Why “The Vagina Monologues” is a horrible play — and why Whitworth should allow it.
February 19, 2009 | Contributed by Daniel Walters
At long last, it’s Whitworth’s turn to grapple with the Vagina Monologues controversy.
The show finally made its way to the Whitworth campus, and then was postponed at the last moment because of “concerns over advertising guidelines.”
Really? Concerns over advertising guidelines? Okay, we’ll go with that, until we find out, specifically, what those concerns are, and over which guidelines.
But what about the play itself. Well, I’ve read it, or more precisely, I’ve read the transcript of the HBO version with author Eve Ensler. And here’s the shocking truth: It’s pretty awful.
It alternates between inane and offensive. I don’t mean offensive like “she said a naughty word” or offensive like “this challenges my politically correct sensibilities.” No, the very fuel that the play runs on is a philosophy that I find repugnant and dangerous.
It’s sexual synecdoche. It’s the notion that the whole of a women is defined — not just symbolized, defined – by a single part of her anatomy. (Not the fallopian tubes, oddly.)
The title doesn’t lie. It spends a lot of time just monologuing about vagina. Describing it in detail, tittering about it, praising it, worshiping it. Sometimes it’s flippant about it — crass — other times it treats it as a sort of sacred relic, the women’s one path to enlightenment, the way to discover her inner beauty and inner power.
Switch genders and body parts and you’ve got, well, a stereotypical male locker room. Men have been rightly mocked when they obsess or focus on their sexual body parts — Freud even said it was evidence of stunted development. But when women do it, this is supposed to be the height of discourse?
Granted, Ensler’s premise — interviewing a bunch of women about their experiences and struggles in their very private lives — is a sound one. It could make for a fascinating, in depth exploration. The problem is Ensler asks a bunch of really stupid questions. We’re talking Saturday-Night-Live parody level questions here. Questions like, if your vagina were to wear an outfit, what would it wear? I’m surprised she didn’t ask women how their vagina feels about steel tariffs, or whether it has a favorite Pokemon.
I’ve seen more nuanced explorations of the nature of female sexuality etched into restroom stalls. It traffics in the same sort of meaningless self-satisfied crudity as the worst types of college opinion articles. I’m shocking you squares into action.
Another feature of horrible college opinion articles: Like the Vagina Monologues, they spend an inordinate amount of time talking about how we don’t talk about sex enough. This, of course, is absurd. Our society talks about sex — whether explicitly or obliquely — all the time. As I’ve said, the only thing Whitworth students talk about more than sex is how Whitworth students “never talk about sex.”
The idea, of course, is that by talking about sex, we will stop sexual violence. Sexual violence, you see, is a product of the prude. We’re so buttoned-up and repressed. If there’s one problem American’s have, obviously, it’s repressing our desires. And simply by talking about people being abused, we stop abuse. Being aware, and all that.
Naturally, it must talk about sex as crudely — and often immaturely — as possible. There’s a section that simply lists all the different words for vagina. If this sort of bit seems familiar to you, it’s probably because it’s very reminiscent of an ongoing gag in the Austin Powers movies.
A quarter of the play seems to be just a reworking of George Carlin’s 7 dirty words you can’t say on television, although without Carlin’s detached ironic charm. One monologue consists of mainly the c-word (no, not crap) spewed over and over again.
It makes the argument that, because we use an incredibly offensive word to refer to a repugnant woman and a part of her anatomy, it’s proof of both society’s prudishness and its sexism. But guys have multiple profane words named after their anatomy as well. And the meaning is pretty much the same. Why? Because referring to a person simply on the basis of a single body part, especially one you don’t show at the beach, is inherently dismissive and offensive.
Men, by the way, are portrayed as brutes, fetishists, or dolts. I’m not objecting to that portayal of men — it makes for good super bowl commercials — the problem is that when the same behavior comes from women, it’s something the play unabashedly celebrates.
Consider the case of the 24-year-old guy that seduces a 13-year-old girl, gets her drunk, and then gives her a sexual experiment. The girl likes it. It causes her to have some sort of sexual awakening.
Of course, by 24-year-old guy, I mean 24-year-old woman. And so it’s okay, see?
“If it was rape, it was good rape,” the girl says.
In recent versions, the girl’s age has been changed to 16, and the “good rape” line has been excised.
Yes, the play’s been through many drafts, which makes the organizations demand for complete textual fidelity (You must use EVERY monologue! Even the weird ones!) all the more hypocritical.
Monologues vary in tone, meaning, and rating. One’s basically an equivalent of the same sort of oh-my-god I was sooooo embarrassed story. Another’s just a few minutes of cliche “what… is the deal with menstration” female stand-up comedy. Others are awkward — one features a woman making orgasm sounds on stage, another has a domineering prostitute coo about the wonders of the female body.
Others are hyper serious — they deal with rape camps and sexual abuse.
Of course, there’s never any solution offered for this type of societal abuse. For all the work Ensler has done to try to end violence against women, there’s no discussion in the play about battered women’s shelters or legal protections against domestic violence. It boils down to: We should condemn this outrageous acts, and talk about them a bunch. Free-flowing conversation is the end goal. Society’s problems are caused, almost exclusively, by stigma. (Apply the argument elsewhere, it becomes ridiculous. If we’d only talk about kidnapping — or crack dealing — more as a society, it wouldn’t happen as much.)
Feminism is an idea that comes in many shades — but Ensler’s brand is a pretty destructive one. It’s the notion that women should take all that’s horrible about the male stereotype — the crassness, the promiscuity, the sexual single-mindedness and adopt it for their very own. See! It’s not just men that can be crude!
Some feminists might say that we should define a woman by her personality, her morals, her intelligence, her willpower, her insight, her analysis, her decisions. Ensler, however, says Woman is basically a vagina. (Again, why not a fallopian tube?)
A female undergrad from Gonzaga University said it better than I could, in her article for the Independent Women’s Forum:
This is where the danger of The Vagina Monologues lies. It tells women that they are, first and foremost, sexual beings. It reduces the full potential of a human person to a single part of that person’s body. By defining the person by the functioning of her sexual parts, the play is saying that the woman was ultimately meant for sex, that sex is the fundamental expression of who she is.
In this sense, The Vagina Monologues communicates an idea of women not unlike that found in most major Hollywood movies. The movies present us with impossibly beautiful, assertive women who are overtly sexual without inhibitions and promiscuous without consequences. These women are the entirely sexualized beings that The Vagina Monologues encourages all women to be.
I think she’s right. Of course, for all the problems the play has I don’t think Whitworth should ban it.
Odd position, I know. By allowing something, I’m endorsing it. That’s the mentality Whitworth seems to operate under. They seem to be confused by the notion of listening to ideas they disagree with.
Hear ideas I find repulsive! Absurd! We must stamp the out, before people get the wrong idea.
There’s a simple solution to this. A basic stamp that says “Whitworth does not necessarily endorse…” Gonzaga has one.
Whitworth shouldn’t make it a subsidized main stage production — I wouldn’t want my money going towards putting on the play – but it should definitely be allowed to happen.
Why? Because college is all about engaging with worldviews like Ensler’s. Whitworth, if it dislikes aspects of the play, should say so. It should let students grapple with the ideas, and deconstruct the inconsistencies. It should let students debate what constitutes “real” feminism. It should let students turn the Monologues into a Dialogue.
The more Whitworth bans things because it doesn’t endorse them, the more it defacto is endorsing all the things that it doesn’t ban. That’s a problem.
And it’s embarrasing for the community to read about. When Gonzaga banned the Vagina Monologues, it was rightly mocked by the community.
Yes, the Vagina Monologues is a crappy play. But if Whitworth banned all crappy plays, then we wouldn’t have had Man for All Seasons, would we?
Prudishness is not finding ideas or words or actions objectionable. Prudishness is when you try to — by fiat — limit the ideas or words or actions of other people.
Let the Vagina Monologues collapse under it’s own weight. Let us be offended. You don’t have to get offended for us. That’s the one thing that college students do perfectly fine on their own.
The one thing, of course, besides talk about sex.
Comments
10 Responses to “Why “The Vagina Monologues” is a horrible play — and why Whitworth should allow it.”
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Ugh. Stuff like the Vagina Monologues are the reason I don’t like women. If feminism didn’t sell itself out on the theme that sexuality is the most important aspect of humanity, maybe it would be worth taking more seriously.
In my experience, when schools let controversial things like this happen without putting up a fuss, they go by the wayside without anyone remembering or caring much about them. It’s only when “the man” tries to “repress freedom of speech” (or something like that) that people suddenly seem to get their undies in a bunch.
Yeah, but referring to “feminism” is like referring to “religion.” It’s such a broad spectrum of beliefs that it’s impossible to talk about without more specification.
The “I = my anatomy” strain of feminism bugs me too, probably for all the reasons it bugs everyone else. But another reason it bugs me which isn’t always addressed is that that form of feminism (”essentialist” feminism) fell out of intellectual fashion at least a couple decades ago (you know, now we do the “existentialist” thing instead). I’m not saying that, simply because it is out of vogue, essentialist feminism is wrong. It’s wrong because it’s not true. It’s even a little absurd. The (historical) goal of feminism was to get out from under oppression from men and cease to be defined by them, because (pay attention now) women didn’t want the establishment of their identity to be outside their control. But essentialist feminism puts one’s identity even further outside one’s control: I can’t help that I have certain anatomy, and so I am even more helpless to define myself than in a situation in which my identity is defined by men. Men at least can be coaxed, persuaded, rational; anatomy can’t. (I’m not saying men define me, or even that I define myself; I’m just saying that essentialist feminism exacerbates one of the problems it’s trying to solve.)
The likes of the V Monologues, from what I hear, keep essentialist ideas going strong (and loud, and awkward) and hence lead people to misunderstand what it means to be a feminist and miss the fact that feminist discourse has largely moved beyond essentialist formulations. The word “feminist” itself is so ambiguous that it often gets associated mainly with the extreme versions, like Ensler’s, despite the fact that few feminist theorists today are essentialists.
I’m not sure I have a view on whether or not Whitworth should let students produce the show, but at any rate its contents make poor philosophy.
Its contents may make poor philosophy, but it can be a good thing to be exposed to poor philosophy – it makes the gap between it and GOOD philosophy that much more definite. Especially when this particular package of poor philosophy is so famous and espoused by so many.
My views on it are whatever the administration’s views, they need to make them more clear. The gist of the postponement, from what I could tell from the Whitworthian article, was that the administration wanted more campuswide discussion surrounding the play’s debut. As far as I’m concerned, the way to do that was NOT delaying it until April (or longer). Discussion? How hard is it to rig up a quick afterevent discussion in the HUB, or even in the theatre itself? The administration has known about this event since last semester. Surely that was enough time to suggest other, more discussion oriented events surrounding the main show, and get some publicity out for it?
I understand where you’re coming from with most of these points, but I think its important that the Vagina Monologues be presented anyway. You compared the one monologue about the different words for vagina to an Austin Powers movie. However, there are no Austin Powers movies made for women. Yes, some of these monologues may do things that males get mocked for doing, but women don’t have an equivalent to that. Bragging about vaginas in the locker room does not happen. This production is important to put on if only to give women that “inappropriate” outlet.
A man’s penis is socially constructed as a source of pride, while people are squeamish at the word vagina. If a play looking to remedy that has some horrible aspects, it still seems worth it.
Regarding the administration, they wigged out at the last minute when they saw that it wasn’t going to just slip under the radar like most stage readings do at Whitworth. People (aka potential donors) came and complained. However, I think they unintentionally drew more attention to it this way than it would’ve received otherwise. Now there will be events beforehand, and possibly a viewing of the documentary about the Vagina Monologues. All of this has the potential to be great for Whitworth.
I know that feminist theory has about a bazillion branches that all disagree with each other, and I certainly know that a great deal of modern feminism rejects essentialism (though not as much as you’d think…). I hate feminist essentialism with a great passion, but that actually wasn’t what I was referring to in my post.
Since the 20’s, feminism as a whole has forced its focus onto human sexuality above all. I don’t mean that it looks at sexuality more than everything else, but that it looks at sexuality as defining everything else. That isn’t the same thing as saying one’s genitalia define their personality. It’s saying that whatever a person does sexually is the most important facet of who they are.
This is where feminism sold out. If it hadn’t fallen into the freudian trap that “sex is MAGIC!” maybe it would be legitimately considered academic. But it did fall into that trap, just like so many other theories of humanity do, because it’s easier to say that sex is an esoteric puzzle that unlocks all of life’s mysteries than to admit that all of life is complicated and difficult without easy answers.
Carissa,
I see your point, but do women really need an alternative to Austin Powers? (There are some movies like that. They failed pretty horribly.) My point is that the stereotypical guy obsession with the crude is a NEGATIVE thing.
And the key word is stereotypical. My experience is that guys tend to talk far more about, say, Star Wars in the locker room than anything below the belt.
The big problem is that Ensler seems to blame women’s insecurity — and most of their other problems — on being too squeamish about their anatomy. (At the same time, ignoring the stereotype that guys insecurities stems from a part of their anatomy.)
Talking about their body more won’t solve the problems — like abuse and sexism — that plague society. In some cases, it may even make it worse.
“However, I think they unintentionally drew more attention to it this way than it would’ve received otherwise. Now there will be events beforehand, and possibly a viewing of the documentary about the Vagina Monologues. All of this has the potential to be great for Whitworth.”
On that we agree.
Wait, wait. Sex isn’t magic? I MISSED THAT MEMO.
Perhaps a play about how many times the average oversexed young person becomes aroused while watching a performance of this kind, the sincere thoughts provoked by it, the good intentions, and the eventual watching of porn anyway.
The best thing to do in order to protect women’s vaginas would be to start telling outrageous lies about it such as “it contains several rows of teeth.” However, if sexual freedom is the aim- all the average female has to do is ask the average male if he would like to engage in intercourse. Viola! Babies and AIDS galore.
I’ve met very few people in my life who don’t appear to, at first, be complete sexual idiots. However, since sex has been set up as the ultimate human experience and since my penis agrees with this idea- the only reason I don’t sleep around is because… well I don’t know, I ask myself this question every day. Maybe I’m ugly? Too short? This thought of course will eventually lead to the consumption of anti-depressants and my eventual suicide.
All rabbit trails aside, I agree with Daniel’s position.
Also, I’ve found that it’s much harder to touch a woman without her permission if you listen to her. However, I’m beginning to think that’s why I’m still a virgin. Will the Vagina Monologues correct this train of thought? Will it remove sex-crimes from the internet? Should we remove sex-crimes from the internet?
Am I insane?
I have a hard time knowing where to start with all these comments. I’m overwhelmed by all the negativity.
1. Yes feminism is a huge mixture of ideas that don’t always mix, but what academic field isn’t? Philosophy, Biology, Physics, even English and Literature include different areas of opinion…but we’re still teaching those. Added to this, feminism has NOT failed academically, it is actually a huge area of study. Just because you have somehow missed the boat on that one, doesn’t mean the field doesn’t exist. In other words, Charity, feminism is a legitimate academic field… go to your local library if you don’t believe me.
2. I read through the main article, and I think I understand where you’re coming from, but you’ve seriously missed the point. The Vagina Monologues are about women being able to talk about things that most people aren’t comfortable with and that women are not encouraged to talk about (female sexuality, female genitalia, and the experience of being oppressed or liberated through intimacy). Like Carissa said, you might find it immature and comparable to a male locker room, but the real point is is that women don’t have that locker room. Why? Crude or not, this is meant to be a celebration. I hate to sound sexist, but that might be hard to understand if you do not have a vagina because men celebrate their penises all the time, everywhere.
My main problem here is that you read the script in order to make all these critiques, but have you actually seen it? We read plays all the time to determine what we think of them…but plays are meant to be seen acted out live, not read out of context. It almost laughable that you critiqued a play without having seen it, it makes this whole article almost moot!
Finally, you mock the “intention” of the Vagina Monologues because you say just talking about things won’t fix the larger societal problems. Okay, no one thinks just having the play is going to make things go away, that assessment is just painfully ridiculous. However, the play is meant to be performed in order to raise money to donate to organizations that can help…so there’s the practical aspect you seemed to be hinting at that is supposedly lacking from the production.
Finally, I do have to commend you for admitting that it should still be performed so that people can see how it sucks on their own. However, I think people like it, so if it had been performed you might see the opposite reaction.