Posted on 02/07/2007 5:42:14 AM PST by Dutchgirl
ATLANTIC BEACH, Fla. -- A modified marquee in Atlantic Beach has been drawing some attention. "Hoohaa" replaced a word in the title of a play after a driver complained about finding the previous wording offensive.
The marquis for Atlantic Theaters advertises a number of plays including, the Masquerade Ball, Band Jam, and now The Hoohaa Monologues.
Some said hoohaa is a strange word and that its definition depends on its context, while others said it sounds like a country band.
However, it's not a band at all. In fact, most people know hoohah by a different name -- vagina.
"We got a complaint about this play The Vagina Monologues," said Bryce Pfanenstiel, of the Atlantic Theater.
The Hoohah Monologues is a replacement title for The Vagina Monologues -- a well-known play about that part of the female body.
"We decided we would just use child slang for it. That's how we decided on Hoohah Monologues," Pfanenstiel said.
They did this after a driver who saw it complained to the theater, saying she was upset that her niece saw it.
"I'm on the phone and asked 'What did you tell her?' She's like, 'I'm offended I had to answer the question,'" Pfanenstiel said.
Some parents said they applaud the title change.
The theater said they're trying not to offend anyone, but the publicity doesn't hurt.
"We hope people understand we're trying to do the right thing. But as far as doing it for attention, we're a comedy club, we do all kinds of shenanigans," Pfanenstiel said.
The play is being brought to the theater by a group of law school students and all of the proceeds are going to various charity organizations.
The director of the play said she was going ask the theater and comedy club to return the title back to its original name.
these attitudes are exactly why this play is so important. i doubt veronica, like most people who think it is so disgusting, have even seen it. how can honest dialogue about a body part shared by 51% of our population be so dangerous? and how can an abused child get help if she does not even know the proper names of her genitals? ignorance breeds shame breeds abuse. that is where the real vulgarity lives.
I think we've got one...
(side splitting laughter) This is too funny.
Ah hahahaha! I have to agree with you on that. I tell you, I almost fell off my chair as I listened to the story on Robin and Company. What is wrong with these people???
Do you offer the same defence to people who scrawl grafitti? The author of this tedious feminist rant intended to offend. The driver was offended. This isn't a medical treatise-it's an evening's entertainment. If the theater owner blew her off, it would be a non-story...but this is the South. We do things a little differently here. "Whorehouses" become "chicken ranches," "Titty Bars" become "Gentlemen's Clubs" and, occassionally, on large billboards near a few beach side schools-- "vaginas" become "hoo-has".
You've never seen the bumper sticker, "Hoohaa is for lovers"?
One of the saddest developments over the last 20-25 years has been the explosive emergence of sexual images and messages in the pop culture, which is breeding a generation of young girls who want to wear Prada when they are 11, and are anorexic by 14. How do parents protect their girls from the pressure to grow up too early, when "in your face" images sexual imagery and language becomes so prominent? It may be important for Eve Ensler to scream to the world about her vagina, but it's important to me and mine that we protect our little ones from having to grow up too fast and too soon.
I think it goes to the issue of "longing."
In a culture of immediate gratification, there is something about the story of the "spurned lover."Of "faithfulness" in the story of Hosea, that brings us back to a sense of ourselves.
In a few centuries before Christ, Hosea gave us the imagery of the "unworthy lover", of Gomer, who sold herself into prostitution but was bought back.
As in everything we do in this life, there is an " ideal", that we know that we can never measure up to--and yet, as unworthy as we are, the Archetype exists, innocence meeting innocence- Adam and Eve in Eden. The Innocent Christ, lending His innocence to us.
Eve hid from God in her sin, Eve Ensler is "in your face!
What an opportunity to talk to little ones about the dichotomy between who we are and who we were intended to be...between the people who hide from God, and the people who still seeek to walk with Him...
Never forget that God's goodness is greater than any evil man can devise.
One of the talk radio guys had a gal on that runs a group trying to get the Vagina Monologues off the campuses. Students that didn't think it was the right thing to having the school sponser tried to protest but had no power, so its slowly growing against the play. (Using student funds to sponser the play, etc.) And with regards to "free speech", lots of the classes have the play as required viewing with a report, discussion, etc. in class.
It was interesting that this gal was saying how the play (I haven't seen it or heard much about it) seemed to her to be against the feminist movement in that the entire source of "self" for a woman is her private part. Of course all the men in the play are molesters, rapists, or other types of perverts.
In one debate with the author (or someone with the play) the author said something like, "well that's not true, there is Harvey." The gal replied "Granted Harvey doesn't hurt anyone or anything, he just likes to spent hours at a time looking at a woman's private part. Which still seems fairly odd and perverted."
I agree.Eve Ensler wrote The Vagina Monologues as a means to empower women and to make everyone aware of the challenges females face today. If people who have vaginas are going to get offended by a medical term, then what the hell is this world coming to? Lighten up, Moms. Seriously.
Have you ever read the play? It's hardly intended to offend. In fact, it's the opposite.
Welcome to Free Republic.
Exactly my point. The culture has been dumbed down and grossed out.
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