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Stagestruck – Theater, AIDS, and the Marketing of Gay America de Sarah Schulman

Stagestruck – Theater, AIDS, and the Marketing of Gay America

Autor Sarah Schulman
en Limba Engleză Paperback – 23 sep 1998

Vezi toate premiile Carte premiată

Lambda Literary Awards (1998), Stonewall Book Award (1999)
In "Stagestruck" noted novelist and outspoken critic Sarah Schulman offers an account of her growing awareness of the startling similarities between her novel "People in Trouble" and the smash Broadway hit "Rent." 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. 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.
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. 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. 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. 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. 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. "Stagestruck"'s message is sure to incite discussion and raise the level of debate about cultural politics in America today.

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Specificații

ISBN-13: 9780822322641
ISBN-10: 0822322641
Pagini: 176
Dimensiuni: 156 x 202 x 22 mm
Greutate: 0.27 kg
Ediția:New.
Editura: MD – Duke University Press

Recenzii

"This could easily be the most philosophically compelling, compulsively queer book I have reviewed in months."
--"Community News" (Salem, OR)
"As in her best novels, Schulman's observations on culture and politics are astute and startlingly original. "Stagestruck "is an incisive and important work of social criticism."
--Michael Bronski
"If Schulman was unable to rescue her rights from the underworld of corporate entertainment, she has not returned from that inferno empty-handed. "Stagestruck" is a stunning act of courage and political truth-telling."
--"Lambda Book Report"
"Whether you are familiar with "People in Trouble," "Rent," or recent gay and AIDS plays on Broadway, "Stagestruck" is worth reading. The politics are progressive, the jokes give chuckles, and Schulman's creative spirit flourishes throughout."
--"Bay Area Reporter" (San Francisco, CA)
"What Schulman asks is simple: Must we continue sacrificing the memories of those who have died in this epidemic to hawk another album, a T-shirt, and a bottle of Absolut? Her answer in this powerful, provocative work is equally direct: Don't lie about our lives."
--"The Village Voice"
""Stagestruck" showcases Schulman's persuasive voice in all its energy and eloquence. . . . 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."
--"Girlfriends"
"This fascinating, angry, politically charged, and highly readable account of 'the commodification of ideas about AIDS, homosexuality, neighborhood, artistic production, and theater' paradoxically reinforces 'the superiority of heterosexuality. . . .' Schulman's best work to date, this wise exploration should be used in every gay studies classroom. A wonderful addition . . ."
--"Choice"
"Take the stardust out of your eyes and clear the deck for "Stagestruck," . . . Finally, an inside account of how the original novel "People in Trouble," written by Schulman, was misappropriated for the musical "Rent." 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. 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."
--Peter Cramer," Lesbian and Gay New York"
""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. Her analysis glides seamlessly from Jonathan Larson to Ntozake Shange to Tennessee Williams, from "The Wall Street Journal" to "The Village Voice," from theater to television, and enables the reader to understand the connections among these cultural phenomenal. In only 151 pages and without any academic jargon, Schulman powerfully challenges queer readers to re-think--and change--our relationship to art and consumption in America."
--"Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review"
"Ok, so Schulman trashes "Out" in the final pages of her book. So she implies that you're a bad queer if you buy this magazine. Promise not to cancel your subscription if we tell you to read her book anyway? This combination manifesto/expose is a cracking read. Apparently Jonathan Larson, that famously dead Broadway wunderkind, used a hell of a lot of Schulman's 1990 novel "People in Trouble," in his hit musical, "Rent," Initially, Schulman thought she'd sue. But after locking horns with the lawyers, she realized that a dyke who wrote a novel some other dykes liked wasn't going to get anything from Broadway big boys. Instead she wrote "Stagestruck," which is much more than the story of Schulman's wrongs. She examines the "Rent" case as representative of a larger epidemic: the dominant culture's systematic harvest of queer experience. Written in outrage, this book is often outrageous, but don't let the bombast get you down--it's meant to get your blood boiling and your eyes flashing in righteous fury."
--"Out"
"Schulman's books are rife with artists and activists--many are both--whose stories closely mirror the real-life toll on the social and artistic landscape that is her long-time creative base. She offers a visceral description of that culture and its devastation in "Stagestruck: Theater, AIDS, and the Marketing of Gay America," . . . She discusses plays about AIDS and those written by gay men, lesbians, and black women, in marvelously lucid, observant prose. I have not read such outstanding commentary about them anywhere. Such criticism, with its intense immediacy and personal investment in the theatrical experience, is sadly rare today. . . . With passionate intelligence, Schulman argues that mainstream images of gay men, lesbians, and AIDS 'pave the way for the selling of a twisted history and dishonest depictions' of all three. . . . In writing "Stagestruck," Schulman harnessed deeply personal, painful experiences to elicit an extremely effective discussion of cultural production and visual representation."
--"The Nation"
"In her readable and sure to be controversial new book, novelist and long-time lesbian activist Sarah Schulman offers an impassioned analysis of the packaging and selling of US gay identity at this moment in captialism. Her highly critical assessment of the commodification of gay identity is joined to a discussion of the ways in which homosexuality and AIDS are being represented in popular culture, especially the New York theatre world, which Schulman knows so well. . . . The strongest part of this book, the part that I hope won't get lost in arguments over the charges of plagiarism that launch "Stagestruck," is Schulman's demolition of the rhetoric of tolerance and diversity . . . [T]his is a powerful and persuasive exposure and indictment of the work representation does to construct margin and center. . . . I mean no diminishment of Schulman's creative contributions when I say that "Stagestruck," with the passionate political and moral convictions that underwrite every page, is a didactic book. May we have more such didactic and even cranky works of art."
--"The Women's Review of Books"
"The surprise is how sweeping a punch Schulman packs into this little book. What begins as a "j'accuse" regarding the plagiarism by composer/playwright Jonathan Larson of Schulman's 1990 novel "People in Trouble," which she says was the source for his blockbuster 'rock musical' "Rent," evolves into a broad-based analysis of the mainstreaming and marketing of gay culture. Schulman's vocabulary has visionary clarity, and her cultural and political analysis has implications far beyond the gay community she is speaking for. When Schulman is offering her own readings of the broad range of theater that opened during the first season of "Rent" (from star-packed Tennessee Williams revivals to off-off Broadway basement productions), or analyzing the content of ads and feature articles in gay and mainstream glossy magazines, or deconstructing media depictions of gay life and the AIDS crisis, I'd put her on a par with some of our most provacative cultural critics, gay or straight. Her work here belongs beside the media and advertising criticism of Mark Crispin Miller and Leslie Savan and the pop-culture analysis of Todd Gitlin and Greil Marcus."
--"The Boston Phoenix"
"Schulman, a lesbian activist and 1997 winner of the Stonewall Award, joined ACT UP in 1987. Shortly thereafter, she completed her fourth novel, "People in Trouble," which featured a group of East Village artists struggling with homelessness and AIDS and was based on her personal experiences. After attending a performance of "Rent" in February 1996 and writing a review of it, Schulman realized that the storyline of this mega-hit was, in fact, taken directly from her novel. "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. Schulman also provides a look at some off-Broadway plays and performance pieces by gay and lesbian artists that give a much more authentic depiction of gay life and issues. As the struggle continues for gays and lesbians to gain acceptance and to see themselves portrayed accurately in literature and drama, Schulman clearly comes out a winner with "Stagestruck," Highly recommended."
--"Library Journal"
"Sarah Schulman writes from a highly-scorned community whose members are generally cast as anonymous freaks in someone else's play. 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. But you cannot change the story without changing the moral of the story. 'Soul stealing' is punishable in older societies. It is time we caught up."--Diamanda Galas, performer and composer
"Utterly engrossing. . . startling and scary. . . . 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. . . . "Stagestruck "establishes beyond cavil the gross colonization by yuppie straight America of all that is special about gay life. Sarah Schulman remains what she has been: a rare, fearless teller of unpleasant truths."--Martin Duberman, author of "In White America" and "Stonewall "
"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 hear." Alexander Doty, author of Making Things Perfectly Queer. Sarah Schulman writes from a highly scorned community whose members are generally cast as anonymous freaks in someone else's play. As Stagestruck makes clear, the titillating history and ideas of those "freaks" are consistently stolen and then corrupted by uptown "art" marketeers out to make a quick buck. But you cannot change the story without changing the moral of the story. "Soul stealing" is punishable in older societies. It is time we caught up." Diamanda Galas, performer and composer. "Utterly engrossing ... startling and scary ... 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 ... Stagestruck establishes beyond cavil the gross colonisation by yuppie straight America of all that is special about gay life. Sarah Schulman remains what she has been: a rare, fearless teller of unpleasant truths." Martin Duberman, author of In White America and Stonewall.

Textul de pe ultima copertă

"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."--Alexander Doty, author of "Making Things Perfectly Queer: Interpreting Mass Culture"

Descriere

In "Stagestruck" noted novelist and outspoken critic Sarah Schulman offers an account of her growing awareness of the startling similarities between her novel "People in Trouble" and the smash Broadway hit "Rent." 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. 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.
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. 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. 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. 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. 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. "Stagestruck"'s message is sure to incite discussion and raise the level of debate about cultural politics in America today.

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