Monday, April 18, 2016
Yes, Calling Someone a "Techie" Can Be Offensive
OnStage: Sometimes, even with the best intentions, certain terms, labels and names you have for various people can be offensive to them. One term that is commonly used in theatre is to describe the technical crew, technicians, etc as "techies". And while this term is often used with the best intentions, at the end of the day, it's offensive.
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To be completely honest, I do not put enough effort into thinking about what other people call me as offensive. However, when I stop and think about it I agree with this article that the term "techie" is not too sweet. It sounds childish and definitely diminishes what we do to something trivial.
I think that more importantly than the specific term this article touches on what is really important: open communication.
Being offensive, even accidentally happens so often just because people are afraid to ask. Offensive actions and words will continue to be used until someone is brave and comfortable enough to say something about how a word or action makes them feel.
Even thought this article focused on communication about proper titles backstage I feel that this idea should and does extend way further beyond backstage. Approaching someone with open and honest communication in and out of the workplace will benefit everyone involved.
Not only does the term techie offend some people by making their profession sound cute and trivial, it shows a lack of professionalism that adds to the original insult. I think that it’s just as easy to use the term technician to describe the same group of people. Nobody calls clerks clerkies, nobody calls peoples who work in cubicles cubies, in fact, the only profession that is is abbreviated in such a manor in any accepted way are goalkeepers (goalies). It’s one of those things that can immediately clue you in to the quality of respect a person has for the group of professionals they’re referring to, whether they mean ill or not. I don’t take it too seriously when people use the term, but I think that it’s definitely something that you should check yourself on if you want to refer to your peers. At the very least, it gets you closer to a more professional attitude.
I’ve met a fair number of people who really dislike the term techie. I personally don’t see it as offensive, but it is a word I used to use to describe myself, but don’t anymore. In high school, I was a techie. That word, with the sort of playfulness to it, worked in a high school environment, but without thinking about it, I stopped using it almost immediately in college. I think a big part of the reason is that I now (when I need a short term to say what I do) refer to myself as a DP (which is short for “design and production student” for anyone reading this who doesn’t go to/ work at CMU). However, I think part of the inadequacy with the word “techie” is that it lumps everyone who works in technical theater into one group, which is just inaccurate. The electricians don’t do the same thing as the dressers. In a high school theater, most of the students to do stage tech kind of jump around and, at least from what I have seen, don’t specialize to the degree people do in industry. Honestly, I think part of why people dislike the term techie is because it is so distinctly non-professional, and no one wants their profession to be trivialized.
I strongly disagree with using the term “techie” for a few reasons. The first is that it is a term that is used by high school students to create a sense of comradery and elite-ness compared to the cast. It groups all technicians, managers, and designers into one group of people, which I can see as helpful if you are trying to make everyone feel that they are all in it together. However, at this point we are now all professionals in our field and should understand that the completion of a project relies on everyone working together. And I know some people that would be offended or at least set off by being called a “techie”. For example, a costume designer does not often come in contact with the public’s association of a “techie”, yet their work is just as important and should be appreciated for what work goes into it.
There is a Facebook page for the class of 2020. Roughly a month ago, one of the accepted design and production majors posted a question that started with "As well as being a techie,". He was asking if it would be possible to take art courses alongside the required classes. I was taken aback at first, simply because he refereed to himself as a "techie". I hadn't heard the word in almost a year. At first I was insulted, thinking something along the lines of "He's coming to CMU and he doesn't even respect his own industry". And then I remembered that he is a child. The word "techie" is cute, it's childish. In high school you are allowed to be childish with your work. It's a hobby, an after-school activity. But, after high school it is a job. I am not studying at CMU for four years and spending a ton of money to have a hobby. For the admitted student, being backstage is still just a hobby. It is something he does after school with his friends. What he is doing right now with theater and what he will be doing in a year, or ten years, are amazingly different. Right now, he is a "techie". But we are not, stagehands are not, and neither is anyone else who does this work professionally.
My freshman year of high school, anyone in the theatre program who came in to study something that wasn't acting or musical theatre - be that design, management, or otherwise - was immediately swept under the title of techie. That all changed the next year, with a new design teacher, new costume shop manager, new curriculum. Thinking back now, I honestly wonder if it was being required to take more acting, more dancing, more musical theatre, and more general design classes than I thought I would have to before the curriculum adjustment which changed my perspective. Not only did this year enlighten me as to what acting and dancing and singing skills could really do for me as a costume designer - it showed me how wholly unique my job was. I wasn't just here doing the theatre thing to make everyone look good. I was here to collaborate, to conceptualize, to build a character. Very little of this process, or at least of the process which I began to make my own, was technical. Even draping and building was much more nuanced that the title of "techie" had ever made it out to be. Techie, although still an endearing term to me when I think back to the days before I knew its true connotations, is belittling not because it seeks to condescend but because it fails to elaborate. It is the reason sound designers can no longer take home a much deserved Tony and why things like the Stage Hand's Creed exist. We who have done so much with so little for song long are so much more than an abbreviation. There's nothing wrong with calling yourself a techie - if you think that encapsulates what you do or suits your role, great! But if not, I think this article does a great job of explaining why that is.
Techie to me sounds to high school. It really does trivialize a lot of people, as lesser than actors or directors. It makes it seem like being part of a crew, is deragatory when it really isn't and is a difficult job. I think it's not a huge deal, but yeah, it's not the nicest thing to hear I'm sure.
I think this all stems from something I've seen at this school. The actors, don't really always understand what managers, and designers, or technical people do, since in high school there was a sort of derogatory umbrella term of "techie" when in fact, no, I'm an artist. In Foundations the other day, an actor was talking about how designers are not artistic and do the building side of the production while the actors did the artistic part. What? Who do you think designs the set, the costumes, the lights, etc. Do you think that's just preset and we just build it? I think this term and the whole idea of there being a "tech" and an "acting" side of theater breeds thinking like that. I regard myself as an artist, since I have a fine art background, and design is part of that. I certainly would not want to be reduced to being called a "techie" just because sometimes I have to wear a hard hat.
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