Friday, January 23, 2009

So Angry I Could Blog

I have just come home from being assaulted by David Mamet's Speed the Plow, an unnecessary, irrelevant revival but for the fact that he presciently overuses the word "Maverick," and predicts the collapse of the economy.

This evening, this play felt like an excuse for misogynists to celebrate publicly and feel O.K. about it.

If you haven't seen it, and you don't need to, basically it's about a soulless movie producer who teams up with yet another soulless movie producer to pitch some movie that will make them rich. The movie is bad but that doesn't matter. In walks in a temporary secretary, seemingly dumb as nails, who ends up in first producer's home and talks him into believing in something.

The next day he finds out he has been duped because he realizes she met with him for personal gain, and that she is merely "pussy wrapped around ambition."

This might have been funny if I hadn't been treated as such so many times in my career.

And it occurred to me, while watching this play, that in this New Day with our New President, I am sick of the White Theatre. Because if this temp girl in Mamet's play had been an empowered black woman, she might not have taken any shit.

If there's one thing that is clear from the myriad of Inauguration Ceremonies, it is that our country is rife with excellent black artists and, given that so many gathered in D.C. on Tuesday, that they are very excited and ready to have their voice heard in the Mainstream.

And so am I.

Ready for it?

I believe Beyonce is the leader of the Feminist Movment.

Yes, really.

She has coined our country's most popular "if-then" phrase:

"IF you like it THEN you should have put a ring on it."

What could be more clear? There's no emoting, there's no hemming and hawing. There is only logic. A white chick would never have the wherewithal to be so bold.

A close second is: "Don't you EVER for a second get to thinking you're irreplaceable," and tied is:

"The house I live in, I bought it. The car I'm driving, I bought it. I depend on me."

So clear. So concise. No B.S. And no one says: "Aw man that Beyonce, what a bitch." She is REVERED for her outspokenness, and all of America is quoting her.

During the campaign people tried to shut Michelle Obama up. She is naturally outspoken and that was scary to us white folk. But now that she's there, I would encourage her, if she's reading this, which she's clearly not, to not let the White Folk make her a fashion plate and to make sure she is heard. Michelle Obama is a brilliant, articulate woman and it would be a shame if she is merely the next Jackie Onassis (who, by the way (referencing the last post) has a reservoir named after her. We also came up with Golda Meir Way, but she's not a U.S. leader, and I forgot about Campbell Brown's show on CNN. I digress.)

Amidst all the dramatic recent cast changes surrounding Speed the Plow, (which, frankly, are more interesting than the play itself) while we're at it, how about replacing the white chick with, Beyonce...?