatre, music festivals, films and plays with social commentary, and even the first lesbian kiss on network television (on LA Law) were all part of the scene as racial, gender and class oppression were articulated. Gays came out of the closet. Transgendered people had hormone injections and surgery. Lesbians left husbands and married lovers. The face of the family changed radically. The face of society changed. Performing arts also underwent change. Twin beds gave way to shared beds, and women commanded star ships. So where did this leave men? Women and gays had different ideas about gender and sexuality than did most straight White males. Scholars wrote about gender as learned behaviour, and so people began raising their children outside the stereotypes, and many even by-passed male involvement altogether, but the children apparently turned out okay, at least as often as any children did. Performing Arts reflected this social change. So where did this leave men? It left men confused. They, too, were dealing with the trauma of childhood, workplace oppression and exploitation, changing wives and daughters and mothers. Television and movies, news broadcasts and cultural events were reflecting changing values and new consciousness. There was no coherent vocabulary for straight white males to process confusion and trauma. Their identity with the meaning of “whiteness” was dissembling. Straight white males had always identified straight white males with America. President Clinton addressed Portland State University students, in 1998, with the following news: Today, largely because of immigration, there is no majority race in Hawaii or Houston or New York City. Within five years, there will be no majority race in our largest state, California. In a little more than 50 years, there will be no majority race in the United States. No other nation in history has gone through demographic change of this magnitude in so short a time (Hsu, 2009). Pat Buchanan echoed the thoughts of many insecure White American Males when he responded to Clinton’s comments on diversity by warning that they were soon to become a “Third World America” (UC Davis, 1998). Some men tried to join Feminists, and some were successful, but they were mostly marginalized by a sense of guilt and blame. They could not fit comfortably into Black or Hispanic Power groups, since they inadvertently represented the White Oppressor. The confused and clueless White male was amusingly and repeatedly featured in various TV comedies, from the Colbert Report to The Office (Hsu, 2009), so there was no insulation in being a couch potato. Even the grandchildren’s idol, Barbie, lost out to Latina, Dora the Explorer (Hsu, 2009). Straight White Males looked for support. There were scattered groups, mentioning men’s liberation. Probably the best known was Robert Bly’s version of male bonding, the wounded warrior, the noble savage, and getting in touch with the wild man inside you. The Evangelical Christian churches, however, reached into this space and provided a vocabulary, teachers, rules, a certainty and confidence that appealed to men all over the world. Promise Keepers was founded in 1990, by a Christian American football coach. The first conference, a year later, attracted 4,200 men. An event in Washington DC, six years later, was reportedly the largest gathering of men in US history (Strode, 1997). It expanded internationally. It uses group induced euphoria, Robert Bly’s New Age Spirituality terminology, male bonding, phallic imagery and initiation rituals, and masculine rites of passage (Watch Unto Prayer, nd). Shaw, a defected Freemason leader, explains that phallic based rituals and symbols were preserved from sexually-expressive nature-based mystery religions, counter to Christianity (Shaw, 1988, p.143). Masculinity study materials, written by Hicks, refer to Jesus as a “phallic male”, and emphasize his probable sexual nature, and bisexual yearning (Hicks, 1993, p.31). Hicks claims, in study material used by Promise Keepers, that the movie, The Last Temptation of Christ (Scorsese, 1988), gives the truest picture of Jesus Christ (Hicks, 1993, p.31). Moreover, the leaders use a performance art style to manipulate the mood of the group. For example, the thundering roar of a jet, taking off, is blared through massive speakers, to build emotion early on, as well as shouted, physically exuberant preaching, testimony performances and a variety of group commitment rituals being used (Watch Unto Prayer, nd). They talk about unity and brotherhood, making strong efforts for racial integration while remaining more White than not. But Promise Keepers supports male superiority and marriage inequality; they threaten the rights of women and support the murder of women and doctors participating in abortion, with violent rhetoric and the declaration of “war” (National Organization for Women, 1997). Any masculinity project aimed at restoring or reclaiming a 'traditional' male role for privileged white, heterosexual males has a political impact within the tapestry of class, race, and gender power (Schindler, 1998). Although Promise Keepers spread to nine countries, and still officially exists, it started collapsing in on itself at the dawn of the new millennium, drastically down-sized and understated, falling almost silent. There were financial problems, heavy pressure from churches, allegations of heralding the Anti-Christ and the beginning of the end, and members who participated and then left. Promise Keepers was a sequence of spectacles, extreme performance art, and it failed to continually outdo itself, as necessary in entertainment (Bartkowski, 2003). Its importance, however, lies in introducing a Christian men’s movement, which has further developed and radicalized in the years since. Pastors began to note that Jesus was projecting an effeminate, hippie, queer image, even dying for love (O-Brien, 2008). They noticed that men in the churches tended to be gentle, nice men, and this caused the pastors concern that more testosterone was needed in the church. They began re-inventing Jesus imagery in an effort to recruit men with biceps, and toughen up the masculine identity of members. This gave rise to Church for Men and GodMen organizations and a new image of Ultimate Fighting Jesus. So where does this leave Christian women? The Patriarchal Christian Movement, also known as the Biblical Patriarchy Movement has organized the answer to that question rather strictly. A documentary film about this movement, from the perspective of their stay-at-home, submissive daughters, is “The Return of the Daughters” (Botkin, 2008). The idea of this movement is that men are totally in charge of the family, and wives and daughters are there to support the men. Children are home-schooled into strongly gendered, “Biblical” thinking and interests. Girls are not sent to college but instead spend their single years serving their fathers, family, and church, learning sewing, knitting, crochet and cooking in preparation for having their father’s authority transferred to a husband of his choice, to whom she will transfer submission. Vision Forum is one of the leading players in this movement, and they run the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival (featuring films like Fireproof (Kendrick, 2008), a love story about a couple who had grown apart until the husband commits to God (led by his father’s dare) and Facing the Giants (Kendrick, Facing the Giants, 2006), a Christian football film. The stated goal of their Film Festival is: To motivate the next generation of Christian filmmakers to create…films that reflect a distinctively and presuppositionally biblical worldview. We want our applicants to strive to bring into captivity every [frame] to the obedience of Christ (Free Methodist Feminist, 2011). The film which won their equivalent of the Oscar, in 2007, was, The Monstrous Regiment of Women (Brothers, 2007), an anti-abortion (with footage of aborted fetuses), anti-feminist (the scapegoat for all social ills) Evangelical Christian film (RationalWiki, 2011). A slightly less extreme version of Biblical Patriarchy, in which men are totally in charge of all females, is Complementarianism, in which men grant some privileges to women, under male supervision. There are actually more extreme versions and subsets of Biblical Patriarchy. One is known as Quiverfull. Their increased extremity has to do with their rejection of birth control, as murder, and their belief that God wants women to have as many children as possible; that each one is a blessing, and that these children must be homeschooled, home-churched, home-dominated (Joyce, 2009). Another extreme example of the Christian Patriarchy Movement is Preacher Don Milton, who advocates Christian Polygamy as a way to keep men from being morally tempted, since, after all, women were created to satisfy the needs of man (Milton, 2009). It is the position of this paper that the cognitive and spiritual distortions, at once evident in the extreme lifestyles discussed above, arise out of oppression trauma and the experience of anomie among Straight White Males. These males were confused and suffered normlessness because they found no direction and affirmation for their gender and sexual insecurities, in healthier movements of the post-modern age. Along with so many others, they were easily claimed by religious and political extremists. What is most telling is the massive numbers of men, internationally, who participated and brought their families with them, apparently willingly, into such an extreme lifestyle. Also astounding is that this movement could rise and flourish in the arms of mainstream Christianity. Masculinity movements have spread like a computer virus through Evangelical Christian Churches, using militaristic, power imagery and rhetoric, in the name of the Prince of Peace. Sexual and gender insecurities and cognitive imbalance (illogical arguments and illogical interpretations and emphasis of scripture, and enthusiasm for the denigration of women) are reflected in the militaristic and phallic-celebrative performance art of Promise Keepers. The later Biblical Patriarchy movement further affirmed male superiority and gave justification for the extreme restriction of women’s choice by demonizing it and making it a supernatural obligation of family, church and community redemption. This is clearly reflected in the films of the Christian right. Moreover, even though these movements were originally American, they quickly spread and grew in other European countries, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada, and even extended into Asia, so they cannot be dismissed as a cultural anomaly. Now we turn our attention to the divergent path, the direction travelled and eventually arrived at by women, gays, lesbians, and transgendered people whose oppression trauma found voice in suitable movements, reflective of vocabulary and collective mythology that fit them. Eric Rofe is a gay Jewish male who suffered discrimination as a child. He notes that he is, trying to form a new sense of male identity and solidarity, one that is not based on domination of white women and people of colour (Heron, Keiser, Rofer, Smith, & Wray, 1996). Sean Heron, a Jewish Italian, comments, I do not want to be part of that larger whiteness or maleness which is sexist and racist and which gets its power and identity from the oppression of others. At this time I do not know where this place is that I want to be (Heron, Keiser, Rofer, Smith, & Wray, 1996) Still works in progress, these young men are certain about one thing: that they do not want to channel male, whiteness, or oppression identity into the domination and oppression of others. This is a psychologically healthier orientation than that discussed in the Christian masculinity movements, in which the domination and control of women and children are a foremost priority for the channelling of maleness, and gender and sexual insecurity. The consequences of domination and control can be severe. Values are not internalized but merely conditioned in such an authoritarian environment. Depression, eating disorders, loss of trust, self-destructive behaviour, and suicide are common results (Joyce, Horror Stories from Tough-Love Teen Homes, 2011), Daughters learn that their worth is measured by God through obedience to husband and father. They inherit a set of pre-ordained enemies: humanists, environmentalists, feminists, socialists and all people of the world. The world is a dangerous place and even other Christians are agents of Satan. Success for a woman is a formula of total submission. Escape is nearly impossible (Anne, 2011). Creating and dominating an environment like this is not psychologically or emotionally healthy. It is admirable and hopeful that there are Straight White Men who are less damaged, and finding their way to male and white identity patterns that celebrate who they are without damaging others. Two questions emerge from this line of reasoning. One is why some men are apparently less damaged than others and are able to make better healing choices. The answer is too complex to detail in this paper, because it includes experience, support systems, personal history, the underlying assumptions and interpretations one makes about personal experience, exposure to positive models, personal resilience, access to resources, intelligence, critical thinking ability, motivation, self-esteem, self-confidence and many other factors. Suffice it to say that people immersed in the extremist Christian Patriarchy movement are at a disadvantage. The second question is what a healthier path looks like? Examining the meanings one understands about Whiteness is a good step. Understanding that one’s search for positive identity meaning must fulfil the criteria of not damaging others is a very progressive step. What then? This paper has postulated that oppression trauma is common to all people, but that the straight white male has lacked the oppression articulation opportunity and positive support available to feminists, lesbians, gay men, and transgendered people, through the social movements of the post-modern age. Some were drawn into extremist situations, such as the Biblical Patriarchy movement, drug addiction, military interventions, crime, and even terrorism. Others were, fortunately drawn into more positive contexts for reflection and play, performance art. Play is one of the greatest healing modalities known, in response to trauma. Children routinely use play to make sense of the world and to resolve experiences and emotions they cannot put into words. Without play, we would all be a lot more damaged than we are. Without play, we would all be a lot less social than we are. Performing Arts provides a context in which adults can truly play. An example of positive, adult, straight white male play is the genre of Performing Arts Monologues, as presented by white heterosexual men. They include comedians, stage and screen artists, like Spalding Gray, Eric Bogosian, Josh Kornbluth, Rob Becker, Andrew Dice Clay, Wallace Shawn, and Danny Hoch, whose acts play with impersonation and stories of power, politics, privilege, and community (Peterson, 2011). Peterson understands all performance as political, and he sees that white straight male monologists’ performances (and recordings and film repackaging) powerfully generate a sense of community (Peterson, 2011). Another way in which straight white males play with their identity, relative to the identity politics of others, is by pretending to be one of the others and performing the identity politics consistent with the invented other. One example is 58 year old Bill Graber, former Air Force Pilot and construction worker who performed the identity of a Washington DC lesbian mother and edited Lez Get Real, a lesbian news site (Friedman, 2011). Another example is Tom MacMaster, who performed the identity of a young lesbian in Damascus, half Syrian and half American, by blogging fictitiously. This instigated a furious search for “her” by the Syrian government, and eventually the masquerade was revealed and everyone was angry (Friedman, 2011). Strangely enough, in performing these lesbian identities, Tom and Bill flirted with each other online, not realizing the other identity was a performance also. Both men claimed to have sincere intentions, in justifying their performances, wanting to contribute to lesbian political causes, having apparently no satisfactory straight white male causes to support. They both felt satisfied with their contributions to the movement, until they were outed (Friedman, 2011). The circumstances of their play may or may not be unusual in the realm of activism, but there is nothing at all atypical in performing a different gender or racial identity in contemporary adult play. Transvestites, a majority of whom are straight White males, play with the brief, periodic performance of opposite gender identity, for fun and pleasure. Transgendered people, who transition, have to learn to exchange the performance of one gender for the performance of another. A film documentary, Straight White Male (Eriendson, 2011) demonstrates that there is a whole lot more to this performance of straight White male identity than one might suspect. Moreover, in virtual communities, people routinely play with the performance of gender identity through the use of avatars. I see these examples as falling into the realm of performance art. M. Butterfly (Cronenberg, 1993) has been interpreted by critics to present a statement about the performance of gender, as opposed to the biological presentation of gender, and issues of shifting identity (Cengage, 2005). Gallimard accepts Song’s gender identity performance, primarily because of his Western socialized notions of Orientalism and the racial and gender stereotypes Gallimard held (Cengage, 2005). In the end, Gallimard dresses himself as a woman and stabs himself to death, in a female gendered suicide. The conclusion one is led to draw, based on this, is the saliency of gender as performance (Cengage, 2005). Now we turn attention to the current status of the Feminist Movement and LGBT Movement to explore how they have continued the oppression response and healing process, once the anger and trauma were articulated and processed in the protest phase. We should be able to expect that, given a peer support group of fellow recovering oppressed, and given a collective vocabulary in which to conceptualize and express it, they will have relatively healthy responses now. Healthy, as this paper suggests it be understood, can be seen as responses of personal benefit and affirmation which are not gained at the expense of damaging others through unreasonable control, restrictions, inequality, dysfunctional authoritarian patterns, disturbing cognition, intolerance, and abuse. We might expect to see more unity and less division. Interestingly enough, feminism and the LGBT movements have actually converged on a deeply healing area, nature. eco-feminism brings together environmental, feminist, and women's spirituality concerns (Spretnak, 1990, pp. 5-6). Although scholars, eco-feminists and many outsiders claim it is a social movement, some claim it is not because, instead of protest and political action, eco-feminism focuses on raising consciousness, healing, and communion with nature. Within the context of this paper, perhaps this opinion is based upon failing to understand the healing potential of play, and its distinction from work, thinking instead that anger is the only viable step in recovery and work the only viable assessment. Eco-Feminists draw a correlation between the historical demise of goddess matriarchate, the rise of patriarchy, and the violent rape of the earth’s resources. Eco-Feminism provides a unifying rhetoric and network umbrella for various specialized interest groups. Feminist, lesbian, women’s spirituality, ecology, deep ecology and New Age ideology all find fulfilment. Although seen as the archetypal enemy, by Patriarchal Christianity, like the Patriarchal Christian movement, they organize around a rhetorical vision. A rhetorical vision is a symbolic drama that contains a dramatic scene, dramatic characters (heroes, villains, supporting players), plotline (scenarios), and a sanctioning agent (Cragan and Shields, 1981, p. 3). The response patterns are a performed enactment, just as with gender, just as with any performing art. The feminist informed goal is equal social justice. The deep ecology informed goal is to live sustainably within the system, as a part of the interconnected web of nature. The spiritual goal is to honour women’s connection to the sacred earth (Brammer, 1998). Queer ecology is predicated on the notion that diversity is something to celebrate, something that is really good for life, and that humans and all other expressions of nature embody diversity and are capable of a variety of behaviours (Johnson, 2011). Alex Johnson says that Queer ecology considers sexuality in relation to Nature, but not only that. He says, if straight identity means "I am," and gay identity means "I am not," then queer can mean "I am also." I see no end to the application of I-Am-Also as we work to protect the integrity of the world's ecological whole (Johnson, 2011). Like eco-feminism, Queer ecology sees nature as a teacher and source of spiritual wisdom. Toby Johnson is identified with the Gay Men’s Spirituality Movement, and he speaks of this phase as the Sixth Wave of gay evolution (Johnson T. , nd). It calls for the overthrow of the patriarchy’s mythology and values and, because gays have long been marginalized, he feels that this gives them critical distance, and because gays have long had connection to spiritual ritual and entheogens, it is a natural calling (Johnson T. , nd). The film, Avatar (Cameron, 2009), presents the viewpoints of eco-feminism and Queer ecology very clearly. The colonizers are violently raping the planet, taking what they want. A dominant-socialized straight white male (with a disability-impacted consciousness) pitches himself as saviour of the indigenous Na’vi, in which both men and women are strong and self-sufficient. Violent responses are advocated, but in the end the world is saved by tuning into the Mother Nature Goddess of Pandora, honouring the sacredness of nature, and their connection. The ideology of this film obviously hit a common chord with a lot of people. Avatar became the highest grossing film worldwide. It won 9 Academy nominations and broke many records. It is a deeply spiritual film, filled with lessons that support and encapsulate earth-based spirituality ideology, both ancient and contemporary (Brussat & Brussat, 2009). Now that feminists, gays and lesbians have found a common voice, hopefully more people of colour will join the movements. This is especially viable with a common focus of eco-spirituality. Theatre provides an optimal rehearsal ground for doing so. This paper has explored post modern and contemporary responses, both healthy and unhealthy, of oppression trauma recovery, focusing on gender and sexuality and the relative situation of the straight white male. He has been alone with oppression trauma, blame, guilt, rage, while other groups have had supportive community identity. An important lens, used for this exploration, has been performing arts, as an expressive, community identity building, and therapeutic medium. A contrast has been seen between intolerant, other-denying, gender performance based, oppression resolution efforts and inclusive, empowering, reflective, eco-spiritual, nature-integrative efforts. Patriarchal Christianity and eco-spirituality of feminists, lesbians and gays have taken divergent paths. These divergent paths reflect opposing relationships between humans and nature. While eco-feminists and Queer ecologists have found common ground with each other, in their identification with nature, Patriarchal Christianity sees gays and feminists and environmentalists as Satanic influence, and earth-based spirituality as false prophesy. What these divergent groups have in common, however, is their use of performing arts venues to construct mythology, pass it on to others, and process issues; and their attempted reclamation of disconnected spirituality. References Anne, L., 2011, September 14. My Life as a Daughter: The Christian Patriarchy Movement -- How I Was Taught to Obey Men, Birth 8 Kids and Do Battle Against Secular America. Retrieved January 3, 2012, from AlterNet: http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/152393/my_life_as_a_daughter_in_the_christian_patriarchy_movement_how_i_was_taught_to_obey_men,_birth_8_kids_and_do_battle_against_secular_america?page=entire Bartkowski, J., 2003. The Promise Keepers: Servants, Soldiers, and Godly Men. 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