ctorres23 said: “If we repeat it, then we're worse than JRB, because we're giving this joke a larger platform despite knowing it's tasteless.“
Don’t worry. We won’t shoot the messenger. Think of it as journalistic reporting. If JRB thought it was okay to post it, his fans (me included) should be allowed to read it to form their own opinions.
Let it go, and the only person giving JRB a bigger platform for this joke was the OP. Let's stop creating threads based on Twitter, shall we? It's very pedestrian.
This relates to the previous posts about Parade...
I saw a production of Cabaret right after an antisemitic hate crime had made national headlines. The actors who wore swastikas during the show tore them off during the curtain call, and the audience cheered. I thought this was a mature and dignified way to deal with the sensitive/upsetting issues, and to make a statement about the imagery used in the show and its connection to modern times. It’s a shame the Pittsburgh students/university could not work something out, because despite the flaws the students mentioned, Parade is a powerful and resonant story about bigotry, mob mentality, and love (the love between Leo and his wife). I have seen it a few times, and each time when Leo is killed at the end, I wished I could run up on stage and safe his life from the ignorance, violence, and hate. I will never forget that moment. It affected and changed me, even though it was make-believe. That is art, that is what theatre can do, and I worry when we begin to deprive others of such a powerful moment/connection in the theatre simply because it is unpleasant/uncomfortable.
Back in the 1980s I saw a college production ofCabaret that had an after the show talkback. One older woman got up and said, how dare you do a musical that’s anti-Semitic. Without missing a beat the director said, I hate to tell you this dear but Hitler was anti-semetic.