New York Post: The terrific 1972 musical “Pippin” begins with a call from a charismatic leading player to “join us.” What ensues is a wild, funny, inclusive coming-of-age story about the son of Charlemagne, with a score by Stephen Schwartz, the composer of other excellent titles like “Wicked” and “Godspell.”
But, according to a report in the Cape May County Herald, a group of 140 community members in Middle Township, NJ, would like you to join them — against this harmless musical.
19 comments:
Wow this article is great with the perfect amount of sass. I think these parents are ridiculous for protesting Pippin. The author made a great point that there are so many shows that people believe are classics, which make them totally okay to perform in high schools, but other shows that may be a little newer are extremely inappropriate. Most of the “classics” have very inappropriate story lines that many people overlook. Music Man seems like a sweet little musical, but there are some very bad lessons for kids to be learning. A con artist is basically getting away with ripping off an entire town. Is that a lesson you really want your kids to learn, that conning is an okay thing to do? They are getting so upset about Pippin while it also has a really good message about finding your purpose. I am glad that the school board did not listen to these crazy parents.
Someone is always going to think that something isn't appropriate for high schoolers. In this case, however, I think the fact that thousands of high schools have performed this show before should have been proof enough to most parents that it isn't corrupting youth but is a well-loved musical. I think the author has a good point that there are plenty of shows that don't really give high schoolers the best moral values: Guys and Dolls shows a man swindling a woman into falling in love with him purely on a bet, the whole plot of West Side Story is based around gang violence, etc. Censorship is a tricky conversation and I don't think that any of those shows should be censored either, but I think it is important to think about why Pippin is considered more edgy than any of these shows. I personally think the status of the show contributes to this reputation-- shows like West Side Story, Guys and Dolls, Carousel, etc. are considered "classics" while (in my opinion) Pippin just doesn't have that reputation for most people. There are other shows that weren't mentioned in the article that have this "classic" status but still have scenes or entire plot points that aren't considered okay nowadays. The biggest example that's coming to mind for me is Seven Brides for Seven Brothers where they literally raid the nearby city for young women and force them to live with them-- but for some reason it's still considered a cute "classic" musical.
2016 is the year of being PC in all areas on media, with theatre being under a particularly harsh microscope, as theatre is meant to be a bastion of inclusivity and the second patrons feel as if someone isn't included they go up in arms. Case in point the recent Hamilton casting controversy over the use of the phrase "non-white" actors. Now, I don't believe that theatre should be censored, or even have to put up trigger warnings unless dealing with especially brutal themes (rape, strong depictions of violence), as theatre is meant to make the audience member feel something similar to their reality, and the real world doesn't hold your hand and let you know when something that might make you upset is about to happen.
Deciding that Pippin was too innuendo-laced and profane kind of defeats the purpose of depicting a reality, because in the real world people are profane, and people use innuendo, and you just have to deal with it. Religion is something that is brought up in reality, but that brings up an argument about the nature of language and the culture of offense. How can a couple syllables put together into a series of sounds offend your religion? What about those noises has to do with your faith? Would God not use whatever language he wanted to get his point across?
The most pertinent point the article makes ties into what I'm talking about, which is that no musical is really free of content that could offend no one. Each show, in some form, will be questionable for someone. Even The Lion King deals with the death of a father, but we don't cry out to have Mufasa only be hurt by the gazelle, because it would drastically change not only the story but the themes involved in the story. But the second some harsh language or double entendres enter the fray, someone throws their hands up and claims it is unholy. At what point do we as a society make a set of guidelines for what is actually risque, and harmful to our youths? And who is to say that by censoring these shows, the kids won't be exposed to this content in another manner? Time marches on, and at some point on that line, someone if going to say a curse word or "that's what she said". And time will continue to march on.
I really enjoy the relatively sassy position this author takes on this matter, which is actually a pretty common opinion to combat this pretty common censorship issue. When I was a junior or senior in high school, the middle school did Pippin, and besides just being a kind of weird show, it was totally fine to see little 10-13 year olds put on this production. I really admire the stance Greta Schwartz takes on the matter. She says, “It’s life, and life is full of evil things and hardship. How do you expect them to understand their feelings if they don’t feel a connection, and arts can provide that connection. Maybe some topics are considered immoral, but shows are a success for a reason. They touch the heart.” And I think that is a great point because the art of theatre is about making connections to the story and to the characters within them, and without any form of strife in the plays, how could kids and audiences really make good art?
We went through some similar things at my high school, luckily none of them to this degree. I was one of two students on a committee of 10 people that reviewed shows that my high school was interested in doing. Now, granted I was mostly on that committee to see if the show would be possible from the technical and crew standpoint, it was very interesting to hear what some of the administrators had to say. One year, we were looking at doing “Thoroughly Modern Millie”, which is similar to some of the shows the author discusses like “Guys and Dolls” and “The Music Man”. It has some racial material, illegal drinking, and more. And the administrators talked about this material like they knew they would hear back from the community. They were expecting pushback. Ultimately, we chose the show and there was minimal negative feedback. Also interestingly enough, my show in the following two years, would go on to do “Pippin” and “The Music Man”.
Hah! Schools just LOVE censoring anything in the arts that is remotely racy. Like Sam said above, I also think it's hilarious and quite ironic that high schools believe that shows like Guys & Dolls and Music Man are wholesome, family friendly musicals. They are shows that have explicit content but because it's masked in the "traditional musical" formula, no one bats an eyelash. It's funny that Pippin' was protested against because compared to those other two, it's not any more racy than them! I remember back in high school, I did a large painting of a woman who was topless and my art teacher wanted to showcase it. However, it posed an issue with the high school and they didn't allow it to be showcased because there was "nudity" involved. It's so interesting to me that a single nipple -- a FEMALE nipple could cause so much controversy. I'm sure if it was a shirtless male involved in my painting, there'd be no issue with it being displayed. But because in American media, female breasts are so sexualized, it is seen as something that is indecent. In other countries, many of them in Europe, nudity is not seen as much of an issue; just a part of human life.
My high school never had much of a problem with censorship from parents, often times the parents who were uncomfortable simply did not come to the shows we performed. We had a very large Mormon population at my school but still performed shows such as Chicago, Dead Man Walking, and Spamalot. In my experience, and in my memory from other such articles as this, is that there is very often not a lot of backlash against violent shows. High schools are okay with performing Hamlet because violence is very usual in our societies. Most likely is backlash against sexual content in schools, or profanity, which I don't even get, because I think watching someone's heart get pulled out onstage is worse than a 17 year old saying "shit". Why are we okay with violence and not the things that accompany it?
I think that censorship, particularly among teenagers, has recently become a very hot topic in the digital age. Parents are becoming more and more worried about their kids being “exposed” to topics they shouldn’t be. I completely agree with the writer of this article who sarcastically says that if you don’t want your children to be “corrupted”, don’t let them join drama club. I thought this writer did a very good job of conveying why it’s so important for high school- aged kids to tackle shows with difficult topics without getting too cheesey about the artistic importance of theater and how kids need characters they are able to relate to (although to be fair, Pippin is a perfect example of a play high schoolers would be able to relate to). Having just recently left high school, nothing is more potent to me than the powerfully performed and designed shows I watched at drama festival every year that confronted issues of sexuality, violence, and identity head-on, without being over zealous. Our high school principal didn’t let us do a show our director really wanted to, because it portrayed a teenage pregnancy, when just the year before we had done Urinetown as our fall musical, a show that openly criticizes modern government and supports political upheaval. It’s crazy to me that there are parents who have no other battles to fight other than the battle against art.
I was fortunate enough to attend a progressive enough high school to have never had to worry about things like this. Maybe it was just the shows we chose to put on, but that's an issue for another time, and a different comment. I'd like to think that my teachers played a skillful game with the administrators and parents, weaving relevant and boundary-pushing theater in with lessons about modern and historical theater, so that any possibly iffy material could be justified to even the most hawk-eyed and intolerant of parents. In reality, I think that, knowing my community, the parents that may have raised a stink about the whole thing were likely simply too tired after long shifts to care, and that my administrators were overworked, and had to deal with more pressing issues, like kids with toxic home situations affecting class attendance and an achievement gap you could drive a car into. Honestly, my theater department at home was so far from the one depicted in this article, and in fact served a different purpose, I now believe, bringing art into a community with little else to cling to. Thus, I think censorship was the last thing on anyone's mind, but hey, what do I know about theater education?
First of all, I love how this article is written. The alternative musical examples given are especially wonderful, since those are the most common high school shows that no one bats an eye at. I can not believe these parents are actually upset about Pippin. Apart from a couple mildly risque scenes and a few choice words than can easily be edited out, Pippin is squeaky clean. As the article mentions, Pippin is also extremely relevant to high school age students. The central theme of the show is self discovery, and it might actually be beneficial for high school students to see, let alone perform in. Like Lucy said, someone is always going to be offended by anything, but I think this is hilarious, considering how tame Pippin is compared to other shows that get performed regularly. Of course, there are definitely some shows that should not be performed on a high school level ever, since there is definitely a line, but it is amazing how far back some people stretch that line.
So much high school theatre is being censored and it has got to stop. I don't like it one bit. I remember rehearsing for about a month for a play my school was doing and we were supposed to perform in three days. Well, someones parent thought some aspects of the play (the one reference to sex and the one reference to violence) were too much for a group of "naive" youngsters like ourselves. The parent movement caught on and three days before opening, the show was canceled and replaced with a meeting to talk about what is and what isn't appropriate. This made me so angry! The fact that my magnet theatre program, meant to train and educate students on a larger scale of theatre, was not allowed to fulfill its potential due to parents having a problem with the word "screw" fires up my chops.
Parents need to remember that they can't keep blindfolding their ALMOST ADULT, BEARD-SHAVING, PARTY GOING, HIGH SCHOOL KIDS, when there is even the slightest topic of controversy involved. Like just chill. If the show isn't appropriate for a school performance, then the school won't choose to do it. But if they do choose, to further education, then LET THEM DO IT!
I can't believe this is honestly still a debate. High school kids, let them do whatever theater piece they want. Every high school has heard swear words before, even if a parent doesn't allow swearing in their home, which is more than ok, I bet still watches PG 13 movies and up which all have swearing. I think this is one of those awful cases where parents just want to be mad at something. I know in my high school we had an issue with an original student musical getting passed because it was about zombies and therefore fairly graphic with gore. Parents never spoke up against it until after the cast list came out. It was just rumors, that kids had asked their parents to try to get it taken down as they knew the show was already on edge and they did not get cast. If people, whether it is parents or school boards think we should be censoring theater for high school kids, I think they should remember what they did in high school, and realize its nothing more than the media hasn't already showed them, now they are just doing it in a safe environment.
My high school was amazing. We were allowed to do shows that actually talked about problems and that didn't sugar coat anything for us. My junior year we did spring awakening, the full version curse and pregnancy included, and so many students thanked the theater department for the conversation that we had started. Plenty of studies show that it hurts children and teenagers to hide information from them, and that it just causes them to lash out and act without knowledge. This is exactly what spring awakening teaches, that lack of knowledge is detrimental to the well adjusted growth of a teenager into a real person. I will never understand parents who shield their children from the truth, it goes against everything I was taught and what my parents believe in. Theater is meant to teach people about stories that are different from their own. High schools need to stop censoring what they allow their kids to perform, I owe a lot of who I am to the fact that my parents didn't shelter me, and let me learn lessons for myself, and everyone deserves to have that.
Such a sarcastic article! I love it. The author has put into words basically what I think whenever I hear of some cohort of sensitive minded parents who want to ban a book, or play, or really anything that could enlighten their children's minds. The example in this article makes me really upset. Pippin is one of my favorite musicals, and as the author stated, is perfect for teens to relate to, as it is essentially, a coming of age story. Sure, there is implied sex in some scenes, but that's life. And those parents have to get over the fact that their teens are not doe-eyed at all. That left them after middle school. So why not let them explore an amazing musical and analyze the story for themselves. I also think that it is amusing how the parents were upset about the sexual nature of some of the scenes rather than the violence it depicts about war and the fact that Pippin does kill his own father in the show. It just goes to show how little backing groups like this actually have.
After finally quelling my fit of laughter brought on by the final line of the article I started to once again get annoyed by people who think they can protect people by never showing them the line between moral arguments. I’m all for showing your kids all sides of an argument. Even ones that might seem radicalized to you. Such as I don’t know FUCKING PIPIN! I mean. Seriously. Don’t you have better things to do with your life. I seriously don’t want to know what kind of person you grow up to be if your parents kept you so sheltered so as to be offended by Pipin. I’d imagine the first time the cashier at chipotle didn’t look you in the eye and say thank you mam or sir, have a nice day, as sincerely as they could you’d probably have a breakdown in the car. There probably is a line to be crossed for age inappropriate materiel but highschool is dangerously close to the voting age and do we seriously want someone who is a year or two away from helping to decide the next president of the United States unable to see pipin because it’s too sexual….
I love how the author pointed out that even the most innocent musicals, like the squeaky clean Music Man deal with rough, or at least “immoral” topics. Because they have to in order to be successfully. Real life isn’t bubble wrapped and handed to you on a platter by your mom, real life is full of these immoral things. And successful theater, at least to some degree, reflects real life. So here’s the thing, high school students are about to move out into the real world and become fully fledged adults. They are probably already dealing with big issues in their everyday lives. Theater is supposed to be a place where both the performers and the audience can tackle difficult life questions and work through them. How in the world are they supposed to do that if their parents are censoring them in the name of “protection”? I think it’s time that parents stopped seeing their high schoolers as little kids and gave them the room to grow, even if that means dealing with less-than-pleasant topics in the classroom and on the stage.
Every once and a while, an article about censoring high school theatre makes its way onto the green page, and every time I’m disappointed. Not that it’s on the page, because it really should be, but because the article has to exist at all. Theatre has always been used to express ideas in ways that are sometimes a little less than PC, or in ways that have the potential to offend, but bad language? Really? That’s the problem? You’re upset that the high school put on a show, a show that you let your kid be a part of, because the students swear? I’m sorry, but you don’t get to just ruin everyone’s fun because you allowed your child to be in a play written 40 years ago that has some swearing in it, and now you’re going back on that decision. It’s utter ridiculousness. This article should be about how a high school doing a play deals with some controversial issue, one we get to have a productive conversation about as a society. Or, better yet, maybe this article shouldn’t have to exist at all, because the parents of these high school students could have bothered to talk to their kid about swearing and it’s uses and purposes in modern society, and why they believe it’s ok or not. But unfortunately, it’s always the fault of the high school, always the fault of the educators, never the fault of the parents or students. And that’s high school theatre.
Some more thoughts on the subject here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyBH5oNQOS0
I am so tired of adults complaining that their children are being corrupted. I mean, seriously, take a seat. In this day and age, it seems more and more like children and young adults are being coddled into Nurtureville, being told that nothing will ever hurt them and everything will be fine and there's no such thing as murder or sex or swear words. Give me a break. Kids are not stupid. If they've ever tuned into the news (which they should be), they're going to see a LOT worse than a few curses in a musical. We are living in a terrifying world, and I think it's about time we start letting kids into it. I haven't figured out exactly WHY we would want a bunch of naive kids turning into naive adults, or what the benefit is for parents to feel like their kids don't know anything about the real world, but I think I would honestly attribute it to laziness. Parents who want to shield their kids from what really goes on in the world are just afraid they are going to be put on the spot to explain it, and can't be bothered to let their kids in on the uncomfortable truth about the world we live in.
I couldn’t agree with this article more. I understand parents’ concerns for wanting to keep certain things from their children. That being said, they grow up. On the other hand, there are a lot of things (plays/musicals) that shouldn’t be performed in high school by high schoolers. I wonder how the naysayer in the article feels about history classes that are taught that include sex and violence and other things she opposed. I do have to give the woman credit for standing up for what she believes and not asking them to change things in the show, but just to cancel the whole thing. I think this article is a good gateway for discussion. I don’t know how many conversations I’ve had about censorship in movies, TV and games relating to blood, guts and gore vs. sex. I’m not sure where the line for high school theater is, but I think two things. First, it isn’t a line so much as it is a range. Second, for this particular district, it might be to vote on a show. If she still wants to raise issues – tough luck.
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