Defiling Shakespeare

The arts have gone completely woke. That means, the people who are producing the shows have completely lost their minds.

And they seem to have decided that movies and television dramas and theatrical presentations must serve a higher therapeutic purpose. They must preach the gospel of wokeness, that is, the gospel of diversity, inclusion and equity.

That this represents what Peggy Noonan once called “moral harassment” does not seem to register. Obviously, the only solution is not to attend such performances, not to watch the television shows and movies that attempt to show the world, not as it is, not as it might be, but as ideologues wish it would be. And that want above all else to make you feel guilty.

Francis Menton of The Manhattan Contrarian blog, who often shares some of the best writing on climate change, has outlined what he calls peak wokism. (via Maggie’s Farm).

What do I mean by saying that wokism is a problem?  I mean that the overarching guilt and desperate need for atonement by the elites, particularly on issues of race and gender, has become all-pervasive to the exclusion of anything else about a work or performance that might be significant.  It must be that a substantial part of the audience is seeking out this atonement as a reason for going to performances.  I do not understand why.  For me it is a definite turnoff.

I would like to think, as Menton does, that people are seeking something of a religious experience. I suspect, however, that they are looking for something more in line with therapy.

The horror to end all horrors is the New York Public Theater's production of  Shakespeare’s Richard III. Obviously, the producers did not wish to miss the opportunity to defile Shakespeare and to offend just about everyone. Have you considered that it is grossly insulting to cast the deformed hunchback Richard III as a black woman with no disabilities?

The producers are insulting the intelligence of the audience. It’s time to boycott such productions.

Menton explains:

And now for the peak of peak absurdity.  Each summer the New York Public Theater puts on a festival of Shakespeare plays in Central Park.  Currently running is Richard III.  I’m no expert on Shakespeare, and I’ve never seen Richard III; but almost everybody knows some of the basic plot elements, including that Richard is deformed and that that fact is significant in the plot, and that he kills his predecessor as king and then tries to woo the guy’s wife.  In this version Richard is played by a black woman named Danai Gurira, who has no visible disability.  But lots of other actors in the play do have disabilities, including multiple who are deaf (and apparently use sign language — how does that even work?), and a little person.  The woman whom Richard woos uses a wheelchair. 

So, one member of every oppressed group, playing roles they are not qualified to play. It’s a horror. One wonders why it has not elicited very much of an outcry. Have we become completely ovine?