HowlRound: If we told artists they could not have guns onstage or in movies, they would be furious at such an egregious suppression of the freedom of speech and expression. Imagine Annie Get Your Gun without guns. How would Annie come to the realization, “You Can’t Get a Man With a Gun,” as she sings in Act I? In Chicago, Roxie Hart can’t reinvent her story if she can’t show how “We Both Reached for the Gun.” Playwrights as diverse as Henrik Ibsen, Arthur Miller, and Suzan-Lori Parks all include guns onstage. Guns have a place onstage and in the movies without a doubt; however, the performance industry strictly regulates firearms.
14 comments:
What if we don't treat every gun as if it is going to be fired? It doesn't matter if it is going to be fired, it has the potential to be fired and thats enough. Guns have a place in society and therefore they have a place in art, but they need to be treated with the heft of what they can inflict. I think that all the policies that the theatre and film unions but on using fire arms are very legitimate and educational. It teaches gun safety which in turns teaches how not to be scared of guns. I think what they author is trying to get at is that he wishes people were less scared of guns in just their presence, but I highly disagree that the means of doing that is just assuming not all guns are used for shooting. The intension of what the gun is used for is dependent on the individual that holds it, therefore we would need to change the intension people who carry guns may have. I think the better approach is to teach gun safety, how to handle a weapon, how to load, how it fires, etc.
Giving training to all of those around guns is important. i believe guns can play a very important role in the storytelling and overall message of a piece. but one thing i dont think that this article reflects is the impact on the community. if a person is using a gun they may draw from their frame of reference to movies and shows that have guns as an example. that is why i believe that it is important to practice gun safety on stage. aside from the obvious. whenever you see an interview with a farmer holding a rifle and he has his finger resting on the trigger subconsciously people may think thats okay. so if we are to use guns we should be treating them correctly as not only safety for our self but as an example to others.
I think that this article does a good job at pointing out how the weight or divisiveness of a particular issue shouldn’t make in untouchable as a topic for artists. Yes, absolutely we should understand the power that our statements have to those who observe and experience our work, but that doesn’t mean that any topic should be completely forbidden for fear that we might influence someone to kill Ronald Reagan. It means that, when we wish to make a statement about that particular issue or topic, we must understand what it is we’re trying to say and be very sure that our message reads fairly clearly, which is something that artists are hopefully doing anyway to a certain extent. Guns in America are a touchy touchy thing. There are more gun related deaths here than in most other developed nations, but we also enshrine the right to own a gun as one of our fundamental freedoms dating back to the founding of our country. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t talk about guns at all, that would be shoving a problem under the rug (and there are already too many bodies there as it is).
I’m definitely not the most comfortable person when it comes to guns, but I do have to say that I am infinitely more uncomfortable with guns in real life than I am onstage. I remember being a little kid in preschool – my grandfather’s best friend was a police officer and also the husband of my preschool teacher – and I would always get very uncomfortable, visibly so, when he came in with his police issued pistol strapped to his belt. I don’t however, disagree with public safety and understand why it is standard for policemen and women to carry weapons. I think I became more comfortable with guns onstage when I learned about all these rules and regulations AEA requires for gun handling on set – but the everyday person doesn’t learn these things, and the way guns look like they’re being handled in movies is much more unwieldy than how they’re being handled on set, and that could be an issue for the viewers.
I have a lot of thoughts on this subject, especially because I am currently in tech for a production that has someone using a gun onstage. My two cents on all of this, for whatever it is worth, is that the production team should answer the question: “Is having a gun on stage necessary to telling the story?” If the answer is no, then do not put the gun on stage. Find some other weapon or do something artistic. If the answer is yes, what is the justification? If the text outright calls for it that is a strong reason to have a gun. However, if it is something along the lines of being a character choice or a decoration, I would not call that strong enough justification. Guns are a very powerful symbol in today’s culture and can be interpreted in a variety of ways, and that is why you have to be extra careful.
I have been surrounded by guns and firearms my entire life. I have relatives in the police force and military and almost everyone I am related to or could walk down the street to see has owned a gun for hunting. That being said I am very uncomfortable about being around guns and other weapons. I always flinch when a gun goes off no matter who it is or where, and I cannot recall a time in which I did not hide when a gun was taken out, even on stage. That being said, there is a reason for that. GUNS ARE SCARY. Whether it be for hunting or protection or police purposes, guns cause fear because they should. A gun could kill and should be treated like that. Even the most trained marksmen I know will tell you that if you aren't scared of your weapon then you shouldn't be holding it. Guns on stage should be treated as such. If they are necessary- use them, but use them in a way the promotes safe practice and justifiable reason.
I don't know what to think. On one hand, a lot of theatrical styles, genres, and plots base themselves in the current reality. In our current reality, guns are extremely common and are legal. It seems a bit ridiculous to say that presenting guns on stage will promote more gun violence in real life, only because the fact of the matter is taking guns offstage does not change the fact that guns are still legal in the U.S. By removing guns from the theatrical picture, are we perhaps doing a disservice by not addressing the topic of gun violence? What about the negative impacts that could possibly derive from the fact that theatre is pretending guns don't exist. In general, I feel as though it's more important that we expose our audiences to the reality of gun violence, which in some cases includes the usage of prop guns on stage.
Guns are weapons. Guns are made to be fired. They are made to kill. I feel like we’ve somehow forgotten or become disconnected from that reality. The fact that this author proposes that we treat every gun like it will be fired and that feels like a new and refreshing perspective is just wrong. I admire that theater has been able to balance safety with utilizing guns for storytelling, but they should only be used when absolutely necessary. I think they can still be valuable tools for telling a story or speaking to larger issues of gun violence when used well but I think at this moment in history, with the violence and fear caused by guns in our current society, the thought of casually using guns as simply another element of flash or shock value for a scene is deeply troubling. We need to think about how the kind of world we are putting onstage speaks to the kind of world we want to live in in some way and that thoughtless or unnecessary use of guns onstage might unwittingly condone thoughtless and unnecessary use of guns in the real world. The problem is that the former might feel a little overplayed or boring, while the latter can get people killed.
Gun safety is about an important issue as it gets. I have fired a number of guns both with live ammunition and blanks. There is, in essence, no difference. There’s still a bang, there’s still a kick, something still escapes from the barrel of the gun. Many times, the only difference is that there is no bullet in a blank – only gunpowder and wadding. I have heard many stories of blanks killing people or other dangerous situations with either blank firing weapon or a replica. As an undergraduate at University of Michigan, I was informed of a situation when an actor rehearsing a monologue took one of the replica guns outside to practice. At some point, the police showed up, drew their weapons on the actor and handcuffed him. It wasn’t until the head of the department talked to the police was the actor released. When teaching at University of Toledo, I told my students, “There is no such thing as a prop gun.” When working in theater, typically we’re working with one of two things – a blank firing weapon or a (non-firing) replica. In either situation, the safety protocols remain the same. While I’m sure that society at large could learn a few things from how theater and film handle guns, I don’t think that much would change. The article poses the question, “What if we started our thinking about guns with the assumption that every one of them will be fired?” It might do more good to ask (bare with me here because this is a bit graphic), “What if every time a gun was fired it killed a child? Or a kitten? Or a puppy?” Perhaps then, people might think more about guns and the way they’re used. All that being said, I’m not saying that I think guns are bad or that we should ban them. Just that people need to be more responsible with them. I enjoy going target shooting, but when my friends and I go we take every precaution to make sure that we, and those around us, stay safe. And on a final note, going back to my time at University of Toledo, I made sure to tell our department secretary when and how many shots we were going to fire so that she could send it out to everyone in the building. I also informed campus police of the situation and ensured that everyone involved kept to a strict safety protocol. This is probably going to be my longest comment (and perhaps the longest comment ever), but it is an issue that I have had experience in, take very seriously, and am very passionate about.
Having guns onstage raises that intensity of the production as a whole by a lot because people have to be a lot more serious and careful when dealing with firearms. You should always assume a gun is loaded and able to actually fire when you are using it. It is extremely important to never point a gun directly at someone just incase something happens and it accidentally goes off. You should always have a gun lane that no one is in where you point the gun. If you point it upstage of the person you are supposed to be shooting then the audience will most likely believe that you are actually shooting that person, when you really are not aiming at them at all. Having guns in school productions is even higher of a risk because you need to make sure the school knows and the police know as well. When I did a production in high school that used guns, we had to be very careful to keep the gun inside the theatre and not bring it into the hallway. If a random person saw someone with the gun in the hallway they would call the police and if a police officer sees you with a gun in a school there is a good chance they will shoot at you because they do not know that the gun is not real. It is crazy to think that you could die from holding a prop in a show, but guns should not be taken lightly at all.
I don’t think removing guns from the stage is necessarily a violation of rights, if they are removed through an organization’s play choice (plays are chosen because they don’t have guns in them) or removed from a play specifically as a commentary on gun violence.
Having said that, I don’t think completely removing guns from the stage is an artistically sound choice or an effective tool to combat gun violence. I don’t think gun violence is the result of gun representation in entertainment. I think it’s a combination of crime and poverty or easy access and mental illness. Removing guns from the stage simply limits artistic choice and potentially alters artistic works for no practical end. It might make us, theatre makers, feel like we’re taking action, but would it really do anything? I think it’s unlikely that those pushing gun culture are attending the theatre. And removing weapons won’t galvanize and audience to activism.
It would be far more useful to produce plays that criticize and investigate gun culture and make thoughtful, perhaps difficult, decisions about exactly which plays with guns should and should not be produced.
I don't think this article calls for ban or removal of gun onstage. The author applauses the extra caution unions take when dealing with guns or any weapons onstage. When the director decides to use real gun or even firing blanks with the permission of local police/fire department and campus police, everyone in this production should treat this weapon as deadly as it's loaded with real bullets. The audience will absolutely be warned of the gun scene, the appearance and the sound I think, and they have the choice to watch it or not. I think the author is trying to say, in our everyday life offstage, we should all treat every gun as they are loaded, fatal, and could be fired at any moment. We need to strictly regulate the procuring process, the training, the certificating, etc. How theatre people deal with guns in plays should be the model for everyone.
I do have a firm stand on artistic freedom of expression. I think it's up to the organization/company/university to have policy of whether the entity will produce shows with real guns. I don't believe banning guns onstage can be a law or anything because it should not. In PMW we discussed CMU's no cigarette's rule that the head of school makes. He believes this is an negative representation of the school or even theatre culture. My point is, like many mentioned before, this should be a choice that's optional instead of compulsory. You can choose to do with gun or without, it's your organization's call. But there should not be a state law or something banning the use of gun onstage.
I honestly don't think that we, as entertainers in America, can get rid of guns (or their image) on stage. Gun ownership is, as indicated by the last election as well as some events over the summer, both a fundamental american right as well as a great cause of loss and mechanism for destruction and hatred. It's a reality that we face every day when we turn on the news or leave our homes. How can we ignore that reality in theater? It does need to be considered, however, that any firearm is extremely dangerous. Blanks do kill people, there is still a piece of wadding that flies at the barrel. Even baffled weapons (the barrel is solid and the firearm is loaded with an special blank) project small particles out of the side of the gun which can injure nearby actors or the actor holding the firearm. You should never point any firearm, loaded or not, at another person. When using one on stage, you always shoot upstage of the person into an area where, during that time of the play, literally no one is there. If you can't do that safely, don't use a firearm and find a non-firearm replica and use a sound cue (this is often a better option anyways since theaters are often small enclosed spaces and a full-load blank can be deafening). There should be an enforced national law to require firearm training for any theater planning to use firearms.
I do not think it would be necessary to remove guns from the theatrical setting. I am very on the fence about this article, because on one hand it would be very difficult to do some shows without guns but on the other hand the environment that we are currently living in does not need guns used in an entertainment setting. By putting guns onstage, depending on your background, it could either be so jarring you never want to touch a gun or it could just make a person more comfortable with them. First things first, no one should ever feel safe when a gun is about to be used. They are extremely dangerous weapons that can cause destruction very quickly. I do think on the other hand that by using them in a production, if correctly used, it could cause people to become motivated to fix the current problems our country is facing with these weapons. It would be difficult to take guns away from a production though, when the script clearly calls for it, and it would not be right to filter guns out of one show simply because they do not have a message. This is difficult to talk about and address, but it definitely should come up in topic more.
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