06 July 2006

Jerry Eleison


Went to see Jerry Springer the Opera the other night cause it's not selling well at the Dome so M had some free tix. I was excited to see some protesters outside holding placards urging us not to support the show (and according to this this, some of them may have even been fasting in anticipation! Wow, and all I did was change out of my flip flops into some sensible shoes in case the theatre was cold.). When we went in, the protesters handed us some brochures spelling out their quibbles, which were fair enough given these folks have probably not been burdened by so much of the annoying high theatre/performance art that I have, and are therefore unable to interpret the show as the slightly unsuccesful postmodern dig at opaquely grandiose and absurdist opera themes that I think it's, in part, meant to be. Which was what was kind of disappointing about it. When I was in high school, back when the Springer show was a late night treat focusing less on freaks and more on the freakish situations arising out of inequalities in class, race and gender exacerbated by a mass-media saturated US (and of course, by the show itself) I loved watching it as I love playing GTA: San Andreas now. It's a sort of self-critical anthropology served up on a plate. But there's no critique of media in Jerry Springer the Opera, no political messages. In that respect, it's simply pretty tame, West End humour. I liked the chorus line of many Jerrys at the end, though. Tap dancing chorus lines are great, so I don't know where these crazy Christians get off saying there's nothing uplifting here.

Oh, and the photo is not of a Jerry Springer the Opera protester, but rather of a man who was demonstrating with his family outside of a SuperWalMart in Arkansas. My dad had a new camera and decided to make them his first subjects and stopped and chatted. Nice folks, he said. I love how each state on his sign has a different sin attached to it. I think it's funny that Kansas's sin is "Effeminate." Hmmm.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Love this map! He's soooo dead on target... when I think North Dakota, I think "heady."

But seriously, he's got a point. I have both dated and lived with people from Michigan. Unholy is right.

-Seth (I'm from Pennsylvania, and I love my own self!)