The BBC reported this story about how a Florida comedy theatre has renamed The Vagina Monologues as The Hoohah Monologues in order to avoid causing offence, after receiving a single complaint on the subject.
I was actually quite incensed by this needless censorship, so I sent an email to the theatre:
I was actually quite incensed by this needless censorship, so I sent an email to the theatre:
To: info@atlantictheatres.com
From: Ashley Frieze
Hi there,
The news of your renaming of "The Vagina Monologues" has gone global, reported in blogs around the world and even on the BBC News website here in the UK. I understand that you don't want to offend anyone, but I wonder what it means when you decide, on the basis of individual complaints (I read that it was a single complaint) that the medical term for the woman's reproductive organ is an offensive word. In fact, doesn't it defy the whole point of providing theatre space to a piece empowering women to talk about their bodies when you censor the title?
The word vagina is not rude and I would recommend that you stop pussyfooting around individuals, whose sensibilities cannot possibly be worth you abandoning logic for.
By the way, despite the androgynous name, I am a man. Even I can see this sort of censorship as
repression of female expression. Please don't allow the puritans to make a hoohah and determine your policy.
Good luck with your future productions.
Ashley Frieze
I'll admit that I couldn't quite resist a couple of puns in the letter, but I still meant what I wrote.
From: Ashley Frieze
Hi there,
The news of your renaming of "The Vagina Monologues" has gone global, reported in blogs around the world and even on the BBC News website here in the UK. I understand that you don't want to offend anyone, but I wonder what it means when you decide, on the basis of individual complaints (I read that it was a single complaint) that the medical term for the woman's reproductive organ is an offensive word. In fact, doesn't it defy the whole point of providing theatre space to a piece empowering women to talk about their bodies when you censor the title?
The word vagina is not rude and I would recommend that you stop pussyfooting around individuals, whose sensibilities cannot possibly be worth you abandoning logic for.
By the way, despite the androgynous name, I am a man. Even I can see this sort of censorship as
repression of female expression. Please don't allow the puritans to make a hoohah and determine your policy.
Good luck with your future productions.
Ashley Frieze
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