Code Switch : NPR: Playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins may be only 30 years old, but he's already compiled an impressive resume. His theatrical works, which look at race and identity in America, have been performed in New York and around the country. Last year, Jacobs-Jenkins won the best new American play Obie Award for two of his works, Appropriate and An Octoroon.
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First off, Jacobs-Jenkins' comments on labels and being "a black playwright" are very shrewd. Only minorities have their minority identity used as a qualifier when their work is discussed. "How to Not Give a Shit: Making Art While Female" discussed this in-depth. While it is worthwhile to note the importance of diversity of perspective when it is present, an artist's work should not be defined by their status as a racial, gender, sexual, or religious minority. This tendency indicates that a straight, white, cisgender, christian, male is our cultural "standard," even though in reality this is not our country's "standard."
Jacob Jenkins is quoted "[t]heater is a place where you're supposed to transform, where you're supposed to experience the magic of being something, but not being something. And you know, that's all about identity, that's all about race as we've received it." This reminds me of the unfortunate reality that from a young age on minorities are expected to identify with, primarily, white, male, protagonists while the opposite is essentially never true. Why is that?
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