Tuesday, February 25, 2020
Gender is Performance
HowlRound Theatre Commons: Performativity is an inherent component of the Western notion of gender. Our society teaches children to convincingly portray their assigned gender from a very vulnerable and impressionable age. They are often encouraged and rewarded for displaying the “correct” behavior and interests, and quickly admonished, warned, or otherwise policed for any behavior that deviates too far from the predetermined cultural script.
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I agree one hundred percent that gender is performance. There is very little that is innate to the performance of gender. Pretty much all of it is taught to some degree. I saw clips of the recent casting of Little Shop and really enjoyed it. I don’t think there ever needs to be an explanation for the presence of trans and nonbinary people onstage, but I do think we should prioritize creating new roles for them. It is similar to the argument of colorblind casting. Why keep casting POC in traditionally white roles when we could be writing new play with roles that are written FOR actors of color. It should be the same for trans and nonbinary actors. I also question what the author of the article says about casting trans and nonbinary people in roles completely regardless of gender. I think that it could be dangerous as some people, trans or cis, wouldn’t feel comfortable portraying a certain gender, especially if they have suffered from body dysphoria or dysmorphia before. That’s why I agree with the idea of asking actors what they would find fulfilling as the Oregon Festival did.
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