"Scout, who is barely 6 at the start of the story, can use words in print that would make her instantly unsympathetic onstage. We also accept that a first-person portrait of a white child’s moral awakening to racism will primarily focus on how it affects the white people around her. But onstage, a work about racial injustice in which its principal black characters have no agency would be intolerable, so Mr. Sorkin makes a series of adjustments. With Scout’s point of view subordinated, we see Atticus through our own eyes instead of hers, making him the firm center of the story.... It’s what happens in the gap between the old and new storytelling styles, as Mr. Sorkin tries to kill two mockingbirds with one stone, that gives me pause. His play, with its emphasis on the trial, is about justice, and is thus a bright-line tragedy. The novel is about something much murkier: accommodation. Atticus — who was based to some extent on Lee’s father — despises racism as a form of incivility but insists that any man, even Bob Ewell, can be understood if you walk in his shoes or crawl around in his skin. It’s hardly a comedy but is nevertheless hopeful to the extent that it clears some space for a future. These are two worthy ideas, if contradictory. In light of racial injustice, accommodation seems to be a white luxury; in light of accommodation, justice seems hopelessly naïve."
From "Review: A Broadway ‘Mockingbird,’ Elegiac and Effective" (NYT).
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31 comments:
So much angst. Best be like the Shorewood superintendent and, after the kids out in all the work and on the eve of opening night, cancel the play and sing in Broadway voice “Lets call the whole thing off!”
"Little did he know" is a key phrase.
what's next? a musical based on Catcher in the Rye?
Why do we have to read bad books in high school?
Why, oh WHY do we ever have to think of them after
oh wait! i know; they could make a movie about the trials and tribulations faced by an attractive white girl in the 1960's that had to face The Horror of having black servants.
They could get Emma Stone to star in it
In the New York Times, we accept the worldview of the reviewer, however limited or objectionable.
I am Laslo.
Sounds like a dreary experience. Like a "conversation about race" but delivered from the stage rather than the front of the conference room.
Give me Oklahoma! anytime.
I am now even more worried about the new West Side Story.
-XC
I thought we were always supposed to believe the woman.
Trump’s election did indeed unleash a torrent of racism.
What the media gets wrong is it’s openly from the left and agsinst white people.
in light of accommodation, justice seems hopelessly naïve.
Therein lies the bargain proposed: in exchange for all your civil rights, there will finally be “justice”.
Perhaps off topic, but I have a problem with re-writing history to fit the currently fashion in political correctness.
F. ex. Ron Chernow's treatment of U.S. Grant's views and actions regarding race relations. On the one hand, I am glad he wrote about it, which must be a first, so kudos to Chernow; on the other hand he wrote about it very awkwardly, trying to fit 19th century Grant into early 21st century PC chatter, which is hardly fair to Grant. Nor can it be accurate as to his actual motivations, so it is bad history.
It's funny, they seem to have made the book into a movie without a whole lot of angst.
I'm mixed. On the one hand, the update makes sense. Accommodation as white luxury is a valid point of view. But what about Scout's racial awakening? Why isn't that worthy of preservation as the centre of the story?
in light of accommodation, justice seems hopelessly naïve.
I don't understand this line. Why does one have to have anything to do with the other?
How about a Saturday morning cartoon in which Scout can transform into a super hero called Mockingbird who fights racists and what not?
New version of classic story = white people bad, black folk good. Got it. Now I don't need to see this play and be bludgeoned by this 'moral argument' for two hours! I'm already woke!
It's a story about a woman who lies about rape, so let's blather about racism in this time of the #metoo fad.
If you see "Sorkin," keep walking.
Biotrekker, I was about to say how things have changed in 60 years from uplifting blacks to tearing down whites.
“How about a Saturday morning cartoon in which Scout can transform into a super hero called Mockingbird who fights racists and what not?”
And blows them all away, in a Tarantino-like maelstrom of violence. They could call it Django Unchanged. The kids would love it.
Perhaps some books should be left as books and not run through the spin cycle of multiple optional ways that other authors would have done it. TKAM tells many stories- about the time, the place, and the people. It is complete as is. It does not require a re-write to fit the times. Does not require Sorkin's snappy ripostes. With today's Manhattanites, everything needs to be viewed as if it's the next episode of Law and Order, SJW.
Sometimes you can't fit a square peg into a round hole.
I have an idea for Hollywood and New York- there are other writers out there with new and creative ideas. Why not give them a try? Plays based on books or movies. Movies based on comic books? Is there an original script out there?
"And blows them all away, in a Tarantino-like maelstrom of violence."
At the end of each episode, after Mockingbird has triumphed over x racist, her dad Atticus will say, "Wait! In a free society, we accept that others will have a different world view, however limited or objectionable. We can draw bright lines about what people may or may not do, but not for who and what they are. For that we make some accommodation in order not to do even greater wrongs. None of us are angels, Scout. I think he's learned his lesson."
Mockingbird will say, "Not good enough." then savagely beat and humiliate x racist before fly him to a remote, barren planet far from the sun that only she knows about, where he will suffer in an agony of regret forever.
The last lines are telling. Why would accommodation (i.e., tolerance and outreach) preclude justice? These are only contradictory if your idea of justice is the final abolition of certain ideas and attitudes.
That is the sort of thing Sowell termed "cosmic justice" and it can never be achieved without authoritarian oppression; and in fact, not even with it. We can and should exert social pressure and try to persuade people not to be racist, but this both requires "accommodation" in the approach, and is bound to work somewhat less than 100 percent of the time.
Justice can be achieved simply by addressing wrongs that occur. In that model, Atticus is a successful hero. In the other model, he's a tragic hero doomed to fail since he cannot change the attitudes of the Ewells and others like them. Anyone who equates justice with racists no longer existing is in a pickle. At some point the choice will come down to tolerating them, or murdering them. Angst is the sign of someone headed down the second path and in denial about it.
F. ex. Ron Chernow's treatment of U.S. Grant's views and actions regarding race relations.
I freak my students out every year by having them read Lincoln's statements on race and slavery. Some of them actually cry.
“In light of racial injustice, accommodation seems to be a white luxury; in light of accommodation, justice seems hopelessly naïve."
God, these people are moronic, history-less, shitheads. Accommodation precedes justice, every single time. The people that carved out this space would be horrified by the people that occupy it. But that’s probably an every single time Truth O’ History as well.
Lincoln was a politician speaking to his contemporaries.
Grant was a general and did not have to have "views" in that regard or act on them, but he did. Why? Discussing it in 21st century terms is not helpful.
By contrast, in his biography of Washington, Chernow just straightforwardly relates a couple of instances of Washington arguing with his runaway slaves - and losing the arguments.
Much more illuminating without the 21st century commentary.
So, Sorkin turns the Novel into a play that says:
racism = bad.
Sounds cutting edge.
Liberals will lap it up.
"On the one hand, I am glad he wrote about it, which must be a first, so kudos to Chernow"
And if Chernow wrote about Grant's bathroom habits, that would a "First" also.
I'm not interested in Grant's personal "racial views" since his views as expressed in his public actions were completely unremarkable and irrelevant.
"a work about racial injustice in which its principal black characters have no agency would be intolerable" -- to a prog.
Shouldn't that be "feeds to mockingbirds with one scone"?
Color is a low information attribute. Yet diversity persists as a progressive criterion.
Individual dignity. Intrinsic value. Perhaps inordinate worth. Natural order. Go forth and reconcile.
a work about [color] injustice in which its principal [female] characters have no agency would be intolerable
Pro-Choice/selective-child or two choices too late.
"Elegiac" is a reviewer word, like "haunting" or "lyrical."
I think they're supposed to sound like compliments. It's more accurate to take them as warnings.
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