Music Man is finally over. The kid that I thought would end up getting asked to leave actually turned out to be a halfway decent actor. Yes, he had some moments and some meltdowns--it was a pretty demanding rehearsal schedule after all--but overall it was a pretty positive experience working with him. Even his parents were amazed at how much he had improved. You could tell it meant a lot to him to be in the play.
I wish I could say the same about the three homeschooled kids, two boys and a girl, who allegedly had quite a bit of stage experience being part of a family troupe. Let's just say I have seen children who have never set foot on a stage before act more professionally and follow stage etiquette than those three. The oldest boy wasn't too bad, but his brother and his sister--well, let's say, we got trouble right here, we're in terrible, terrible trouble, and it's not because there's a pool table in River City, Iowa. Mama is so busy sheltering her precious little darlings from S-E-X and E-V-O-L-U-T-I-O-N and all kinds of other immoralities Professor Harold Hill never even thought of that she is blind to what is going on under her nose. Namely, bullying, deceitfulness, slyness, disrespect, defiance, rudeness. Well as I told the one boy when he was trying to stir up trouble with the little boy who had a problem, you may fool others but you do not fool me one bit mister. Don't try to play the innocent with me, because I know what you are up to and you are trying to get Jason to have a meltdown." The unfair thing about this is because Jason has some kind of problem and is small for his age, he will always be penalized while boys like Kevin sail through life on charm and good looks and seldom get called out for their misdeeds. Well, not while I am around!
Anyway, we got to watch the DVD of our performance last night. But first we saw a short film made by some of the cast members who are venturing into film-making. It was rather bizarre and had no plot, only some kind of dream sequence interrupted by phony commercials. One of them featured a boy and a girl on a couch while the announcer asked, "Are you plagued by blue balls . . ." Several seconds into this dialogue Mama realized what was going on, and loudly shouted out, "DENISE! Leave the room NOW!" Of course Denise did not understand why SHE had to leave the room and not her brothers, but I am sure that in time she will come to figure it out. At the age of 9, Denise is already a manipulative little girl and her mother has just now handed her another weapon in her arsenal. What Mama has shown her is that there are things she does not want her to know that it is ok for her brothers to know, and that is all she needs to know about "blue balls", which as it turned out, referred to golf balls and not something else. Mama does not realize that by calling attention to these things, either by ordering her to leave the room or fast-forwarding the DVD, it makes them all the more attractive. Curiosity combined with the ability to push an adult's buttons can be a potent combination. I wish Mama luck when these kids hit puberty, she's going to need it. She's only kidding herself if she thinks she is sheltering them from the world.
But it made me wonder (as I so often do) why some parents go to such lengths to shield their children from hearing or seeing anything to do with sex, but have absolutely no problem whatsoever with them watching someone "die" in a show. It seems to me that if anything ought to be obscene, the deliberate taking of another person's life is it. Yet this is so much a part of contemporary entertainment that nobody blinks an eye over it. At least not in American culture. Apparently Australian Aborigine culture sees things differently, because I have noticed several Australian movies carrying a warning to people of indigenous culture "that this movie shows dead people." The first time I saw that I thought, what are they talking about--did someone die making this film? But apparently even simulated depictions of death are very upsetting and offensive to people from that particular culture, so Australian filmmakers are starting to include that warning. I don't know why Aboriginal people feel that way, but it is something to think about: why is violence all right for kids to see, but not sex?
I wish I could say the same about the three homeschooled kids, two boys and a girl, who allegedly had quite a bit of stage experience being part of a family troupe. Let's just say I have seen children who have never set foot on a stage before act more professionally and follow stage etiquette than those three. The oldest boy wasn't too bad, but his brother and his sister--well, let's say, we got trouble right here, we're in terrible, terrible trouble, and it's not because there's a pool table in River City, Iowa. Mama is so busy sheltering her precious little darlings from S-E-X and E-V-O-L-U-T-I-O-N and all kinds of other immoralities Professor Harold Hill never even thought of that she is blind to what is going on under her nose. Namely, bullying, deceitfulness, slyness, disrespect, defiance, rudeness. Well as I told the one boy when he was trying to stir up trouble with the little boy who had a problem, you may fool others but you do not fool me one bit mister. Don't try to play the innocent with me, because I know what you are up to and you are trying to get Jason to have a meltdown." The unfair thing about this is because Jason has some kind of problem and is small for his age, he will always be penalized while boys like Kevin sail through life on charm and good looks and seldom get called out for their misdeeds. Well, not while I am around!
Anyway, we got to watch the DVD of our performance last night. But first we saw a short film made by some of the cast members who are venturing into film-making. It was rather bizarre and had no plot, only some kind of dream sequence interrupted by phony commercials. One of them featured a boy and a girl on a couch while the announcer asked, "Are you plagued by blue balls . . ." Several seconds into this dialogue Mama realized what was going on, and loudly shouted out, "DENISE! Leave the room NOW!" Of course Denise did not understand why SHE had to leave the room and not her brothers, but I am sure that in time she will come to figure it out. At the age of 9, Denise is already a manipulative little girl and her mother has just now handed her another weapon in her arsenal. What Mama has shown her is that there are things she does not want her to know that it is ok for her brothers to know, and that is all she needs to know about "blue balls", which as it turned out, referred to golf balls and not something else. Mama does not realize that by calling attention to these things, either by ordering her to leave the room or fast-forwarding the DVD, it makes them all the more attractive. Curiosity combined with the ability to push an adult's buttons can be a potent combination. I wish Mama luck when these kids hit puberty, she's going to need it. She's only kidding herself if she thinks she is sheltering them from the world.
But it made me wonder (as I so often do) why some parents go to such lengths to shield their children from hearing or seeing anything to do with sex, but have absolutely no problem whatsoever with them watching someone "die" in a show. It seems to me that if anything ought to be obscene, the deliberate taking of another person's life is it. Yet this is so much a part of contemporary entertainment that nobody blinks an eye over it. At least not in American culture. Apparently Australian Aborigine culture sees things differently, because I have noticed several Australian movies carrying a warning to people of indigenous culture "that this movie shows dead people." The first time I saw that I thought, what are they talking about--did someone die making this film? But apparently even simulated depictions of death are very upsetting and offensive to people from that particular culture, so Australian filmmakers are starting to include that warning. I don't know why Aboriginal people feel that way, but it is something to think about: why is violence all right for kids to see, but not sex?
