"Why don't you just go to Massachusetts and go to school?"
September 9, 2013 5:20 AM Subscribe
Ask A Slave is a new web series based on actor Azie Mira Dungey's experiences portraying enslaved women at Mount Vernon. Six episodes are planned; three are up now on the site and YouTube.
It's been interesting to follow some of the ripples of this through the history world and beyond. On the National Council for Public History blog, a scholar argues that it's taken off not because of "the public’s occasional fascination with the medium of costumed first person interpretation" but because it's a "front-line fantasy" revealing the constraints of emotional labor. Maya K. Francis sympathizes with the intentions, but says "I have trouble imagining an application of carelessness dressed as “satire” with regard to other human rights atrocities such as WWII Japanese interment, the Trail of Tears, or the Holocaust (although, of course, there was Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds)" (though, as a museum practitioner, I can definitely attest that there are jokes and stories like those depicted in Act a Slave shared by those who work in those settings. The same kinds of black humor you find in other occupations accompanies the sometimes stressful work of presenting some of the darkest material in history). A Slate piece incorporated an interview with Dungey and talked more broadly about issues raised by the first-person interpretation of difficult history:
And though Jezebel's story is just the basic outlines, a very substantive and interesting conversation is going on in the comments.
It's been interesting to follow some of the ripples of this through the history world and beyond. On the National Council for Public History blog, a scholar argues that it's taken off not because of "the public’s occasional fascination with the medium of costumed first person interpretation" but because it's a "front-line fantasy" revealing the constraints of emotional labor. Maya K. Francis sympathizes with the intentions, but says "I have trouble imagining an application of carelessness dressed as “satire” with regard to other human rights atrocities such as WWII Japanese interment, the Trail of Tears, or the Holocaust (although, of course, there was Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds)" (though, as a museum practitioner, I can definitely attest that there are jokes and stories like those depicted in Act a Slave shared by those who work in those settings. The same kinds of black humor you find in other occupations accompanies the sometimes stressful work of presenting some of the darkest material in history). A Slate piece incorporated an interview with Dungey and talked more broadly about issues raised by the first-person interpretation of difficult history:
Dungey began to distinguish between lost causes and those who were really willing to learn, a useful skill for educational theater. But some forms of educational theater are easier to implement than others. Dungey also worked in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History on Join the Student Sit-Ins, an interactive theater program that encouraged audience members to participate in staged sit-in meetings, which civil rights activists used to prepare for the real thing. She has positive memories from that gig. One white man in attendance admitted to her, crying, that he had been one of the people who harassed sit-in protesters, and while he had since felt horrible about it, this performance had finally shown him the true nature of his actions.
And though Jezebel's story is just the basic outlines, a very substantive and interesting conversation is going on in the comments.
This post was deleted for the following reason: Double. -- taz
I actually did check the URL, but since the first post linked only to the YouTube episodes directly it didn't turn up.
posted by Miko at 5:28 AM on September 9, 2013
posted by Miko at 5:28 AM on September 9, 2013
« Older A Niche at the Edge of the Crop Circle | Around Manhattan in 24 minutes Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by pxe2000 at 5:24 AM on September 9, 2013