Benoit has received a lot of backlash on Twitter and Instagram, maybe they will reconsider.
I would hope that such communications would be thoughtful and educational, and not accusatory.
But I fear that's not how Twitter and Instagram roll.
Benoit has received a lot of backlash on Twitter and Instagram, maybe they will reconsider.
I read the lyrics and if they keep it in the program it does look very inappropriate for skating. Why did they do it? There should be some concept that the team devised where this song fits. ...
I would hope that such communications would be thoughtful and educational, and not accusatory.
But I fear that's not how Twitter and Instagram roll.
I would hope that such communications would be thoughtful and educational, and not accusatory.
But I fear that's not how Twitter and Instagram roll.
Why only Thais? Because of prostitution and religion theme? Why not Madama Butterfly or La Traviata, scores of junior figure skaters from all over the world used these for their programs.
I mean it is equally bad for a 16yo to portray a woman returning to be a prostitute because she is forced to abandon her lover, no?
Edit. I ment to quote 4everchan's post it was an error
I read the lyrics and if they keep it in the program it does look very inappropriate for skating. Why did they do it? There should be some concept that the team devised where this song fits. May be, if they don't drop it they will come up with explanations.
What is an interesting topic for me, though is who defines "the lines not to be crossed". North American history is just a part of the world's history. And in the world's history atrocities of much bigger order of magnitude happened and keep happenning. I wonder, what reaction from Japan would come if a European skater had a program to Hiroshima theme? I remember that there was some critique about Nicole Schott's picking SL a season ago but this critique was much milder from the American part of the audience than when EM had 9/11 program.
I would hope that such communications would be thoughtful and educational, and not accusatory.
But I fear that's not how Twitter and Instagram roll.
I don't have a problem with a non-African-American skating to the song. Anyone could be horrified by the subject of lynching... everyone SHOULD be horrified... and that reaction could translate to a desire to reflect on that tragedy through artistic skating. So, no, I don't think it's a song that ONLY an African-American could possibly choose.
twitter is the new supreme court of the entire planet... i agree with you here... i do not support this choice of music but it's not okay to violently attack someone through social media... i wish this would stop.
... just one comment (that is missing the point) about how he would now probably charge for a new program.
Just skate the same program as planned, but to different music. A triple Lutz here, a step sequence there ...
i singled out Thais simply because i just found our about pooja's SP, but you are correct, there are many examples in opera that are of bad taste to be skated by young teenagers... la bohème is another one... as a matter of fact, opera from that era is very misogynist : many women are killed, abandoned, commit suicide, are cheated on... etc.... so why would any teenage girl do it???/
Very interesting topic and a real food for thought for me, because I usually find the reactions of how this or that music is age/culturally etc. inappropriate rather exaggerated, but in this case I have to agree.
How are they going to portray this? Is she going to skate in a pretty dress with a naive expression on her face ignoring the meaning of the song completely, or are they going to take it seriously and very realistically, which might make it even worse in the end?
All the possible scenarios I can imagine feel totally wrong.
However, generally speaking, I agree with TontoK that music and art are for everyone and not only to enjoy, but also to perform, if the interprets know and respect the original context.
Lynching for exapmle, is not something experienced only by the African-Americans during that horrible period in history, but by lots of other people all around the world even today.
If somebody has had some kind of personal experience e.g. of such a thing happening in their family, hometown or just simply studying about this period extensively, feeling very strongly about it and finding this song a perfect vehicle for sending out a message or drawing attention to such atrocities happening, should it matter that they are e.g. Chinese?
I repeat I'm NOT talking about this particular case, beacuse trying to convey something so deep and important in a figure skating competition is absolutely ridiculous.
On the other hand, I don't like the notion that teenagers shouldn't skate to anything that's not rainbows and unicorns.
They go through hard times and emotional turmoils too, and should be able to express them on the ice, if they choose so.
I absolutely disagree here. The opera characters are just larger-than-life representations of emotions we ALL experience on everyday basis at any age, and it is actually very easy to identify with them without necessarily having to go to the very extremes like they do.
Don't teenagers even today fall madly in love, thinking no-one had ever experienced such strong feelings before, that this one particular person is the only one in the entire universe they could possibly love, and that they'd rather die than be without them? No-one has ever suffered so much, right? How about controlling, possessive or cheating boyfriends? Parents being against your relationship? Add some betrayal, thirst for revenge and desire to rule the world into the mix and you might have just covered most of what opera is actually about. Definitely much more so than prostitution, and I think it is entirely possible to totally identify with e.g. Violetta's feelings without giving prostitution a single thought.
I also don't agree at all that opera is misogynist. Actually, I've always found it fascinating that given the status of women in history, the central characters in operas are mostly females, and usually very strong and spirited ones that make their male counterparts look rather incompetent and weak in comparison. Yes, the male characters often ruin their lives, but it is never depicted as something positive or OK, cause they are just women, so who cares.
Carmen might have been stabbed to death, but she is still the heroin and I wonder how many people even know the name of the guy who killed her. The same goes for Madama Butterfly.
There is also a fair share of women characters, who enjoy torturing men, kill them or just make their life hell in general and yet somehow come accross as rather likeable.
They cheat on them too, by the way.
So no, I think opera is a genre that feminists might actually enjoy quite a lot!
first i wrote about opera from a specific era... nowadays, opera is more varied.. and by the way, i would like you to list operas from the era i mentioned that are presenting women in such a powerful context because it is exactly coming from research about feminism in opera that musicologists have made arguments about how misogynist opera was in the 19th century. YMMV but here, I am baffled by what I am reading here... you simply need to have a short google search to see how many articles from various authors have called out opera for its misogynistic concepts... what you see nowadays, is adaptations... they will make Carmen or Butterfly appear as a heroine with a staging that is going away from the original. However, historically, what you affirm here is far from the norm.