Stagestruck theater aids and the marketing of gay america epub

Sarah Schulman remains what she has been: a rare, fearless teller of unpleasant truths.

EBOOK EPUB Stagestruck Theater

Stagestruck: Theater, AIDS, and the Marketing of Gay America Author Sarah Schulman Language English ISBN / / / Year File Size MB Total Downloads 1, Total Views 10, City Durham Pages In File Identifier ,, Org File Size 14, Stagestruck is an engrossing narrative of Schulman's mainly futile struggle to gain recognition and legal restitution for the use of her material, but more than that is an expose of how mainstream theater has twisted gay and lesbian culture and themes such as AIDS to make it more palatable to mass audiences.

Ultimately, Schulman argues, American art and culture has made acceptable a representation of 'the homosexual' that undermines, if not completely erases, the actual experiences of people who continue to suffer from discrimination or disease.

The politics are progressive, the jokes give chuckles, and Schulman's creative spirit flourishes throughout. She argues that these often neglected works and performances provide more nuanced and accurate depictions of the lives of gay men, Latinos, blacks, lesbians and people with AIDS than popular works seen in full houses on Broadway stages.

Finally, an inside account of how the original novel People in Trouble, written by Schulman, was misappropriated for the musical Rent. Programa: Woodland Secrets. Schulman brings her discussion full circle with an incisive look at how gay and lesbian culture has become rapidly commodified, not only by mainstream theater productions such as Rent but also by its reduction into a mere demographic made palatable for niche marketing.

It is time we caught up. “ Stagestruck is an attack on commercialism in an age when such critiques are unfashionable. Schulman’s breadth of experience—twenty years in New York’s theatrical community and almost as many years in the feminist, gay, and mainstream publishing worlds—gives her an unusual range of reference.

Rising above the details of her own case, Schulman boldly uses her suspicions of copyright infringement as an opportunity to initiate a larger conversation on how AIDS and gay experience are being represented in American art and commerce. Contraportada 'Sarah Schulman is one of this country's best cultural critics and novelists, and what she has to say in this book needs to be heard.

Ebook Stagestruck Theater AIDS

Closely recounting her discovery of the ways in which Rent took materials from her own novel, Schulman takes us on her riveting and infuriating journey through the power structures of New York theater and media, a journey she pursued to seek legal restitution and make her voice heard.

She argues that these often neglected works and performances provide more nuanced and accurate depictions of the lives of gay men, Latinos, blacks, lesbians and people with AIDS than popular works seen in full houses on Broadway stages.

Writer Harron Walker joins merritt to talk drug pie, Illuminati, and noticeabl. Canal: Woodland Secrets. More importantly, Schulman uses her ensuing struggle for acknowledgment of that fact as the basis for analyzing the subterfuge of erasing or stereotyping lesbian and gay identity in the larger context of mass media response and perception.

Then, to provide a cultural context for the emergence of Rent-which Schulman experienced first-hand as a weekly theater critic for the New York Press at the time of Rent's premiere-she reveals in rich detail the off- and off-off-Broadway theater scene of the time.

Stagestruck establishes beyond cavil the gross colonization by yuppie straight America of all that is special about gay life. As Stagestruck makes clear, the titillating history and ideas of these 'freaks' are consistently stolen and then corrupted by uptown 'art' marketeers out to make a quick buck.

I have never read a more persuasive account-a wonderfully written one too-of the commodification that has overtaken us, and the disparity of power between the haves and the have-nots. It raises the question of how recent visibility is being manipulated and sold short all at the cost of searching for a wider, more accepting audience not only in theaters but in magazines, movies, and style.

Her answer in this powerful, provocative work is equally direct: Don't lie about our lives. Written with a powerful and personal voice, Schulman's book is part gossipy narrative, part behind-the-scenes glimpse into the New York theater culture, and part polemic on how mainstream artists co-opt the work of 'marginal' artists to give an air of diversity and authenticity to their own work.

The book examines the similarities between her novel People in Trouble and Jonathan Larson's award-winning musical Rent. But you cannot change the story without changing the moral of the story. Stagestruck is a stunning act of courage and political truth-telling.

Schulman is persuasive and passionate as she guides the reader to her final indictment of our entire consumer culture, one that has reduced the gay community to a marketing niche. Stagestruck: theater, AIDS, and the marketing of gay America by Schulman, Sarah, Publication date Topics Larson, Jonathan, Musicals, Homosexuality and literature, Politics and literature, AIDS (Disease) in literature Publisher Durham: Duke University Press Collection internetarchivebooks; inlibrary; printdisabled Contributor.

Her analysis glides seamlessly from Jonathan Larson to Ntozake Shange to Tennessee Williams. Stagestruck's message is sure to incite discussion and raise the level of debate about cultural politics in America today.