TOW #17 – Dear Evan Hansen Musical

                On December 4^th, the musical Dear Evan Hansen finally moved from a small theater in D.C. to Broadway. The musical follows the story of a boy, Evan Hansen, who suffers from severe social-anxiety. To help him deal with his anxiety, his therapist suggests that he writes hopeful letters to himself. While printing one of the letters in the school library, Connor Murphy, picks it up and noticing his sister’s name in the letter takes it. Three days later Connor commits suicide and it’s revealed that Evan’s letter was in his pocket. This then causes Connor’s parents to believe and then confront Evan about a secret friendship between him and Connor. Not wanting to cause them any further grief, Evan fabricated an intricate story of how him and Connor were secret friends who emailed frequently. Evan eventually launches The Connor Project to prevent people from forgetting about Connor and hopefully other people who committed suicide. The rest of the show then continues with Connor’s sudden rise in popularity and struggle to keep the lie going. Dear Evan Hansen portrays through a very long fictional anecdote that it’s important to stay truthful to yourself.

Throughout the musical, Evan finds it difficult to separate himself from the fabricated version that he’s created. Through The Connor Project Evan gets funding an apple orchid that he and Connor supposedly spent time in.  He begins to become so close with the Murphy family that he suddenly forgets about his single mother and the life he lived with her. This huge shift leads to more conflict in Evan’s life because now people are starting to notice small inconsistencies within the emails. This forces Evan to admit that he fabricated the whole thing because he was scared he was going to lose the family he had found with them.  The show then skips to a year later where Evan writes himself one last letter, reflecting on the impact he had on his community and his hope to inspire others to do the same.

                Dear Evan Hansen teaches its universal audience that you should always be true to yourself because in the end you just end up alienating yourself.

TOW #16 – Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt

John Berendt moved to Savannah Georgie in the 1980s and became completely enthralled. The people intrigued him enough that he decided to write the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil based off of them and their city of Savannah. In his book Berendt depicts himself getting to know the locals of Savannah, Georgia. He meets Jim Williams (wealthy antique dealer), Luther Diggers (inventor, in possession of deadly poison), Joe Odom (lawyer), Lady Chablis (transgender drag queen), Minerva (voodoo witches), Sonny Seiler (attorney) and Emma Kelly (well-known singer and piano player). The first half of the book is basically just Berendt getting to know the citizens and becoming a friend to some of them. Then in the second part Berendt learns of a murder. The murder of Danny Hansford, a male prostitute. Jim William is the accused and he claims self-defense. Berendt writes of four separate trials, the first two of which are overturned, the third is declared a mistrial and the four states Williams as a free man. While the main plot of the story is the murder of Danny Hansford, Berendt also tells the story of a community that refuses to accept change and who tries to avoid it at all costs.

                Berendt wrote this story, I believe, for two sole reasons. One because he was obsessed with the city of Savannah and wished more people visited it, and two because he wanted people to be aware of the injustice that revolves around not just sex-worker violence but homophobic violence as well. The first reason is proven with Berendts constant use of imagery that he uses to describe the city. The way he paints a picture of Savannah makes it seem so mysterious and beautiful that people can’t help but want to visit just to experience it for themselves. While the second is show through the whole process of the murder trials. Danny Hansford’s case is never given a clear ending. Throughout the trials all Williams does is slander Danny and make him out to be an angry drunk. Today, many gay male prostitutes are beaten and killed and are granted no justice. Berendt being a gay man himself, wanted to bring light this grave injustice by depicting it in his book. Even though in the book Hansford was never given justice, the real life Hansford was, on Feburary 2, 1982 Jim Williams was convicted and forced to face life in prison.  

TOW #15 – Letter From a Birmingham Jail by MLK

In 1962 Birmingham, Alabama was one of the most segregated cities in all of America. Their mayor, Eugene ‘Bull’ Conner was a segregationist known for his hostile and mostly violent treatment towards African Americans. Between the years of 1957 and 1962 seventeen African American churches and homes were bombed, including the home of Fred Shuttlesworth, an avid civil rights campaigner. Later in March of 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King and Ralph Abernathy decided to do something about Birmingham. They set up a headquarters and began to recruit volunteers for protest rallies, they promoted nonviolent techniques. It began with lunch-counter sit-ins and then marches. During one march King was arrested and put in solitary confinement. He spent eight days in jail and ended up composing ‘A Letter from a Birmingham Jail’ in response to a letter recently published in a local newspaper that called the protests ‘unwise and untimely’.

                King directly address his letter to ‘Fellow clergymen’ however they are not his actual audience. Instead, his audience is the universal man, King just filters it through the clergymen. His letter is meant for specifically white men, the ones who don’t understand why he protests and the ones who understand but refuse to support. King wants the ones who don’t understand to finally understand and the ones that do understand to help with the movement.

                To address the white men who don’t understand he attempts to at first justify his actions of protest. He emphasizes throughout how he promotes nonviolence against the violence that is being committed towards him and fellow African Americans. To prevent his audience from arguing that what he’s doing is wrong King alludes to secular thinkers and the Bible. He wants them to realize that ultimately he is trying to do the same thing that the thinkers and even Jesus were trying to do so what he’s doing can’t be immoral because for these other people it was moral.

                When talking to the ‘white moderates’ King undertakes a more logical route. He gives them the real raw reason behind the protests, oppression. He tries to explain to them that these protests are unavoidable, that all this ‘pent up resentments and latent frustrations’ must be released. He again tries to emphasize the nonviolent aspect of his protests because he feels that violence is a big point that could be used against him. King also compares himself to secular thinkers and Jesus again to continue to point out that what he Is doing is exactly what his audience has praised before.

                I don’t think King really achieved his purpose. Mainly because of the time period and the attitude of his audience, I feel as if they weren’t that accepting to his argument as he would have wished.

TOW #14 - Proposed Bill Would Make Teachers out Their LGBT Students by Alex Zielinski

On November 20^th 2016, Trans Day of Remembrance, Senator Konni Burton introduced an anti-LGBTQ bill. The bill would legally require public schools to give parents ‘any general knowledge regarding the parent’s child possessed by an employee of the district’ and records ‘relating to the child’s general physical, psychological or emotional well-being’. From that quick summary the bill sounds pretty harmless. However, Burton made a statement regarding Fort Worth school district banning their staff members from telling parents about their child’s transgender status, he explicitly declared that this bill was a direct response to the event. Burton said that her bill’s purpose is to protect a parent’s ‘right to know’ or ‘right to matter’ in their child’s life.  

            Alex Zielinski, long time writer for the San Antonio Current, goes in depth about the negative effects the bill will have on LGBTQ students in Texas if it gets passed. He mentions how when a closeted LGBTQ student comes out to a counselor or teacher that a lot of trust must’ve been built for that to happen. Zielinski says that if the bill were to be passed LGBTQ student would begin to feel even more alone because they wouldn’t have anyone they could trust or confide in. As a queer woman who was in the closet for quite some time, I can contest to it being a very lonely place. Personally for me the first time I trusted someone with the secret of my sexuality I felt pretty liberated and not as alone.

            Zielinski then goes on to accuse Burton of promoting abusive parenting. He generalizes Texas a little bit by characterizing them as homophobic, transphobic and in support of conversion therapy with his explanation. Zielinski brings up the fact that most of today’s homeless youth population identifies within the LGBTQ community. He claims that this bill could potentially make this population even bigger by outing students.

            Zielinski’s purpose is to bring awareness to the bill that people in states other than Texas might not have been aware about. He wants to evoke in them the feeling of anger; he wants them to get so angry that they actually do something about it. I think that Zielinski is pretty successful because in the comments of the article someone posted a link to a petition that could be very helpful in stopping the bill.

             

TOW #13 - 'Rebel with Many Causes' Keith Haring

Keith Haring is a graffiti/neo pop artist from Reading, Pennsylvania. Haring mostly painted in New York on unused advertising panels that were covered with black paper in a subway station. In 1988, Haring was diagnosed with AIDs. After that most of his artwork revolved around the disease and being a queer male, mainly in America.

            His piece, ‘Rebel with Many Causes’ depicts three male figures in the famous poses of speak no evil, see no evil, and hear no evil. The supposed ‘evil’ is the AIDs crisis that was going on in American. This piece is meant to criticize the people who would refuse to acknowledge the social issue. The criticism aimed mainly towards the government because at the time they weren’t really acknowledging the massive death count that the disease was creating. However, it’s also aimed at everyone else too. People were literally ignoring the fact that there was a deadly disease mainly because the biggest minority group affected was the queer community, specifically queer men. Since Haring himself was a queer man diagnosed with AIDs and he had lost a lot of close friends to the disease he felt like it was his duty to speak up about.

            I believe Haring effectively ridiculed America and the government and brought awareness to AIDs but I’m not that sure that he really pushed any of them to take act against the epidemic. I feel like his piece made people think about it more and possibly through that spread more awareness. However, I don’t think Haring achieved his second purpose of enacting change.

TOW #12 – Stop Killing off TV’s Lesbians by Nico Lang

Recently more people are starting to notice and become more angered by the lack of queer representation on TV. In response to this many TV networks are adding very few queer characters and claiming diversity. However, most of these characters are quickly killed or given a very bland or stereotypical storyline. A large majority of the characters being killed are queer women. Research shows that since 1976, 11% of TV shows has featured a queer character. Of that 11%, 65% have been decease queer women. Queer women already have a hard time getting representation due to fetishization of their relationships, but now when they finally do get representations they’re quickly killed before they can get any type of happy ending.

 In his article Nico Lang explores the ‘Dead Lesbian Syndrome’ currently being popularized on TV. He mentions many examples of queer female characters being killed by ‘accidents’.  Lang believes that DLS is due to the fact that most writers don’t know how to write LGBTQ storylines that don’t just revolve around their sexualities. He thinks that the writers decide to kill off the queer characters because once the character’s sexuality discovery or coming out plot line is completed they’re no long necessary. Throughout the article he continuously criticizes the media to achieve his purpose.

 His audience is firstly, the TV corporations that are killing queer women and queer women themselves. Lang’s purpose to the corporations is to not only bring light to the issue but to also address what DLS promotes. DLS tells queer women that they’ll never be able to have a happy ending, that either they or their partner will die before anything happens. This then relates to his purpose for queer women everywhere. To queer women Lang tries to tell them that this trope is wrong and unrealistic and that the women will get happy endings. As a young queer woman his words meant a lot to me. The first queer woman I ever saw on TV died a couple episodes into the show and because of that I grew up thinking that it wasn’t safe to be a queer woman. Lang’s words didn’t let me know that this trope wasn’t fake, I learned that on my own years ago but his words, I believe, will help other queer women who aren’t aware of the trope’s falsehood.