I'm glad The Help is getting panned, I was appalled at how popular and well regarded The Blind Side was, perhaps people are finally getting tired of films where everything is all about the white characters.
As for Porgy & Bess, if you're doing a large show for a mainstream audience for something that is dodgy by modern standards, then I only see two reasonable answers, one is to make minimal changes, but highlight in various ways just how problematic the play, movie, or whatever is, the other is the bowdlerize the hell out of it. I saw a production of The Merchant of Venice which was brilliant where the focus was entirely on the anti-semitism of the characters and the era, despite being a complete play that used only Shakespeare's dialog (it was brilliant), but if you don't want to focus the work in that way, then IMHO, rewrite the offensive stuff.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-08-13 04:05 am (UTC)As for Porgy & Bess, if you're doing a large show for a mainstream audience for something that is dodgy by modern standards, then I only see two reasonable answers, one is to make minimal changes, but highlight in various ways just how problematic the play, movie, or whatever is, the other is the bowdlerize the hell out of it. I saw a production of The Merchant of Venice which was brilliant where the focus was entirely on the anti-semitism of the characters and the era, despite being a complete play that used only Shakespeare's dialog (it was brilliant), but if you don't want to focus the work in that way, then IMHO, rewrite the offensive stuff.