Lysistrata @ C: Team Review part 2 (On Gender stuff)

also, the gender-swapping and the whole 'no prick' thing seems to contradict itself.

The main actor playing Lysistrata- first of all, she was good. Held it together playing a part that was badly written.

aye, this is true, but only for a while.

You mean it fell apart at the end?

aye. It sort of feels like the writer just went "how could this end?" and killed off the character, and the same happened with the acting cause they tried to put in too much.

like the scene where she had the mother character putting black paint on in some type of dream sequence... it slowed down the action enough to make obvious the artifice of theatre (as Brecht would say?) but it didn't seem to do much for the story

That brings me to the big question: why did she get her kit off twice?

good question... first time is actually in the source material, I think, but in a different way

She did a lap dance in some nice red undies and then was stripped by her enemies before being blown up in the Acropolis.

in Aristophanes' version, the men get turned on by watching the women bathe and stuff - I'm guessing that's what the first one was supposed to be a nod to

I'm not sure about the second one...

When we are saying Aristophanes was more subtle, we are in trouble...

well, he wasn't

hehehe

He was: he used words to imply the attraction. He didn't just have the heroine get her flesh out...

well, yes, but he didn't have films or theatre that would let him do that without losing his audience

after all, there was no violence on stage back then... maybe there was no nudity either?

although he seemed to love phallic objects.

He did... but I saw that lap dancing scene as unnecessary to the plot and working a theme not revealed elsewhere. It is proper exploitation.

aye, it could have been cut out completely.

Indeed. And she did not need to be in the black shreddies when she was blown up.

aye, this is true.

so are you saying that for a show that is about women taking control of their bodies, it contradicts itself?

Let's talk about the speech she makes as well: the passionate one about rape culture... which came from nowhere...

yeah, I thought that was going to lead to an actual rape scene, which would have made stripping her at the end more logical...

The prologue, with the male lap dance, fits in with the other vision of feminism, where women indulge raunchy culture for fun...

Dear God, I hadn't thought of that. It gets worse...

yeah but it does seem to explore all variations of feminism - the view that both men and women can work towards equality, the anti-men arguments, and the male rights activists...

I don't think a play can complain about rape culture while adding to the objectification of women without be hypocritical

although it still struggles with the TERF - trans*exclusive radical feminists - since they are yelling 'no more prick', which is kinda body essentialist

Aha! Another problem I missed...

that's why you called me in, no?

yes