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

[manicinsomniac]

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).

Manic - my daughter is coping very well at school thanks to her friends who are very supportive and deflect a lot of the stupid comments and rumours that circulate about her all the time - latest one: that she watches lesbian porn.
The school does not know as she refuses to let me talk to her tutor and I won't do it without her permission.
I have other children at the school and through them I know of at least four other pupils who are out to their schoolmates. Again, they manage to cope with the comments and nastiness of a small minority because they all have a good support network of friends. Does the school know about any of them? I doubt it. Has the school ever done any work on homophobic bullying? Not to my knowledge. They bury their heads in the sand, as evidenced by the reactions of your colleagues to your perfectly reasonable suggestion, and convince themselves that it is 'not an issue'. LGBT schoolkids may not be an 'issue' but they are part of every school, as the children themselves are perfectly well aware, and deserve to be represented on equal terms.

I'm glad she is doing well, her friends sound great.

Haven't read all the posts, but it really saddens me that lesbian characters in a play is automatically seen as "inappropriate". The only reason for it is homophobia. It's such a pervasive attitude: gay couples holding hands are accused of 'flaunting their sexuality', people arguing that same-sex kisses shouldn't be shown before the watershed, there was the awful section 28 that banned 'promotion of homosexuality' and hence stopped teachers supporting gay pupils.

I can see people's point about the kids being teased, and sadly that would have to be considered, but it doesn't seem like this is what the colleagues were thinking about.

A couple of kids in each class are going to grow up to be gay or bi, a few may already know they are: seeing gay relationships normalised in schools would make their teenage years so much less difficult.

Themumsnot: It's wonderful that your daughter has come out in year 8, what a brave kid. You must have done a great job to make her feel safe to come out so young. Me and my friends all waited till we'd left home to tell our parents.

Eric, Holly, acting in school plays frequently involves children ACTING all sorts of things they won't be committing to in RL. Why on earth shouldn't / couldn't they ACT being in love with someone of the same sex? They will in any case be ACTING being in love with someone they are not actually in love with.

But why on earth has the play been chosen if you haven't got kids for the parts? see who your willing, capable actors are and then find something that fits. (Next time) surely the whole point of a school play is to support and develop the kids with a flair for acting? So start with your keen and capable actors!

Unfortunately, there is a danger that amongst certain groups of kids creating a same sex love interest could actually expose a young person with emerging awareness of their sexuality as gay to being witness to loads of stupidity, making it all the harder to be confident in themselves and contemplate coming out. The school would need a very strong framework to make sure that it was treated sensibly. And given that they would be unlikely to have 100% parental support it could be risky. It there in the bloody old real world.

But the idea that there is a particular age at which they can navigate a gay relationship in a play, that is a different age from a straight relationship is . If they are too young for that maybe they are too young for love scenes full stop.

I think that pubescent children generally know pretty much by that time if they are interested in boys or girls. Obviously it can be a bit confused at that age (like everything else) but i knew at 12 that I wanted Craig Jones to notice me and dance with me at the school disco. If I had felt that way about Karen Jones, I think I would have known it then too.
Adults tend to panic about children thinking about sexuality, but we don't just emerge fully formed at 16. Growing up is a slow process; one that kids tend to work out amongst themselves, but straight kids have it so much easier in that they live in a world surrounded by "normal" straight relationships.
Homosexuality is so often still seen as perverted, predatory and somehow more sexualised, and it would benefit young people to grow up knowing that a proportion of people will be gay, and that's normal.

Just irrespective of the gay issue here.

I don't understand why 2 people of the same sex can't play opposites, why would they have to be gay?

In panto its acceptable without making a gay issue out of it.

Just flicked through so may have missed it, but couldn't one of the girls play a male part instead of changing the whole thing to be a female role, a la Shakespearean days and men playing women? I do see that your colleagues seem to think cross-dressing is naff, but if you haven't got the actors you have to make do with what you have surely?

Like others I'd be thoroughly impressed by a school for portraying a lesbian relationship in a play, however I also don't think that many others would be.