![]() ![]() The final lines - about Beth’s attempt to start a new life with Beebo despite the risks and the chance of failure - seemed incongrous, too. The company couldn’t seem to decide whether to do the story straight (so to speak) or camp it up the result was rather a chaos of styles in which some actors seemed awkwardly self-conscious (as if they were constantly aware that they were wearing costumes or had no shirt on), while others mistakenly believed that you can convey emotional tension through manic flailing-about (“Laura” played her first few scenes as if she were channeling Lucille Ball, but without Lucy’s brilliant timing.) I felt *zero* chemistry between any of the women. (If it was a strategy to preserve some of the pulp flavor of the original books, it didn’t work, at least not for me.) Maybe that’s what the director wanted, but it was hard to tell. I thought several of the performances were on the level of a high school show. It’s probably really stupid of me to say what I’m about to say, considering that the great Ann Bannon herself reads this blog, but here goes.I saw “Beebo” in NY last night, and I was disappointed. I guess my question is, do we let “the market” play it out and hope that the advantages of encouraging plagiarism in all its form (as the article you reference so brilliantly explores) will lead to a new renascence? Or is there a way to protect the rights of the exploited without the ridiculous corporate patenting and “intellectual property” hogwash going on currently? And while I, as a writer, try to assidiously acknowledge my sources and influences (that lesbian-feminist example which you, among others, Lize, helped establish), the competitive model is what rules in most American so-called art. I think the difference is the power dynamic. We’re shut out of access to main rivers of communication, but when we create our own vital worlds, they become not sources of inspiration but fields of droit du seigneur, as it were. Which happens to women, and lesbians, and folks of color a LOT. In this instance, I think it WAS deliberate theft, not homage or recasting the viewpoint or even derivation. I think the intention was to take a great idea in a market that would never see the mainstream light of day and was therefore lootable, alter it just enough to claim difference, gut it so it would be commercially viable instead of utterly political, and deny, deny, deny. I don’t think the intention of Rent‘s author was to take a great idea and enlarge/expand upon it. Except watered down, and the women are not nearly as interesting.” By the end, I was bitterly disappointed at the lack of depth disguised by melodramatic music.Ī year later, I found out about Schulman’s claims of plagiarism and said “damn right”. Somewhere in the first act, I turned to my date and said “This is just like People in Trouble. The difference between human culture and all other animal culture (if they have culture) is that we build on each other’s shoulders, continuously, for millenia.īut: I went to see Rent as soon as it was a traveling show and made it to Austin, which was not long after I read People in Trouble. Yes, there is no such thing as original work. Y’know, Liza, you raise an interesting point. Before that they were a developed country like the U.S. It’s easy to shrug this off as “other people”, but it wasn’t like this in The Philippines before the time of Marcos. ![]() They just can’t spare the water that a washing machine uses. Everyone washes their clothes by hand and hangs them up to dry. All over the island of Luzon, people have water tanks on their roofs to catch rainwater. I can’t imagine what a nightmare that would be. The truck would pull up and people would line up with their buckets to get their daily portion of water. When I was in The Philippines about 3 years ago, I saw how people got their water from a water truck that came through the neighborhood. Many parts of the world are already experiencing a crisis. It’s something we take for granted here in the U.S. I’ve been hearing about the coming water crisis for some time now. ![]()
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