Hello! This post is all about a conversation I had with someone that is on my drama course at uni who was very upset about something that happened the other day and it made me think about how in today's society, people tend to voice their opinions more freely without thinking about how it affects others.
In my drama course, we have the opportunity to go to a screening session where we can watch recordings of past theatre shows or films that are relevant to our current modules to inspire us and aid our learning. Yesterday, we watched a piece by a physical theatre company, DV8 called, 'Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men' which was all about homosexual murder and necrophilia (check out http://www.dv8.co.uk/home/review_the_financial_times_dead_dreams for more information about this piece). The piece was very bold and featured nudity and movements suggesting sexual acts.
The result of this shocked many people on my course who had not seen anything like it before (I had seen DV8's work before so I knew what to expect) and therefore voiced their opinions about how they felt about seeing two men together and called it 'disgusting' and many of the guys in the room said that they would prefer seeing two women together. However, they did not think about how it affected other people in the room, particularly my friend who is gay who may now feels as if he sexuality isn't accepted. But really, what difference does it make if what we were watching was featuring a male and female showing affection, to two females and then two males? Why is a man and women together more accepted in society? Love is love right?
This made me think more about not only how society perceives gay people and the use of the word 'gay' as an adjective for something negative, but also about how we voice our opinions. Maybe we need to be more sensitive when we voice our opinions and think more about how people around us perceive it. With social media being so popular in today's society, it is so easy to voice a bold opinion because you feel protected by a screen and don't have to say it to anyone's face, however perhaps we need to think more about how other's may see it.
I'm not saying we shouldn't voice our opinions, I'm voicing mine right now! But something are better left unsaid. Those guys in my drama class didn't think about how their opinions affected those around them. Yes, they may not have liked watching two men show their attraction to one another, but they didn't have to express it in such a vocal and defensive manner, particularly with one of their friends, who is gay, sitting right by them. If anything, they really should have been looking at the amazing way DV8 uses physical theatre to communicate different themes and how they could interpret this in their own drama pieces.
That is all!
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