Exeunt Magazine: On the day of the royal wedding my children were told to come to school dressed as a prince or a princess. One of them chose to wear a tutu and a crown. Some of the girls told him he looked silly. The teachers told him he looked awesome. He did look awesome (obviously I would say that, I’m his mother). He remains (relatively) unfazed by the comments and both he and his brother frequently wear their unicorn t-shirts and floral leggings on non school uniform days.
3 comments:
The writer of this article really sums up some very important points beautifully. They’re very correct. They’re quite lucky that their London Primary School celebrates diversity, tolerance, and kindness, and that her sons seem unfazed by the minor teasing of classmates when they wear apparel that isn’t “meant for boys.” It saddens me to hear that the sister of this article writer was not treated in such a positive way when she came out in her early schooling years. When I think about people that are involved within theater, my brain assumes that the queer community is over 70% of the community. I love that this theatre company founder was galvanized to tell stories that normalize and celebrate the queer experience. While the people involved within theater might be queer, the stories we tell are often hetero-normative. It’s time that newer voices and stories made their way to the forefront of the theater world.
This article really brought to my attention the lack of queer stories in elementary schools and other places where younger people can reach them. I really liked how the author continued to put the existence of queer people in society, "as a fact." I think we are so often overwhelmed by teaching children how to be good people, and how to accept everyone (which are without a doubt things we should be teaching them) but then we never really set the example of, people can be like this, or they can be like this. The world is as it is, and sometimes we just need to let children experience that. This re-adaptation of the Wind and the Willows is a great opportunity to bring these stories, with already pre-determined queer characters to not only a younger audience, but for anyone that also happens to see it. I don't think we have to always go out into the world and make queer theater, most of the time theater is already pretty queer. We just need to make sure that kids are able to see as much as they can, while they're young, while they're learning, especially in a space like school.
The amazing things about a queer positive theatrical experience is that it takes away the stigma of having theatre or entertainment be about gayness or queerness. I'm a strong advocate for creating simple stories about gay people onstage. What I find most interesting is that a character being gay, trans, lesbian, bi, queer, etc. doesn't need to be the talking point of that character, it can just be a part oft he person. I think its highly important that our industry starts to lead in that direction of normalizing things like being gay. As a gay person who grew up in a highly heteronormative world, I think that when characters are able to keep all parts of themselves while also being gay or lesbian or queer, it could really inspire a whole generation of people to be strong and comfortable enough to be out and about and also lead their ordinary lives.
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