Monday, September 20, 2021
Broadway’s ‘Jagged Little Pill’ Pledges To Rectify Nonbinary Erasure
Deadline: When Boston area audiences saw a pre-Broadway performance of the Alanis Morissette musical Jagged Little Pill in 2018, they saw actor Lauren Patten sing a powerful, showstopping rendition of the hit song “You Oughta Know,” with the young performer delivering the blistering number as a lovestruck – and gender non-conforming – teenager.
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I'm always really warey about statements involving inclusion and diversity, given the political climate and how people are apologizing all the time for their mistakes. It's not a bad thing, it's just hard to believe all of what they say in a formally written document to the public. Apologies and statements are all well and good but what I'd really like to see is tangible evidence of change. This isn't to say that they won't actually enact the change that they list out in their statement, but this is truly just what the social media team for the company want the public to see. No one knows what they're actually saying behind closed doors.Personally, I don't think Lauren Patten should feel any blame for wanting to finish something she started, especially coming out of a pandemic and having a weird limbo of leaving a production like that. We have to pay attention and make sure they're actually doing what they say, otherwise, this is all just for show.
It seems that this production team is 100% committed to rectifying the changes from the Boston production. With a bullet-pointed list detailing the specific actions being taken, I have no reason to think this is an empty promise. What I don’t understand is why the changes were made. They say they always wanted to portray Jo as “a character on a gender expansive journey without a known outcome”. If this is true, it seems completely counterintuitive to make the change. Something just doesn’t add up. The only reason supplied for the change is that the team was attempting to “clarify and streamline” but this is an incredibly vague explanation for what seems to be a substantial change. I have not seen the show, so maybe this change isn’t as substantial as I think it is, but if that were the case I don’t see why there would be such an uproar. I think this brings up a really interesting conversation of how the creative process can be inhibited or enhanced by the presence of an audience while a show is actively being worked on.
To my knowledge, the character of Jo in this musical reinterpretation of the hit album “Jagged Little Pill” would have been the first non-binary character in contemporary musical theatre. Nevertheless, the decision to remove this plotline should, unfortunately, not come as a shock. We all know Broadway theatre is commercial– appealing to the masses, and the erasure of this arch is unjustifiable yet explainable in the larger scheme of things. Despite the controversy, I believe the statement made by Vivek J. Tiwary, Arvind Ethan David, and Eva Price (all three lead producers of the musical) is respectable. Unlike other problematic executives, all three of them accept responsibility and acknowledge the mistake. “We are deeply sorry,” they wrote. What is most commendable, however, is their promise to revisit the idea and rewrite Jo’s intriguing non-binary arch. An action that serves as a clear example of listening to the public demand and adjusting to meet the productions goals of representation in the diversity of race, ethnicity, gender, etc.
I have been following the Jagged Little Pill story for a few months now. While the erasure of Jo's nonbinary identity that came with the musical's transition from off to on broadway is disappointing, it is not shocking. While the decision might not have actively been "We cannot have a nonbinary character" it is still rooted in transphobia, as for some reasons the producers viewed the nonbinary identity of Jo as something that would not benefit the production. It had to be viewed as negative, because if it had no effect, there would be no reason to spend the time to change it. I thought the musical did approach the apology well! They acknowledged their problem, and the harm it did to the trans community. They are taking steps now to hire more nonbinary members on their creative team, and are revisiting their script with hopes of reintroducing Jo as nonbinary. My one problem was the timeline of the apology, as it took the company a while to release a statement.
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