I Enjoy Misogynistic Media: Does That Make me a Bad Feminist?
When I was in high school, I went to see a local theatre’s production of The Pirates of Penzance. I have never wanted to walk out of a theatre more in my life. Everything was sexist to its core. The pirates were comedically assaulting women, a woman was belittled and humiliated for being old, and all of the young women were flirty and ditzy. It was foul. Two semesters ago, I took a History of Musical Theatre class. One of our assignments was to watch the Pirates of Penzance movie from the early 80s. I rolled my eyes the moment I read that on the syllabus. I couldn’t believe I was going to be forced to watch this outdated misogyny fest for a second time in my life. Begrudgingly, I watched that movie. I fell in love. So what changed between then and now? One major difference between that production and the movie was the acting. Kevin Kline as the Pirate King delivers one of the greatest comedic performances that I have ever seen. Rex Smith is a fantastic Frederic and Linda Ronstadt is ...