Popular Culture Review Vol. 2, No. 2, July 1991 | Page 42

34 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