Theatre Thursdays

Welcome back to Theatre Thursdays. For this second edition, we're already shaking it up, because we're crazy like that. The following isn't actually a monologue, per se; it's a poem. But I 100% used it AS a monologue in a performance piece, so it 100% counts. Let's have at it.

SEX GODDESS OF THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE
by Maggie Estep

I am THE SEX GODDESS OF THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE
so don't mess with me
I've got a big bag full of SEX TOYS
and you can't have any
'cause they're all mine
'cause I'm
the SEX GODDESS OF THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE.
"Hey," you may say to yourself,
"who the hell's she tryin' to kid,
she's no sex goddess,"
But trust me,
I am
if only for the fact that I have
the unabashed gall
to call
myself a SEX GODDESS,
I mean, after all,
it's what so many of us have at some point thought,
we've all had someone
who worshipped our filthy socks
and barked like a dog when we were near
giving us cause
to pause and think: You know, I may not look like much
but deep inside, I am a SEX GODDESS.

Only
we'd never come out and admit it publicly
well, you wouldn't admit it publicly
but I will
because I am
THE SEX GODDESS OF THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE.

I haven't always been
a SEX GODDESS
I used to be just a mere mortal woman
but I grew tired of sexuality being repressed
then manifest
in late night 900 number ads
where 3 bodacious bimbettes
heave cleavage into the camera's winking lens and sigh:

"Big Girls oooh, Bad Girls oooh, Blonde Girls oooh,
you know what to do, call 1-900-UNMITIGATED BIMBO ooooh."

Yeah
I got fed up with the oooh oooh oooh oooh oooh
I got fed up with it all
so I put on my combat boots
and hit the road with my bag full of SEX TOYS
that were a vital part of my SEX GODDESS image
even though I would never actually use
my SEX TOYS
'cause my being a SEX GODDESS
it isn't a SEXUAL thing
it's a POLITICAL thing
I don't actually have SEX, no
I'm too busy taking care of
important SEX GODDESS BUSINESS,
yeah,
I gotta go on The Charlie Rose Show
and MTV and become a parody
of myself and make
buckets full of money off my own inane brand
of self-righteous POP PSYCHOLOGY
because my pain is different
because I am a SEX GODDESS
and when I talk,
people listen
why ?
Because, you guessed it,
I AM THE SEX GODDESS OF THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE
and you're not.

International Day for the Elimination of Violece Against Women

Just so you know, it's today.

Just some things to think about:

http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/news/vawd.html

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/new-tool-to-fight-domestic-violence/2008/11/25/1227491548468.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7747601.stm

http://globalnation.inquirer.net/news/breakingnews/view/20081125-174258/1-in-3-women-abused-in-her-lifetime--UN

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%5C11%5C25%5Cstory_25-11-2008_pg7_42

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1040235.html

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/FBUO-7LQE86?OpenDocument

New Addition: Theatre Thursdays

Welcome to Theatre Thursdays. I'm your host, Cynical Nymph. On Theatre Thursdays we'll take a moment to appreciate female monologues in theatre, because a modern feminist with an utterly dusty B.F.A. in Drama has to do something with it, right? Let's have at it. Theatre Thursdays, First Installment.


MRS. ANTROBUS: (She flings something - invisible to us - far over the heads of the audience to the back of the auditorium.) It's a bottle. And in the bottle's a letter. And in the letter is written all the things a woman knows. It's never been told to any man and it's never been told to any woman, and if it finds its destination, a new time will come. We're not what books and plays say we are. We're not in the movies and we're not on the radio. We're not what you're all told and what you think we are. We're ourselves. And if any man can find one of us he'll learn why the whole universe was set in motion. And if any man harm one of us, his soul - the only soul he's got - had better be at the bottom of that ocean - and that's the only way to put it.

The Skin of Our Teeth, Act II
by Thornton Wilder

And Now For Something Exactly The Same

The day after a for-real no-shit migraine, I always feel like the dregs of a milkshake: tepid, watery, and pillaged. I used to think migraines were fake. I mean, how could a headache be that bad? I got throbby, long headaches, sure, and sensitivity to light and sound, but nausea and death wishes with a headache? Sounded like the flu to me, or like a drama ploy. Yesterday's migraine was unlike any I've had since the first one I ever had (or at least the first one I ever recognized). I even took a pregnancy test just to make sure because this was so, so intense and awful. (Not pregnant. Just a for-real no-shit migraine.)

KARMA: SHE IS A RAGING BITCH.

So yesterday as I was sitting on the couch just waiting to die, or possibly to start leaking brain tissue out my ears, I was reading one of the Sookie Stackhouse novels upon which the HBO show True Blood is based. (Oddly enough, reading doesn't bother me during a migraine.) (As long as I'm reading in silence and near-dark.) (Sitting upright so I don't yak onto the book.) As I've mentioned, I've been watching True Blood. In the last two weeks, I have read and re-read and re-re-re-read all eight of the books that have been published so far (of course, they're not exactly Thomas Pynchon) (and I do have antisocial inclinations, so plenty of time to read). The show is fun, but as is often the case, there's an extra layer of Special to the books because you get into all the secrets and details of these characters. The first season (which is over this week, OMFG) has been fairly faithful to the main character's storyline (and had to invent most of the secondary storylines, as the novels are narrated in the first person). The changes Alan Ball (American Beauty, Six Feet Under) has made so far have been, in my opinion, mostly for the better, or at least for the neutral. Fun books, fun series, you get the point.

There's just one change that sticks in my craw.

In the books, the main character is described as variously a size 8 or 10. She's 5'6", buxom and blonde. Men (or, more accurately, vampires and shapeshifters and werewolves and men) worship her. Anna Paquin is, how shall we say, rather pixie-like compared to the literary description of Sookie Stackhouse. Now, I have nothing against Anna Paquin. Aside from the fact that I think she's a good actor and I find her characterization of Sookie pretty spot-on, she's a celebrity with whom I have things in common, so I'd even say I am predisposed to like her better than most. But she is not buxom. She is certainly not a size 8, or 10, or even 6. She looks fantabulous, but it's quite refreshing to read the books and imagine these all-powerful beings drooling over an average-sized gal.

Sookie's not the only female character who's been downsized, of course. Pretty much the only female characters' curves left unwhittled are the black characters, which... isn't that always how it is? Well, guess what, TV casting hierarchy? WHITE CHICKS GET TO HAVE CURVES TOO. So go suck on a stake.

Excuse me while I nurse myself back to health with copious amounts of cheese and chocolate. Yeah. That sounds like a good plan.