Saturday, June 11, 2011

politics vs. theatre

Well I had this big review of ARCADIA that I wanted to write, but instead I've spent this evening arguing with Lindsay Beyerstein on Facebook about Anthony Weiner. There is this constant refrain among some liberals that the main problem with the Anthony Weiner situation is that Americans are a bunch of puritans.

I believe this is the line the French are using to defend Dominique Strauss-Kahn - not just the rape allegation but his reputation as a serial harasser. It's also the term that Hollywood people used to defend Roman Polanski. And also, on Facebook, Barbara Ehrenreich said that the Bloomberg-promoted ban on smoking in NYC parks was mainly about puritanism.

Now, we live in a world in which you can get virtually any kind of porn, online, through a 2-second Google search. And almost nobody even talks about it. Puritanism sure has evolved quite a bit since the 1600s.

I will have more to say about this later. But now, back to the thee-aye-tah!