BLM and Questionable Shows

Johnny Speight often talked about how he wrote Garnett as a figure of ridicule but racists would cheer for him. Warren Mitchell, a staunch socialist, would have bigots come up to him and want to shake his hand for saying those things. Nuance and irony is lost on a lot of people.

What about theatre shows? Can Book of Mormon come back after all this? I’d be astonished if it did.

I'm not going to start telling black people what they can and cannot do about a word that only they know how much harm it causes them. But it should never, ever be heard coming from a white person in this day and age. I literally cannot believe I’m having this conversation. If you want to talk about irrationality, how about we remember that out of the two of us, it seems that you can't function if you don't hear the n-word. 

If you can't see that the n-word is wrong, then yes you need to be told what to do.

Ok, one very simple question for you. Just a yes or no will do, and I will assume that no reply also means yes.

Do you wish you could use the n-word? 

If they tried to cut all the problematic bits out of BOM there’d be nowt left! 😆

2010s in some countries. Among the plethora of productions streamed in the last few months I've seen a Zauberflote from the Wiener Staatsoper filmed in 2017 that had Monostatos in blackface (which was traditional but certainly hasn't been done in the UK for some time) & the Bolshoi's La Bayadere filmed I think only last year that had child dancers in blackface. I was certainly surprised by both instances.

I think we also need to ask the question about who should make the decision about what different groups of people find offensive.

From my experience, the theatre-going audience in London is primarily, but not exclusively, white and East Asian. Audience demographics of course vary between shows. If you were to consider, say, The Lion King, the demographics are different again.

The Book of Mormon is of its time, but it also heavily ridicules many different groups of people. I'd like to think the audience knows that and can separate parody from genuine attempts at offence. There are plenty of jokes aimed at the (as they are referred to in the show) "white boys". Whether the show is funny or not is an entirely different debate, but the same could be said about questionable TV shows of the same ilk like Family Guy or South Park.

In the 2011 Census for England and Wales, 5.5% of the population were said to be or black or mixed ethnicity. The percentage today is likely to be higher. It is obviously impossible to judge people's ethnicity from a casual look around a theatre audience, but I would generally say that the percentage of black and mixed ethnicity people attending most theatre performances is much lower than 5.5%. Even a show like Hamilton, designed to be inclusive and with the few roles usually played by white actors there for comic relief, does not attract this percentage. The reasons for this are many and perhaps we need to be asking how to attract more black and mixed ethnicity people to the theatre. There may be social and economic reasons, there may be an aspect about how welcoming the theatre feels, but there is also the fact that different people like and appreciate different forms of entertainment. For instance, a colleague of mine said she had never been to a theatre growing up or even considered going, but asked to accompany me one evening as she would "try anything once" (that hasn't happened yet due to the closures).

From attending BOM in London, I would say it attracted a higher percentage of black and mixed ethnicity audience members than Hamilton. Still not 5.5%, but that's rare at any theatre. The percentage was definitely lower when I saw BOM in Manchester, but that may also say something about local demographics (by the same token, you might argue that the percentage of black and mixed ethnicity people living in London is higher). But, underlying all of this, there are ways in which pulling a show could also be harmful.

As a final aside, is it going to be acceptable to resume performances of Hamilton? After all, it glorifies (among others) George Washington, who made his fortune off the back of slaves, resisted movements to free them and allegedly even used their teeth to make his own dentures. Even Hamilton himself apparently bought and sold slaves. This question is not asked with judgement, but there is certainly the potential of a slippery slope off the back of many well-meaning changes and developments.

but....but...but....isnt that the character saying that??? it isnt the author. its satire. its that characters views on the world and we laugh at him not with him.  there are racist characters in To Kill a Mockingbird, should that still be put on?

There are issues with Book of Mormon, although that line in I Believe isn't one of them. The show is a blunt-instrument satire which takes on a lot of targets, including white saviour narratives about Africa, but it's not always as clever as it thinks it is and it's sometimes guilty of perpetuating stereotypes when it thinks it's exposing them.

More problematic in many ways is something like The King And I - a beloved classic which takes an arguably extremely patronising colonialist view of the country in which it's set, and which is considered offensive there.

On the topic of Love Thy Neighbour, Jack Smethurst's son posted a beautiful Twitter thread about growing up around the show: