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Social Justice Through Performance Art

Social Justice Through Performance Art

The theories of Bertolt Brecht on theater favored alienation and shock over mere pleasure as a means of cultivating among viewers appropriate social views and behavior. As Kellner (2004) relates, ôBrecht sought to illuminate the historically specific features of an environment in order to show how that environment influence, and often battered and destroyed the charactersö (4). The shocking poster art of Guerilla Girls features a naked woman wearing a gorilla mask that features the text: ôDo women have to be naked to get into the Metropolitan Museum of Art?ö (Poremba 2004, 1). The poster is a reaction to the fact that less than 5 percent of the artists in the museum are women, but 85 percent of the nudes are of women.

Such views as BrechtÆs and the womenÆs behind Guerilla Girls are meant to alienate the viewer by breaking through the conscious mindset that perpetuates social injustice. In devising a performance piece to address a problem in an upper class community, I advocate putting on a play entitled Camels and Needles. The play will be set in a jail cell that is populated by wealthy corporate executives like Kenneth Lay, Dennis Kozlowski, Martha Stewart, John Rigas, and Bernard Ebbers. All of these corporate executives have been charged with criminal activity aimed at increasing their own wealth, often at the expense of stockholders. Outside the jail cell I would have a street scene that is populated by a group of homeless people in camel suits. The homeless camels in need of food, water, and shelter are meant to refer to the BibleÆs admonition that it is easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for a wealthy individual to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

As one literary critic says of Brecht, ôHis theater of alienation intended to motivate the viewer to thinkö (Brecht 2004, 1). While the Bible does not condemn wealth or the wealthy outright, it does co...

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Social Justice Through Performance Art. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 05:01, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1710045.html