Latest news with #Stalinesque
Daily Mail
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Exit, Stage Left (If you're a white male writer): Inside the theatre summit where banning white men was seriously on the table
It was meant to be a gathering designed to bring together some of the leading voices in British theatre. But at Soho Place in the West End on Wednesday, a proposal to ban staging plays by white male writers for a year nearly stole the show - and divided the room. The proposal came from director Katie Gilchrist, who presented the idea as part of The Stage's 'Big Ideas' symposium. The intention behind the proposal was to challenge existing programming norms in an industry often accused of gatekeeping. But the idea of a year-long exclusion of works by white male playwrights was met with mixed reactions. Some saw it as an opportunity to address underrepresentation, while others viewed it as an exclusionary move. There was no open-floor debate during the symposium. Delegates were required to submit questions through an app, with only the most 'liked' questions being answered. 'It was Stalinesque – very controlling, very woke way of censoring different views of things. It's divisive and alienating,' said one attendee. Following the proposal, an anonymous delegate asked: 'What about white working-class men? What about disabled/neurodiverse white men? What about trans men?' The response to this question was: 'As Katie mentioned in her speech, there were no trans writers of any kind being programmed on the West End. Implying trans men will lose out as a result of this idea is a straw man – rising tides raise all boats.' This comment received 11 likes. Another delegate responded: 'The immediate 'whataboutery' in these comments is exactly why this is important. A brave, big idea, thank you Katie.' However, not all attendees were in agreement. One delegate, who requested to remain anonymous for fear of being blacklisted, told MailOnline: 'Banning white male playwrights for a year is idiotic, right-on nonsense. 'The Stage should not have platformed such a divisive idea, especially when around 50% of the room was white and male. What's more alarming is that not one of them spoke out against it for fear of being labelled a 'misogynist'. It's bonkers.' In the end, Ms Gilchrist's proposal was not adopted. The idea that gained the most support—receiving 40% of the vote—was to devolve the National Theatre. Actor and director Rob Myles raised the question: 'Labour has made devolution a central policy elsewhere – why not in this industry?' When asked whether the proposed ban would include Shakespeare or Ibsen, moderator Amanda Parker, a Royal Shakespeare Company board member, 'just laughed.' All this played out the same week the National Theatre announced its new season—prompting fresh criticism about ideological orthodoxy in British theatre. 'They go on about tolerance, but only want one kind,' said one delegate. 'The theatre world is agenda-driven and resent differing views.' In response, a spokesperson for The Stage said: 'The description of the day is inaccurate. No debate was restricted – on the contrary, delegates were encouraged throughout the day to share their thoughts and comments. 'The whole conference was a platform for open, generous and lively debate. It also included an extended panel discussion that explored issues of censorship and freedom of expression. 'All six open-sourced presentations put forward as part of our Big Ideas strand were received warmly in the room. A proposal for a devolved National Theatre won an open vote as the conference's favourite proposal of the six.' The controversy didn't come out of nowhere. Days before the event, Ms Gilchrist's pitch had already raised eyebrows after it was announced it would be among the final six ideas presented to senior theatre figures. In her own words, Ms Gilchrist described the idea as 'an invitation for us to critically examine whose voices dominate our stages and what it could mean to shift that balance… even for the historical equivalent of an exhale'. The suggestion would have excluded virtually every foundational playwright of the Western canon - from Shakespeare and Marlowe to Ibsen and Pinter. Writer Patrick Kidd called the idea 'batty, sexist and divisive', remarking: 'Art should offer opportunities without banning a group of writers. Perhaps she would also like to exclude white men from theatre audiences?' Gilchrist, who has directed regional productions of Mamma Mia!, Steel Magnolias and Dial M for Murder, was one of two Americans to make the shortlist. Another finalist, Catherine Russell - general manager of New York's Theater Center -proposed live AI translation of theatre into more than 60 languages. Last year, former prime minister Rishi Sunak condemned theatres that hosted 'Black Out' performances - nights reserved for black-only audiences - as 'wrong and divisive'. It comes as ticket buyers attending its upcoming production of Shakespeare's Hamlet have been advised that the play contains themes of death, grief, suicide, madness and coercive behaviour. The play, a cornerstone of English literature and widely taught in schools, ends with a fatal duel that sees most of the principal characters - including the prince himself - dead by the final curtain. The production, which opens in September as part of Indhu Rubasingham's inaugural season as artistic director, stars Olivier Award-winner Hiran Abeysekera as the Danish prince. Alongside casting announcements, the theatre slapped the production with a trigger warning, stating: 'This production contains themes of grief and death, including suicide and the loss of a parent, depictions of madness, violence, and coercive behaviour.' The warning prompted raised eyebrows among some theatre-goers and commentators, who questioned whether audiences need advance notice that a four-hundred-year-old tragedy contains tragic elements. Roy Schwartz, a historian and author, told the Mail: 'A trigger warning is meant to alert that something contains potentially distressing material. It's gratuitous to include it in something that's well-known to have mature subject matter, and it's frankly ridiculous to include it in a classic like Hamlet. For that matter, why not have a trigger warning in every history book? Every Bible and Sunday sermon? 'Coddling audiences against reality only serves to infantilise culture. A trigger warning is fair when the audience might not expect something 'triggering,' not in the most famous play in history.'
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump Accuses Ex-DHS Official Of Treason, Orders DOJ Investigation Over 'Resistance' Op-Ed
President Donald Trump ordered the Department of Justice to investigate two former officials from his first administration, including one whom he accused of being 'guilty of treason.' Trump, in a memorandum signed in the Oval Office, ripped ex-Homeland Security official Miles Taylor for writings Taylor made under an 'anonymous' pseudonym, which notably include a highly critical 2018 op-ed in The New York Times where he described himself as part of the 'resistance' to the president. 'His conduct could properly be characterized as treasonous and as possibly violating the Espionage Act,' read the memo, which stripped security details from Taylor and called on the DOJ to probe his work in the federal government. Taylor later took to X, formerly Twitter, where he declared that 'dissent isn't unlawful' and it 'certainly isn't treasonous.' 'America is headed down a dark path. Never has a man so inelegantly proved another man's point,' wrote Taylor, who served as chief of staff to Trump's former DHS secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. Taylor, who Trump claimed he 'barely' remembered on Wednesday, joins a list of those targeted on the president's revenge tour against his political adversaries — some of whom have also been stripped of their security details. A separate memo signed by Trump describes Chris Krebs — former head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency who was fired after he pushed back at the president's bogus claims of 2020 election fraud — as a 'significant bad-faith actor' and calls for a review into his governmental work, as well. Trump, while signing the memo that revoked Krebs' security clearance, referred to his former top cybersecurity official as a 'wise guy' and a 'disgrace' while doubling down on his false election claims. HuffPost has reached out to Krebs and cybersecurity company SentinelOne, where he serves as the chief intelligence and public policy officer, for comment. Tim Miller, an ex-spokesperson for the Republican National Committee and writer-at-large for the anti-Trump conservative site The Bulwark, referred to the president's remarks on Krebs as 'madness.' 'Chris Krebs was a public servant, a GOP appointee, who *did his job* ensuring the 2020 election was secure. For our government to target him like this is appalling & Stalinesque,' Miller wrote on X. 'Any person who reveres our constitutional republic should speak out against it.' Social Media Mocks Trump's 'Yippy' Excuse For Pausing Tariffs Social Security Administration Backs Off Phone Service Changes, AARP Says Trump Trade Chief Roasted As News Breaks About Tariffs Pause In Middle Of Hearing
Yahoo
30-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump's Latest Bid to Rewrite Reality
WHEN I WAS A TEENAGER, I won an award that I didn't understand, named for someone I'd never heard of: the Peter Goldin Memorial Award for Outstanding Achievement in Literature. I still don't know who Peter Goldin was, but I like to think the award must have had something to do with analyzing (or, tbh, overanalyzing) text and subtext—exactly the tool I've needed to interpret politics all these years. It's also the reason I've been fuming over Donald Trump's March 27 executive order to disappear from our 'national attic' all evidence of 'woke,' mistakes, and regret, and restore monuments that honor people and events on the wrong side of history's moral line. This one short document hyperfocused on the Smithsonian Institution is just 1,150 words, but it is towering in its Stalinesque ambition to walk back history and whitewash America's past. So, with thanks to my high school English teachers for having shown me the importance of unpacking language, here's a close reading of this order. Let's start with the title, 'Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.' As with most things Trump and MAGA, including another recent pronouncement about 'preserving and protecting the integrity of American elections,' it says exactly the opposite of what it means. In both cases, the goal is to mute or silence voices Trump disagrees with. Moving right along, Trump prefaces his demands with 'it is hereby ordered' and claims to be acting within 'the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America.' Really? Does the Constitution say each president may rewrite history? Congress established the public-private Smithsonian Institution in 1846 to be the keeper and chronicler of America's story; does the Constitution say anything about presidents dictating museum content at will? No, but 62 percent of the twenty-one–museum complex's $1 billion budget is funded by federal appropriations, grants, and contracts. And since the Republican-run Congress seems fine these days with letting Trump control the power of the purse the Constitution gave to . . . Congress, he can probably use threats and rescissions to do some damage. Section 1 of the executive order begins with classic Trump projection, contending that a 'revisionist movement' has made a 'concerted and widespread effort' over the past decade to replace 'objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth.' This is, in fact, exactly what Trump and his allies have been doing for the past decade. He then claims that under these revisionists, 'our Nation's unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness is reconstructed as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed.' So, so close. Of course our history is 'inherently racist, sexist, oppressive'; you'd be hard pressed to find any country on earth that didn't have a racist, sexist, oppressive past, and that most emphatically includes ours. America enslaved black people for over two centuries. Women didn't get the vote until 1920. And people have rightly been grappling with those facts for a lot longer than just the last decade. The most glaring mistake in this passage, the one that reveals it to be garbage, is the word 'irredeemably.' America is anything but irredeemable. Time and again, we have confronted, corrected, and even transcended our tragic errors. That is how we have achieved our advances in 'liberty, individual rights, and human happiness.' The irony here is that Trump—along with Elon Musk, Russell Vought, Kristi Noem, Stephen Miller, and many others in his administration—is right now doing tremendous damage to liberty, individual rights, and human happiness. Abducting immigrants and throwing them into foreign prisons? Thoughtlessly firing government experts? Kicking patriotic transgender service members out of the armed forces? Gutting government grants on science? It's not our historians and museum curators who are weaving that tale of woe and misery. Trump says the Smithsonian rewrite of history 'deepens societal divides and fosters a sense of national shame.' I'm not sure about that but I am sure that he's responsible for huge waves of national shame today, as he cozies up to dictators, abandons Ukraine, turns allies into adversaries, and the Constitution into Swiss cheese. And then there's Sites of Conscience, an international organization that did a 2023 DEI training of park rangers at Independence Hall and other Old City sites in Philadelphia. Trump did not name the group but went after their website, which he said 'advocates dismantling 'Western foundations' and 'interrogating institutional racism.'' I could not find the language on their website; maybe you can. (Also, I'm good with interrogating institutional racism; let's find it and get rid of it.) Either way, I'll give him that one. But there is so much more to unpack. For instance, Trump attacks an exhibition on race and sculpture now showing at the Smithsonian's American Art Museum. He accurately quotes the curators as saying that societies, including ours, 'have used race to establish and maintain systems of power, privilege, and disenfranchisement.' History repeatedly shows that to be true. The same exhibition, he says, 'promotes the view that race is not a biological reality but a social construct, stating 'Race is a human invention.'' But that's in fact the truth, and badly in need of wider circulation. The idea of race as 'something biologically real' is 'arguably the greatest error modern Western science ever made,' Ohio State history professor Alice Conklin said at a 2021 forum. The Smithsonian American Women's History Museum, created by Congress in 2020 and opening in 2030 or later, gets dinged because, Trump claims, it 'plans on celebrating the exploits of male athletes participating in women's sports,' a hit on the vulnerable transgender community and the museum's goal of inclusiveness. The website right now mentions trans tennis player Renée Richards, who nearly a half-century ago fought to participate in tournaments and made the doubles finals of the U.S. Open but didn't win, in its 'LGBTQ women who made history section.' How the sports angle will play out is unknowable, but inclusion writ large isn't going anywhere, at the museum or in the country. Trump also targets the Museum of African American History and Culture for proclaiming that ''hard work,' 'individualism,' and 'the nuclear family' are aspects of 'White culture.'' Well, sort of. That's from a 2020 graphic on 'aspects and assumptions' of 'whiteness and white culture.' It's no secret why that would be, or why black people would want to discuss those assumptions, given the cruel realities of slavery that produced rampant stereotypes of African Americans as 'lazy' and precluded, even punished, 'individualism' and nuclear families. I will say this: I visited the African American museum a year or two after it opened in 2016. The experience was deeply sobering—the Emmett Till casket and Middle Passage exhibits in particular. It was also enlightening. One of the many things I learned was that in the early twentieth century, philanthropist Julius Rosenwald partnered with Booker T. Washington to build thousands of schools for black students in fifteen states. I saw desks and a wood-burning stove from 'the Hope School in Pomaria, South Carolina, a historic Rosenwald school.' That was inspiring, and so was a spontaneous exchange between a black visitor and a white museum guard about the guard's ancestors—who were slave owners. There was even uplift at the gift shop, where I saw and immediately bought a pair of American flag earrings. I don't know if they are still sold there, but I remember tearing up about that museum selling that symbol of a country still trying to recover from its original sin. Trump claims he wants museums in Washington to be 'places where individuals go to learn—not to be subjected to ideological indoctrination or divisive narratives that distort our shared history.' We did not encounter that. But in the African American story of overcoming hardships and bias that still affect many black lives, we did see plenty of what Trump says he wants to encourage: tales of 'inspiration and American greatness—igniting the imagination of young minds, honoring the richness of American history and innovation, and instilling pride in the hearts of all Americans.' Beyond Independence Hall, which Trump says in his order should be restored in time for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence next year, it's not clear what will be left after Vice President JD Vance completes the task set out for him in the executive order: 'to remove improper ideology' from all of the Smithsonian museums, education and research centers, and even the National Zoo. Any giraffe that was a DEI hire, you're fired? Then there's Trump's instruction to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to restore federally controlled 'monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties' that have been removed or changed 'to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history, inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures, or include any other improper partisan ideology.' These tributes to people and events, from colonial times to the Confederacy to now, were removed or changed in order to reflect a more patriotic, honorable reconstruction of American history that elevates contextual clarity over myths and romanticism. We'll see which ones Burgum decides belong back in public view. Trump has now made Vance and Burgum national arbiters of what constitutes 'improper ideology,' and that's a recipe for recreating the Smithsonian as a MAGA fantasyland. Women and minorities—do the math; that adds up to most of America—were oppressed or enslaved through the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, and didn't start making significant headway against persistent racism and sexism until the mid-1960s. By tampering with reality, in museums and public policy, Trump is playing with political fire.
