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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

WIBU to suggest this (acting - same sex relationship)?

85 replies

manicinsomniac · 09/12/2012 19:03

I've just been in a meeting to cast our school play.

Only 15 boys auditioned this year and only 5 of them are good enough to be anything beyond chorus. So we have changed a lot of the parts into girls. Eventually we only had one problem left - a massive male part who is in love with a minor female part. And no boy left who can handle the role.

Reluctantly, my co director said we'd have to change the large part into a female character and cut the love plot. I then said "unless we make them lesbians?" Cue massive amounts of laughter. I said "I was only half joking? Why couldn't we?"

Colleagues said head and parents would be horrified and absolutely no way could we do that. Totally inappropriate. Conversation moved on and all is sorted and cast now.

But now I'm thinking - is there any real reason why a school musical couldn't reasonably portray a same sex relationship. Is it really so inappropriate? Would you be unhappy with this as parents of the cast? (children are Y6 - Y8).

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FreyaFridays · 09/12/2012 19:21

Ah, then if it's just Beauty and the Beast with a bit of flirting/banter/no "proper" love scenes, then I think it's hardly worth trying something which could be perceived as "controversial". It wouldn't come across as too powerful a move, performed by 10 to 12-year-olds. People would just think you were doing Panto-esque casting, where actors play the opposite sex, without quite the right cross-dressing costumes. I think it would have been a smart move if the kids were four or five years older, and it was something like Grease with a gay Frenchy/Doody storyline.

Original poster

manicinsomniac · 09/12/2012 19:21

catgirl - we're not doing the household objects thing,the children thought it would be 'lame' - they're all under a Venetian masked enchantment in ours.
And the Beast is a boy.

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Lesbeadiva · 09/12/2012 19:22

I don't think it's inappropriate. If they faced ridicule because of it, then the school need of step up and sort out their issues. I think every school needs www.ellybarnes.com/

Heteronormtive is just that. It's "normal" being gay shouldn't be laughed at and should be represented.

However I think the school , or any school should look at focusing on education of pupils first. Then any gay character will be seen as normal too. I don't think it would help to jump in at the deep end first.

So it's not inappropriate at all, but I don't think it would be the best way forward in the first instance iykwim.

Btw the age of the children should not be an issue either. When is it "ok" to show that being gay is normal? The younger the better. I played many straight roles in school plays, maybe my parents should have been "outraged"

Original poster

manicinsomniac · 09/12/2012 19:23

Itsaboatjack - we're a long way from anything approaching diverse - home counties rural boarding school!!

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catgirl1976geesealaying · 09/12/2012 19:23

Ahhhhh ok

thebody · 09/12/2012 19:24

And just adding totally get poster talking about the boys 'not being good enough' why don't you give them some acting training instead of concentrating on the girls so much.

catgirl1976geesealaying · 09/12/2012 19:24

Could you not just have a girl playing a boy though?

Does that make any sense? I'm wrestling a tantrumy DS so I'm not sure I'm making sense

Original poster

manicinsomniac · 09/12/2012 19:32

thebody - with only 8 weeks to put on a show it just wouldn't happen in time. If it was just the acting then maybe but I don't think you can teach someone to sing well in that short a time. we have our main 3 boys, 2 very good boy actors in non singing roles (had to split the prince and the beast into separate people to achieve that) and some improving boys in middling-minor roles so I don't think we've done that badly with including the boys. When you have 45 girls audition and only 15 boys, there's only so much you can do! The major talents are evently split between boys and girls but, for this show, we only really needed 2 female stars and 7 male stars which we just didn't have. So now it's 5 boys and 4 girls. Fairly even. The choruses on the other hand are terribly girl heavy but we can't help that! And the backstage crew is the opposite - only 1 girl. A bit sterotypical but you have to work with what you get.

catgirl It does make sense and I think it would have been fine. My colleagues disagreed (well 3 out of 4 did) and said it would look very amateur to do that in a co-ed school.Personally I'd say a school is pretty amateur but never mind!

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OutragedFromLeeds · 09/12/2012 19:32

Is it a drama school?

If not, then I think the unreasonable bit is the preoccupation about 10 year olds not being cast because they can't sing/act. What is the audience expecting?! I went to DC3's nativity play last week, none of them could sing or act as far as I could see, but they enjoyed performing it and the parents enjoyed watching.

Original poster

manicinsomniac · 09/12/2012 19:41

It's not a drama school, no - but this production is always done to a very high standard (professional sets, costumes, light and sound systems, radio mics, pit band etc) We don't exclude any child who wants to be in it completely but we wouldn't cast a child who wasn't at least moderately talented in an important part. The audience expects a LOT (it's not just an audience of parents) And only one (exceptional) 10 year old has got a part, they're all in the chorus. The main parts are for the seniors.

Each year group has a play just for their year group every year with a smaller budget that is non audition and uses all the children (even those who don't really want to do it!) Those plays are the ones where we are more likely to experiment and give unlikely children major roles.

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AcidTurkishBath · 09/12/2012 19:58

Why is there an age where acting gay is acceptable? Unless it's a repressed church school, there presumably is a school policy against homophobic bullying, in which case bullying isn't a reason to avoid it. I think, in fact, that it would make more of a point to the pupils if it was just included as a minor role rather than drawing attention to it. I expect (hope) that you would be surprised by the lack of response. For one thing, most of them wouldn't notice or would just think it was done in the pantomime tradition of casting or wouldn't associate the flirting with it being a separate love theme.

QuacksForDoughnuts · 09/12/2012 20:03

Playing a lesbian never did Anna Friel any harm

SomeTiggyPudding · 09/12/2012 20:06

I don't see why you can't have a same sex couple. There might be same sex parents at the school. There might be gay teachers. There might be books with gay relationships in. 1 in 10 of the children will be LBGT when they express a preference. Why not portray gay/lesbian relationship as everyday normal life stuff.

But if you view being gay as a weird or unpleasant thing that children need to be shielded from, don't do it.

IfNotNowThenWhen · 09/12/2012 20:19

I was just coming on to basically say what Tiggy said.
There will be some lesbian/gay parents and teachers AND pupils in the school.
So why not?
I don't see why, if they are not too young to portray straight relationships, they are too young to portray gay ones.
Any normalising of gay-ness to children is a good thing. It means that the children who grow up gay will have, at least, some inkling that they are not freaks.

IfNotNowThenWhen · 09/12/2012 20:21

And it's not about being "right on".
People of all walks of life are gay-fact. Not just lentil weavers.

Bilbobagginstummy · 09/12/2012 20:24

Surely it's better to have a girl playing a boy than any of the other solutions. It's not an unusual idea.

HollyBerryBush · 09/12/2012 20:26

may I take you right back to your opening post?

Reluctantly, my co director said we'd have to change the large part into a female character and cut the love plot. I then said "unless we make them lesbians?"

So you aave male/female love interest, but none of the boys can handle being female, yet you want to recreate the whole play into a lesbian relationship? Well I find that quite disparaging - why can't the boy have a male homosexual relationship? or would the rest of the school absolutely laugh at them for ever more.

really? a teacher? you want to mould children into a multiple sexual understanding before they have found their own sexual identity?

You shouldnt be allowed near children, much less pushing your own values teaching them

Alliwantisaroomsomewhere · 09/12/2012 20:26

I'm with Laurie on this one.

Original poster

manicinsomniac · 09/12/2012 20:27

I agree Tiggy and If Not (except we don't have any lesbian/gay parents or teachers and our children are (probably?) too young to know their sexuality but your point still stands)

But I think that if, even on mn which is very liberal, there are lots of people who disagree with it, then not far off 100% of our v conservative parent and teacher body would.

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Original poster

manicinsomniac · 09/12/2012 20:31

holly I'm sorry, I might be being dense, but I don't understand your post. We only had 5 boys who could handle big parts at all and are were 7 large male parts in the play. which male characters did you want to have a gay relationship (not being snipy, I really don't get it!) And it isn't the whole play, just a minor subplot.

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44SoStartingOver · 09/12/2012 20:32

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

thebody · 09/12/2012 20:34

Think the op sounds a super teacher to put this much thought and effort into this play and I hope it goes well. I am a TA and the reception nativity is quite enough for me thanks....

Obviously it's completely fine for consenting adults to do whatever they like to each other and kids of course need to he taught that being gay, straight or a life long virgin is fine but think that any sexual portrayal isn't really appropriate for children in years 6 to 8..

RiaUnderTheMistletoe · 09/12/2012 20:38

It must be awful for the pupils who suspect/know they're gay to learn that the very idea of a same-sex relationship is laughable :(

IfNotNowThenWhen · 09/12/2012 20:39

But ANY portrayal of, say, a married couple in a play IS a sexual portrayal: It is showing a "normal" relationship.
I don't see why a gay pairing is any more "sexual" than that.
And OP-you probably do have lesbian and gay parents and teachers. It would be very weird, statistically if you didn't.

Original poster

manicinsomniac · 09/12/2012 20:50

^^
okay, true. No lesbian/gay couples as parents or teachers then. Maybe some single or closeted, I couldn't know about that.

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