Yesterday, my Shakespeare and performance class took a trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon to see Webster's The White Devil. I didn't know anything about the play, but I over heard some people saying they looked it up and it was called a "revenge drama" and that it contained a lot of violence and sex. I thought it was ironic that we were seeing a play that featured these topics since we just covered them in class.
As a special treat, we were able to go to the director's talk before the play. The director was a young, thin, blonde with short hair and a welcoming smile. Her and the interviewer discussed as much of the play as they could without giving too much away to those who had not yet seen it. It was very fascinating to hear about how the director chose to place it in an abstract modern-era, just as it would have been in Webster's time. She touched on her choice to incorporate video into the play, but what was most interesting was when she discussed how she handled the violence in the play.
The play itself is incredibly violent especially to women which she said she felt with in a variety of ways. One was that she actually changed the gender of one of the characters from a female to a male. Surprisingly enough, this character was the most misogynistic. The director said she wanted a woman to play this role because she felt like it highlighted the way society abused women verbally because we hear the words more when a woman is saying them.
In terms of the physical violence, she wanted to remind the viewer that it was just reconstruction of violence not real violence because it is a play and you are so drawn into it she did not want the viewer to be horrified when someone was stabbed or shot. She achieved this reminder that it is all a show by having one of the actors dress on stage and put a fake blood bag in their garments in front of the audience.
Another interesting thing about the performance was that it involves a child. The director said it was quite difficult to maneuver having young boy around so much verbal and physical violence. She said she tried to cut down on how much he saw while on stage, and while he was off stage he was kept in a separate area and could only be brought out at specific times when it was appropriate. I liked that the director took such measures to ensure that she kept the little boy away from violence as much as possible. I feel like this does not happen nearly as much with someone's own parents at home, so is it up to the parents to shield children from violence? Or is it a job for society?
I feel like parents should definitely try and monitor what their kids are taking in throuhg culture whether it be through film, tv, radio, etc. These things can have the most potent effect on young children, especially if they see sexual or violent content so yes I think it is prudent for parents to keep an eye on whether the content they are exposing their children to is healthy for their brains or not.
ReplyDeleteWith that said, I think a complete censorship of exposure to the darker side of humanity can also be detrimental. Children do need to understand there is evil and meanness in the world, but they should be taught that it can be overcome. Not exposing your children to anything violent may give them the wrong idea of the world too, much like too much exposure to violence could do the same.
Society should try and be responsible in their portrayals of violence especially if the program has the possibility of getting exposed to younger viewers. I'm not really in favor of any sort of censorship of the content, but content creators should be veyr aware about what they're assembling and try to keep it in mind when discussing how to make their films/shows/etc.