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Monday, October 17, 2022
‘Hadestown’ Audience Member Urges “Stop Harassing” Lillias White
Deadline: The Hadestown audience member with hearing loss who was reprimanded from the stage by Lillias White when the Broadway actress mistook a captioning device for a recording device is urging social media users to “please stop harassing” the Broadway star.
4 comments:
Angie Zarrilli
said...
I believe that there is only a certain extent to where malicious comments and press are necessary. I think that if Lillias White didn’t know it was a captioning device and genuinely thought that it was a recording device, especially if the person who was affected by it, is saying it is okay, then it is okay. The solution to issues like this is creating awareness, not canceling the celebrity who was just trying to contain the integrity of the show she was putting on. If she didn’t call out the so called “recording device” it could have meant a lot of lost profits for everyone involved in the show. I also think it is the fault of those who actually took the person out of the audience whos job it is to know what those things are. If you are security at a broadway show, shouldn’t you know what a captioning device looks like? There are many more lines of defense here than just White calling out the suspicious looking device.
This article was published hardly a day after the other Deadline story, but speaks volumes about how the general public has responded to Samantha Coleman’s experience at Hadestown. To me, it seems as though she shared her story in hopes of a conversation, change, and preventing anyone else from having a similar experience as she did. Instead, people went after Lillias White on social media. Many took to instagram or twitter to comment ageist and racist things about White. Both Coleman and James Harkness have commented on this behavior: Coleman made an important point that she is a white woman, speaking about an incident with a Black woman. Harkness made some crucial comparisons I hadn’t heard of before: other white actors have had similar incidents, even stopping a show because of a phone. But they got a completely different response. Enthusiastic even. The double standard is unmistakable. I am glad that Coleman is taking accountability, and I hope change for the better still comes from this entire situation.
I am really glad the individual effected by this took the time to address the hate in which Lillias White was receiving by educating those on her issues as a person living with hearing loss. Though I do tend to find a continuous pattern whenever black celebrities' are accused and/or wrong in their actions/words. Which is that the first thing people tend to turn to under comment sections is racism. Its very sad to see that a mistake lead to peoples first line of defense to be racism. Its absolutely absurd, which is why I am glad that the audience member spoke out though I understand how misunderstood and embarrassed she may have felt within that moment. It takes a lot to come on to social media and express your emotions/thoughts to a bunch of random people on the internet. So, I hope things will clear up from this incident and both parties involved can come to a mutual understanding.
This whole incident has been blown out of proportion. I don’t think it was right for the actress to call out the person “recording” multiple times, even if they were actually recording. I can sympathize with feeling disrespect by the recording, but there are better ways to address it. Regardless, it was a terrible misunderstanding that got layered with poor reactions from the managers and producers. People have been way too hard on Lillas White for it. Just like the article mentioned, if this had been a white performer the reactions would have been way different than they are now. I know that probably not much will change from this, but I hope this brings out the lack of everything accessibility-related in terms of theatergoing. Before this happened, I had no idea that captioning devices were available to deaf or hard-of-hearing patrons, so I can’t blame Lillas White for not knowing either.
4 comments:
I believe that there is only a certain extent to where malicious comments and press are necessary. I think that if Lillias White didn’t know it was a captioning device and genuinely thought that it was a recording device, especially if the person who was affected by it, is saying it is okay, then it is okay. The solution to issues like this is creating awareness, not canceling the celebrity who was just trying to contain the integrity of the show she was putting on. If she didn’t call out the so called “recording device” it could have meant a lot of lost profits for everyone involved in the show. I also think it is the fault of those who actually took the person out of the audience whos job it is to know what those things are. If you are security at a broadway show, shouldn’t you know what a captioning device looks like? There are many more lines of defense here than just White calling out the suspicious looking device.
This article was published hardly a day after the other Deadline story, but speaks volumes about how the general public has responded to Samantha Coleman’s experience at Hadestown. To me, it seems as though she shared her story in hopes of a conversation, change, and preventing anyone else from having a similar experience as she did. Instead, people went after Lillias White on social media. Many took to instagram or twitter to comment ageist and racist things about White. Both Coleman and James Harkness have commented on this behavior: Coleman made an important point that she is a white woman, speaking about an incident with a Black woman. Harkness made some crucial comparisons I hadn’t heard of before: other white actors have had similar incidents, even stopping a show because of a phone. But they got a completely different response. Enthusiastic even. The double standard is unmistakable. I am glad that Coleman is taking accountability, and I hope change for the better still comes from this entire situation.
I am really glad the individual effected by this took the time to address the hate in which Lillias White was receiving by educating those on her issues as a person living with hearing loss. Though I do tend to find a continuous pattern whenever black celebrities' are accused and/or wrong in their actions/words. Which is that the first thing people tend to turn to under comment sections is racism. Its very sad to see that a mistake lead to peoples first line of defense to be racism. Its absolutely absurd, which is why I am glad that the audience member spoke out though I understand how misunderstood and embarrassed she may have felt within that moment. It takes a lot to come on to social media and express your emotions/thoughts to a bunch of random people on the internet. So, I hope things will clear up from this incident and both parties involved can come to a mutual understanding.
This whole incident has been blown out of proportion. I don’t think it was right for the actress to call out the person “recording” multiple times, even if they were actually recording. I can sympathize with feeling disrespect by the recording, but there are better ways to address it. Regardless, it was a terrible misunderstanding that got layered with poor reactions from the managers and producers. People have been way too hard on Lillas White for it. Just like the article mentioned, if this had been a white performer the reactions would have been way different than they are now. I know that probably not much will change from this, but I hope this brings out the lack of everything accessibility-related in terms of theatergoing. Before this happened, I had no idea that captioning devices were available to deaf or hard-of-hearing patrons, so I can’t blame Lillas White for not knowing either.
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