A Woman’s Rage: Art and Theatre

In the Tate Modern Museum what I found most impactful was the Guerilla Girls section. The Guerilla Girls are an anonymous group of women artists who combat sexism and racism within the art world. These women’s murals were tugging at my heart strings immensely. Most of the art pieces were text style posters that were printed with feminist rage quotes, sarcastic pleading at the industry, and calling out the plight of women by the white man. As a young woman who went to film school in high school and theatre school in college there was a poster (I will attach) that called out how film history regrets mentioning the accomplishments of Alice Guy Blache. A French female filmmaker who made over seven hundred films in her lifetime and opened the first film studio in America. Alice Guy Blache was a revolutionary of her time and not just because of her being a woman, but quite literally a pioneer of the movie industry. Motion pictures were not presented to audiences until 1895. Alice Guy Blache released her first movie in 1896 titled “La Fée aux Choux” and she was also present at the first live film event I mentioned above in 1895. Seeing that history has forgotten her was quite sad and having never heard of her in my entire film studies is baffling.  

The other piece I loved was Ming Wong’s Life of Imitation film. In this film she puts the same exact scene side by side with two different groups of actors. One group was men cross dressing as women and the other group were women of color. They said the exact same lines and acted similarly and watching these scenes had me shocked. The men were almost more feminine than the women and that interested me so much. I wonder if that was a choice solely done by the male actors or if Ming Wong had instructed them to do so to show how women are logical and steadfast and resilient despite the societal idea that men are more so. Seeing the women of color act so stoically made my heart flutter with joy because the scene is so heart wrenching, you would expect some “feminine” behavior from these women. A mother and a daughter arguing as the daughter leaves. The men performed this scene with tears streaming down their faces and yelling across the room while the women had an energy that penetrated you through the screen without having to put in any strenuous theatrical effort. 10/10 Ming Wong. Ten out of ten.  

Lastly, I lovvvvvved A Midsummer Night’s Dream at The Globe. Reading Shakespeare, not so fun. Seeing Shakespeare? A whole other story. I stood with the groundling during the second act and that brought this already very lived play to a different peak. Their stomps ricocheted off my arms that were leaning on the stage. Their eyes met mine as they turned to address the audience. Seeing this particular production full of a queer cast was also wild. Never had I ever thought I would see more women and queer people in a Shakespeare play than cisgendered men. I believe I counted one cisgendered man on that stage and it made me really hopeful for all of my friends who do not fit into the binary that theatre creates. Overall that past two days have gained a rating of 9/10. My only deduction today of –1 is of how tired my poor little body is. Night, night.