STAGE NOTES
The WICA Blog
ARTICLE | New Jeffrey Epstein case: A crucial test of #MeToo's staying power
The surprise arrest of billionaire Jeffrey Epstein on Saturday — and the revival of a decade-old case against him for sex trafficking — is a big story in its own right. That's both because of Epstein's own unbelievably sleazy profile, but also because it's possible that other men who have been shielded from justice may be exposed for participating in the sexual abuse of minors. But the social implications may be even larger.
The Epstein case is a real test over whether the #MeToo movement, an explosive period in which thousands of women stepped forward with stories of sexual harassment and abuse, was just a flash in the pan. Will we see long-term changes in how our society deals with powerful men who commit sexual abuse with little or fear of consequences? Or are we moving back toward business as usual and sweeping such things under the rug?
Read more here.
SOURCE: Salon
RELATED PROGRAMMING
Truth and Consequences: #MeToo and the New Sexual Landscape | JUL 27
INTERVIEW | Alyssa Milano on the #MeToo movement: 'We're not going to stand for it any more'
It was like any other day for Alyssa Milano, the American activist and actor, until she started getting ready for bed. While reading a flurry of articles about Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein’s alleged sexual assaults, her phone went off.
It was her friend Charles Clymer, who sent her a screenshot. It read: “Suggested by a friend: if all the women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote ‘me too’ as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem.”
“I thought, you know what? This is an amazing way to get some idea of the magnitude of how big this problem is,” said Milano over the phone from Los Angeles. “It was also a way to get the focus off these horrible men and to put the focus back on the victims and survivors.”
Milano added a sentence to her friend’s message before posting it on Twitter: “If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted, write ‘me too’ as a reply to this tweet.”
And she sent it out.
Read more here.
SOURCE: The Guardian
RELATED PROGRAMMING
Truth and Consequences: #MeToo and the New Sexual Landscape | JUL 27
ARTICLE | The Woman Who Created #MeToo Long Before Hashtags
In 1997, Tarana Burke sat across from a 13-year-old girl who had been sexually abused. The young girl was explaining her experience, and it left Ms. Burke speechless. That moment is where the Me Too campaign was born.
“I didn’t have a response or a way to help her in that moment, and I couldn’t even say ‘me too,’ ” Ms. Burke said.
“It really bothered me, and it sat in my spirit for a long time,” she added.
Ten years after that conversation, Ms. Burke created Just Be Inc., a nonprofit organization that helps victims of sexual harassment and assault. She sought out the resources that she had not found readily available to her 10 years before and committed herself to being there for people who had been abused.
And she gave her movement a name: Me Too.
On October 15, 2017, those two words burst into the spotlight of social media with #metoo, a hashtag promoted by the actress Alyssa Milano. Amid the firestorm that ignited, some women of color noted pointedly that the longtime effort by Ms. Burke, who is black, had not received support over the years from prominent white feminists… more.
SOURCE: The New York Times
RELATED PROGRAMMING
Truth and Consequences: #MeToo and the New Sexual Landscape | JUL 27
BIOGRAPHY | Robert Schenkkan
Robert Schenkkan is a Pulitzer-prize winning, Tony Award-winning, Writer's Guild Award-winning, three-time Emmy nominated writer of Stage, Television, and Film. He is the author of fourteen original full-length plays (including WICA’s production of The Kentucky Cycle in 2010), two musicals, and a collection of one-act plays. He co-wrote the feature film, Hacksaw Ridge (six Academy Award nominations) and The Quiet American, and his television credits include: All the Way, The Pacific, The Andromeda Strain, and Spartacus.
Learn more about Robert Schenkkan here.
RELATED PROGRAMMING
The Investigation | August 24, 2019
ARTICLE | How Mark Rothko Unlocked the Emotional Power of Color
“The name Mark Rothko is synonymous with sensitive canvases that feature arrangements of rectangular panes in vivid hues. The artist was a skilled colorist. The great joy of experiencing his paintings is looking at how the colors, shapes, and backgrounds interact with one another, particularly around the edges. The soft, brushy borders that surround his color fields create one mood, while the sharper, straighter lines of the central forms elicit another. Alternate juxtapositions of similar or divergent tones—shades of deep blue against dark purple or bright red against brown—elicit disparate emotional responses. In employing a signature structure, Rothko found infinite variation.
Untitled (Red, Orange), 1968
Despite his devotion to this modern, abstract mode, Rothko derived significant inspiration from ancient, medieval, and Renaissance art and architecture. An erudite researcher, the artist transformed his scholarly understanding of art history into pared-down paintings. If they can at first feel opaque to the viewer searching for reference points, Rothko didn’t mind. “My pictures are indeed façades (as they have been called),” he once said. “Sometimes I open one door and one window or two doors and two windows. I do this only through shrewdness. There is more power in telling little than in telling all.” That mystery and complexity have given him one of the most enduring and esteemed reputations in 20th-century art…” more
SOURCE: Artsy