Popular Culture Review Vol. 2, No. 2, July 1991 | Page 42
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The Popular Culture Review
their very opposition to men. A more important task,
I believe, is for feminists to explore in greater depth
our own pleasure in watching traditional Hollywood
film s.(21)
I would argue that Arbuthnot's comment has important
ramifications (and implications beyond the circle of feminism) for the
theatre. First, there is an implicit acknowledgement in the above
quotation that, whatever the effects of the cinematic avant-garde ,
the dominant cinema will always be the main point of interaction
with the art form for most women. The same could be said of the
theatre, and it would better behove critics like Keyssar to follow
Arbuthnot's advice than to merely attack the commercial theatre in
an unfocused manner. That is to say, there seems more point in
considering how audiences interact with a commercial play than
attacking it simply on the grounds that its popular success, and
commercial sector production, somehow necessitate ideological
compromise.
With apologies to Aubuthnot, it also seems that her argument
can be extended beyond feminism. If the feminist avant-garde is
making films that men rarely watch, then the theatrical avant garde
is making plays that women and men rarely watch. If avant-garde
feminist films perpetuate a male-centered view of art-making in
their very opposition to men, then the theatrical avant-garde
perpetuates an elitist, class-centered view of art-making in its very
opposition to the dominant theatre. It is a more important task to
explore how dominant theatre creates pleasure, how its ideological
base can be extended, and how it can be made to attract more diverse
groups of people.
In short, feminist theatrical criticism has seemingly not
progressed beyond wholesale support of the avant-garde, and the
negation of the commercial theatre as being hopelessly patriarchal
and generally negative. Film theory, on the other hand, seems much
more open to notions of ambiguity, the possibility of readings against
the grain, and the importance of the audience in the production of
meaning. For the theatre, the main lesson from feminist film theory
is the importance of the recognition of why dominant forms of drama
have the popularity that they do and an understanding of the
absurdity of critiquing dominant or avant-garde theatre without