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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAt Shakespeare's Globe, a Nonbinary Joan of Arc Causes a Stir
LONDON When the playwright Charlie Josephine watched the first performance of their play I, Joan at Shakespeares Globe last week, they sat in the theater, wracked with nerves.
The play, based on the story of Joan of Arc, is Josephines first on a major London stage. But that was not the only reason that the playwright, who identifies as transgender, queer and nonbinary, and uses the pronoun they, was anxious. Throughout last month, I, Joan had been at the center of a media furor in Britain because of Josephines decision to depict Joan of Arc as nonbinary.
In the play, which runs at the Globe through Oct. 22, Joan of Arc comes to terms with their gender identity while inspiring French soldiers to repel English forces from their soil. Im not a girl, Joan says at one point. I do not fit that word.
When The Daily Mail, a tabloid newspaper, reported details of the Globe production in August, it led to a barrage of complaints on social media and in print. Allison Pearson, a columnist for The Daily Telegraph, a conservative newspaper, wrote that recasting Joan of Arc as nonbinary was an insult. Sophie Walker, a former leader of Britains Womens Equality Party, wrote on Twitter that when she was a little girl, Joan of Arc presented thrilling possibilities about what one young girl could do against massed ranks of men. Rewriting her as not female and presenting it as progress is a massive disappointment.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/01/theater/joan-of-arc-nonbinary-globe.html
Bucky
(53,936 posts)We shouldn't have a situation where one discriminated-against group, women, get pitted against an oppressed group, trans people.
A couple years ago I saw a play here about Spanish conquistadors where the whole cast was women. As a dude it didn't bother me. It made a clever point by recasting history that way. But you can swap out men without really affecting their representation in the arts.
Jeanne DArc pretty much invented girl power, nay spice power itself, at least in the popular imagination. Undercutting that message is probably harmless in the long run. And trans people could definitely benefit from positive messaging. I don't know if this gimmick achieves that.