I still haven’t seen this:
With Helen Mirren as Prospera. And of course, there is Patrick Stewart’s turn as Othello with the rest of the cast played by black actors.
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Yeah, and in the same episode, Hurt’s Doctor was shooting magic beams out of his screwdriver as well. My problem with the fantasy elements is that they are just lazy - it doesn’t matter what’s going on, the solution is magic wands and feelings. Doctor Who used to be about an alien technology boffin, now it is almost all fantasy, and that change-over didn’t happen completely until after Eccleston.
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What seemed odd to me about Eccleston’s shows was the extent of the special effects. I’d mainly seen Hartnell, and as far as I could tell, his sets had big papier-mache rocks because real styrofoam simply wasn’t in the budget. It changes the feel of the show (and maybe you need that for a reboot), but they did it very well, and Eccleston did his character convincingly well.
Currently I’m waiting to take my hurt cat to the vet, so this is a good distraction, and also, for me at least, an important discussion:
Why do you think it’s a “stretch”? Can you explain in detail why you think it’s a “stretch”? Actually give it some time and consideration, rather than being so flippant and ignoring Eccleston’s entire point?
Also…honestly, your entire comment is pretty preposterous and it leads me to believe you don’t really understand why “all male theater productions” were even a THING back in Shakespearean times. That they would not allow women to be on stage is directly related to the same mind-set and attitude that disallows women on the stage of politics. Indeed, that’s why Shakespeare productions with all female or, as someone mentioned below, an all-black cast are so powerful. Why do you think people flip the “tradition” on its head that way, to begin with?
Honestly, this isn’t a complicated discussion, and would be something any good college course on history about that time period, or a women’s studies course, or sociology course, or a more specific course on the history of Shakespearean play would surely touch on.
The fact that there are still (mostly) men who think it’s terribly clever and at all interesting to have an all-male Shakespeare play, and they don’t instead take the time and effort to do something more interesting (or at least make sure to simply have a mixed-gender & race cast), is pretty telling, imo. I feel the same about all-male “private social clubs”. Those are the sorts of men I have no desire to spend any time with in any sort of social activity because I suspect they do not like “socializing” with women.
You probably think I am taking this whole thing too seriously, but mostly I’m just ruminating, and perhaps because I’m a woman, this sort of subject is both interesting to me, and something I’ve already given a lot of thought to, and also something I understand more deeply than you. But you’ll probably just brush me off as being “silly” or be dismissive, rather than taking the time to consider my words.
Shrug. Sexism is important, and it’s persuasive, and it’s something I have no problems bringing up in a BBS form (and, often, elsewhere). Particularly when the article in question is LITERALLY about discrimination.
And you know, Christopher Eccleston would agree with me because that LITERALLY his point t (as well as racism and other forms of discrimination) – why do you think he connected discrimination and all-male Shakespearean plays in the first place?? My point is exactly his point, just taken a bit further with “They still do that shit. All the time.” Which was part of his larger point, too…
I wonder why you brush ME off, but aren’t advising that Mr. Eccleston “put the torches down.” I wonder, indeed.
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FWIW, I did not think it was as good as the cast would suggest. I blame the director. Ponderous and yet also sometimes silly in a weird way. Just…no.
The Tempest you mean? That’s disappointing, then. I don’t know if the Stewart othello exists in a video/recording? Or I haven’t found it, at least. I wish he’d tour a play of some kind, Stewart, I mean.
The difference between “alien technology” and “magic” is purely aesthetic, it’s simple handwavium, and works exactly the same way. Saying that people travelled via a “vortex manipulator” is exactly as meaningful as saying it was “magic faerie dust” - with the exception that some like to assume that the former is somehow more dignified, by virtue of referencing nonexistent pseudoscience. Sometimes they play with this using talk of ancient astronauts or Clarke’s axioms. But even in what was arguably the original series golden age - with Hinchcliffe producing - it was basically gothic horror in space. It’s lineage owes more to Machen, Dunsany, and Lovecraft - updated through a lens of Nigel Kneale’s disturbing sci-fi/horror such as “Quatermass”- than it does any real science fiction.
I agree, to an extent. I am not a big fan of fantasy generally, but I grew up on Doctor Who. It used to be more horrific, and the introduction of sentimentality to the series is fairly recent. This was staged very much by Russell Davies and was very much a focal point of his vision of the show, which picked up momentum from the new second season on. Under Moffat this has been gradually reducing over time. I like that Peter Capaldi’s Doctor feels distinct, while being more aloof and alien, like his earlier predecessors. Not unlike with the older series, it tends to still be an inconsistent mix of a few brilliant episodes along with lots of corny nonsense.
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You can get a catch-22.
Not as many womyn, non-binary folks, and minorities get to be actors because not as many parts are written for these folks.
Not as many parts are written for these folks because not as many womyn, non-binary folks, and minorities have experience as actors.
And when the parts exist, sometimes they go to men, white men, who have more experience and/or name recognition as actors.
Now an all-female or all-not-male performance helps create more opportunities there, which means more experience, which might help. Similarly an all-Poc or mostly-Poc performance.
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Also, the widespread use of “Gothic” and the variable spellings of Sintana de Mures/Cherniakhiv make it that much harder to find info on Gothic culture, texts, etc. headdesk
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True. It’s not an ideal term, being as it is, in the sense of much “gothic horror”, a mostly Victorian romantic reconstruction. This is why I use a lower-case “g” for these forms which IMO aren’t truly referencing Gothic culture, proper.
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This would be an excellent point if conventional and avant-garde Shakespeare productions weren’t performed everywhere, all the time, with women playing the female roles (or all the roles, as was the case with the all-female production of Henry IV pt 1 that I saw and liked a couple years ago).
I am a feminist too, and one very good reason I would be interested in seeing a historically accurate all-male performance is that it would not be cutting-edge at all–indeed, it could provide insight into the limitations that sort of casting requirement imposed on the production and, perhaps, even on the play itself. To me, keeping women out of traditional male occupations at various points in time–whether acting or engineering–is a collective tragedy because it has deprived human society of a great deal of wasted talent. However, while I agree with both you and Eccleston on this point, it seems to me that an all-male Shakespeare production would, paradoxically, highlight that incredible loss. What if Shakespeare had had in his troupe a great female actor (forget Gwyneth Paltrow here for a moment), a 16th-century Sarah Sidwell, for example? What if he had written a play about a great tragic female character? Because, really, in Shakespeare, no such character exists. Lady Macbeth comes closest, but she’s not the focal point of the play.
Moreover, at a guess, I would say that that the likely reason you are being advised to “put the torches down,” but Mr. Eccleston is not, is that he never really picked them up in the first place.
I very much hope your cat recovers soon.
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This is true, but it bothers me because I think it’s all an insult to the discipline of “acting”, as well. Recognition of actors has benefits and disadvantages. From a suspension of disbelief perspective, I think celebrity culture makes things far more difficult, where “stars” are increasingly cast to play themselves so they will be recognized. Also it seems controversial to play a person of a different “type” - for example, a black person playing a white character, or a female playing a male character. Looking the part should be a distant consideration from that of playing the part. I like that this makes acting more challenging.
My favorite Doctor Who story, since the relaunch, was The Empty Child. This featured Eccleston as the Doctor, Rose Tyler was of course important to the story, and it introduced Captain Jack Harkness. This is the episode famous for the identical children in gas masks, saying, “Are you my mummy?”
Part of the premise involved nanotechnology run amuck, which is a painfully familiar device to put a science fiction gloss on what’s effectively magic that can do anything. In the last scene, the Doctor, having solved all the other problems, closes it out by literally waving his fingers to reprogram the nanites. This was irritating.
However, most of the story was quite good. It had a strong horror element, there were great interactions between the characters, and the real secret wasn’t about nanites, but about mores and how they changed over time. Given this is a show about a time traveller, it’s surprising how rarely this sort of historical change is explored.
In many respects, this episode seemed related to The Curse of Fenric, my favorite story from the old Doctor Who, which also took place in the UK during World War II, and also featured the Doctor’s Companion being startled by the shift in mores over time.
In both cases, the strength of the stories was in characterization and in storytelling; the fantasy elements were just devices to facilitate the story, and were in the foreground no more than necessary.
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I love being a distraction. Hope your pet is ok.
OK - first of Chris’s point about diversity and the class discrimination is a good one. He has very valid complaints and I agree with what he said.
However I guess I see something like all male theater in a little different light. Yes the original reason behind it, the sort of prudish Puritan bullshit was bullshit.
So if someone wanted to produce an “authentic production”, complete with pigs bladders full of blood, and an all male cast, their reasoning behind it isn’t “Girls are icky, we don’t want them in our play.” Or rather I assume. To be honest I didn’t know they still did this sort of thing. But if the reason behind it is historical accuracy, I see it as a valid exception. Same with like Kabuki theater. Historical accuracy isn’t always pretty, but I also see it as an opportunity to educate.
So I see those two examples exceptions of the criticism.
I felt then your comparison or remark about abortion laws to be sort of off base. I don’t think it is in the same context/realm of what we were talking about. Not that it isn’t a valid criticism, I just felt we were talking about one thing, and then this bombshell was dropped in on top of it.
I guess reading your above post I see how you connected the dots between the two in your mind, I just wasn’t with you. I still don’t see the two on the same “level” or “severity”, but it’s ok if you do.
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And you know, Christopher Eccleston would agree with me because that LITERALLY his point
Well yes. We had this from the original article.
I wonder why you brush ME off, but aren’t advising that Mr. Eccleston “put the torches down.”
Tone of voice. Not gender or fame.
Well, there’s sci-fi so soft it could be (or essentially is) magic but where there’s at least ostensibly a rational explanation, and then there’s the explicit magic that’s infested Doctor Who these days. Emotions and other internal states having direct, magical influence on the working of the universe, a tendency towards full-on fairy tale narratives (the Doctor transfers and traps an alien into mirrors - i.e. all reflective surfaces - as a punishment), etc. The Doctor’s screwdriver has quite literally turned into Harry Potter’s wand - they seem to use the same visual FX as the HP movies, as a twisty colored light beam shoots out and counteracts whatever is going on (they don’t even try to explain that one). It’s the total abandonment of even pretending there’s a rational or scientific underpinning for what’s going on in the narratives.
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Bad call.
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There was recently a well-reviewed stage production of Hamlet with Maxine Peak as the lead. Not sure if anyone filmed it but I would certainly give it a look as she’s a fantastic actor and I’d love to see what she did with the role.
Tone of voce? What? How was my tone off? I was very polite. Seriously? Tone of voice? For the record, I appreciate @Mister44’s response and I see where he’s coming from and I think he and I mostly agree, even though I do think my connections fit (theh “all boy’s club” is nothing new, was my point), but I get why he thinks it came out of left field. Our perspectives are a bit different and this is a topic I’ve thought LONG and hard about for a LONG time, seeing as it directly effects me far more than it does him.
But tone? Really? No. My tone was FINE and I was very much enjoying the conversation I was having with Mister44. I even made a POINT to mention more than once that I was just trying to have a fairly light discussion. I admit my last remark was kind of snarky but whatever, Mister should be used to that by now, and I wasn’t offensive or rude.
Your perception of my tone is really, really telling and has nothing at all to do with my actual tone, and everything to do with my gender. But you won’t even examine that, I’m sure. Basic. So very basic. Yawn. I didn’t even use the word “fuck”! And we know how unusual that is, folks.
Mister44 and I may not agree with each other all the time and certainly hae had some heated discussions, but at least he doesn’t toss out this basic clap trap.
