tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4568548679414256493.post1318593390795210408..comments2023-09-03T06:12:43.896-04:00Comments on Love's Labors Lost: "I just . . . do things!"RVCBardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06481089855894764409noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4568548679414256493.post-79513965055616749482011-06-02T14:52:50.254-04:002011-06-02T14:52:50.254-04:00But the What If? entry about the Black Arts Moveme...But the What If? entry about the Black Arts Movement? Is pissing me off with its lack of intersectionality.<br /><br />A monolithic Black culture is male-centered, church (or Afrika-spirituality)-cadenced, lesbo-fearing and faggot-killing. And need we discuss the cults of personality that killed those theatres dead -- either by founder or board ego-poisoning?<br /><br />Taylor's presumptiveness about the two types of Bad Black Playwrights' work -- "by me, for them, about us, near any place but our community", or "by me, for acceptance, about alienation, near people with more money than God" -- completely ignores the commonalities of these aesthetics: Plays are written for the funders who back them. <br /><br />Do white artists struggle under that constraint? Yep. Do they suffer it less than we do? Sure -- and they indulge in the same sins of exoticism and apologia. <br /><br />Is our community there to support anything different? Controversial? Not backed by prominent AA civic leaders, so fundraising parties aren't someone else's extended networking opportunities?<br /><br />Are the plays written "by us, for us, about us, and near us" any better, when the "for us" is the chitlin' circuit? When the "about us" features , neckwavin', Jesus-cryin' and redemption through a big, black mama?<br /><br />I don't want to go back to those days when racial uplift slid so silently into exploitation -- especially when those in the BAM took those roles wearing pimp hats and exaggerated accents to pay the rent, same as any actor does when times get hard. There is no idealized past; why does this gentleman cling to that?<br /><br />And as for the Purple Flower? Negro, please. If he were serious, he would have spent one minute finding the cite:<br /><br />http://books.google.com/books?id=tIe8R5sfE6IC&lpg=PA29&dq=purple%20flower%20bonner&pg=PA29#v=onepage&q=purple%20flower%20bonner&f=falsecgeyehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16760705749940311464noreply@blogger.com