Monday, March 12, 2007

The Vagina Monologues | Eve Ensler | School | Taboos


Do Androids Dream of Electric Genitals--or something like that... Ace detective Melissa Posa chimes in with a salient dispatch!


Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 17:50:19 -0700
From: "Melissa Posa"
Subject:The Vagina Monologues
To: Bill

Hey Nericcio,

Here's a switch from all the mannequins and robots on the obscene machine blog site. How about censorship?!?!?! For those who went to see The Vagina Monologues this will definitely be a topic of interest. I was watching the Today show and found this article and video about 3 high school girls suspended for saying the word VAGINA at a school performance with all adults. Can you believe that. But let's not leave out the part that other students were not suspended for saying FUCK!!! This is obscene if you ask me. Of course the girl defied school rules and went ahead including the word vagina in their performance, but can you really blame them. Students can curse, but they can't say the name of a body part. I couldn't help but think the school authorities were acting like puppeteers by trying to control what the students say and do. Don't get me wrong, I understand certain rules apply at school but this seems like an attempt at extreme censorship--an adult audience and the girls could not say vagina. And as the video says, what if there were children attending, is it bad to hear the name of a body part. Maybe it's my liberal side but I think the girls did the right thing. Seriously...even the school board president commends what the girls did. Here's the link

Cheers,
Melissa Posa

6 comments:

  1. Anonymous5:38 PM

    I was just browsing the blogs and I thought this one was going to be just another vagina monologues synopsis, but I am glad I read this. I hate censorship, and think, for the most part, that the complete idea is just ridiculous. Of course words can be hazardous to a person, culture, government, etc., but to control what is said seems to be violating not just the first amendment, but just a natural right to express one's thoughts. It is exactly puppeteering: the control of what goes down on the stage. This is seriously starting to piss me off, and as much as I am against the nature of suing a school for large sums of money, i hope these girls challenge this and win.
    -shane leach eng493

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  2. Anonymous11:17 AM

    I also think that censorship is ridiculous. As long as what people are saying is not hurtful towards another person, I believe that people should be able to speak their minds freely. Especially in a case like this where the word that is being censored is vagina. The vagina is a body part and I can not imagine that it would be used in a more vulgar way on stage than the word fuck would be. It always amazes me what people feel the need to censor and what they feel they can overlook. For example, during the Superbowl people were offended by the male on male kiss during one commercial and controversy surrounded Prince when people said his guitar looked like a penis. Yet no one seemed to have a problem with the objectifying of women or the fact that the game they are watching mostly involves tackling your opponent. I think people do not want to hear or see what makes them uncomfortable in this case it was the word vagina. The school was able to try and stop the girls like society tries to force people to think a certain way and accept certain things. With censorship, society is able to try to be the puppet master behind us human mannequins but more and more people are fighting censorship and speaking their mind and I think these girls are a perfect example of that.
    -Brenda Geary

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  3. I am an exchange student and Korean. Especially, Korea society has an inclination toward conservatism related to sex unlike Japan. Actually I had seen a vagina monologue once in Korea and I have seen that again on campus. I thought synopsis put it badly so I couldn’t enjoy to the full in Korea, but I can here. Namely through education, we shouldn’t employ foul language like vagina. Therefore since childhood, I learned censorship. While I saw this girls challenge, I envy them.

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  4. Anonymous7:45 PM

    Here are our Puritan roots showing their ugly heads again. How is it possible that the anatomically correct name for a body part can be so dirty? It isn’t a dirty word. It is a beautiful word, the name of the body part in which we are all born. How is it that true foul language is looked upon as more socially acceptable? I hear curse words all the time and, yet, when people want to speak of their genitals, there are all kinds of nicknames. Some of their nicknames are so vulgar and offensive; moreover I hear them all the time. This prudish society needs to learn that proper names for proper body parts are not offensive, but the nicknames are. It really makes me angry that the student did not get in trouble for using a very offensive curse word like the F-word. It is very hypocritical of the school administration for not punishing him and punishing these girls. I am very proud of the young women for standing up for what they believe in. We need more people like them! I am not afraid to say:
    VAGINA VAGINA VAGINA
    ~Kelly A Thomas~

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  5. This is almost too funny. Has censorship gotten so out of control that dear little Suzy and Timmy cannot even hear the word vagina without someone covering their ears? Never mind all the other lovely words that can be used to describe various human anatomy. Is there now a newly defined politically correct word for vagina? I'm not sure how long the adults in power expect to be able to shelter the youth of America from the topic of sex but so far they have been pretty unsuccessful. For now I suppose Timmy and Suzy will just have to wonder about their mysterious wee-wee.

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  6. Anonymous1:00 AM

    The Vagina Monologues is a celebration of female sexuality in all its complexity and mystery. Witty and irreverent, compassionate and wise masterpiece gives voice to real women's deepest fantasies and fears. No one who sees it will ever look at a woman's body, or think of sex, in quite the same way again. I saw this on campus. Every monologue somehow relates ton the vagina, be it through sex, love, rape, menstruation, mutilation, masturbation, birth, orgasm, the variety of names for the vagina, or simply as a physical aspect of the female body. A recurring theme throughout the piece is the vagina as a tool of female empowerment, and the ultimate embodiment of individuality. This theme cannot be easily accepted in my country, so this experience was really valuable to me changing my thought about the sex.

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