Rufus Hound in panto

[Hdhdjejdj]

I saw on twitter that Rufus Hound has been attacked on twitter because of his part as Abanazar in Aladdin. He says that he applied eyeliner for the promotional poster in order to portray the fact he is the baddie, and that’s traditional in panto. He has been accused of ‘yellow face’ which he denies. What’s interesting is that there is no mention of the dames in the panto and one of the most vocal people ‘calling him out’ on twitter is himself a drag queen.

Yes, I just looked this up and saw that one of the leading tweeters on this is a drag queen! Talk about hypocrisy!

I love a panto. But if you give it an iota of thought, they're problematic on so many levels.
The entertainment works if you suspend usual belief/value systems and just accept it for what it is. Someone has already said - they're a bit naughty and subversive but dressed up as comedy and you are invited to laugh along. I think it's a very old and very English form of humour. The dame as played for laughs by a male actor is nonetheless pretty misogynistic, however funny it is.

Surely Aladdin is one of Scheherezade's stories and so from the One Thousand and One Nights and so a Middle Eastern Folk Tale? Like Sindbad and Ali Baba.

No?

That isn’t missing the point at all @NewMutiny

Some aspects of drag or individual drag artists I find unpleasant, but pantomime dames don't bother me. It does annoy me that they've kept the dames but mostly got rid of the principal boy. Not only is that fewer roles for women but the woman got to play the clever, plucky hero of the piece and counterbalanced the man playing the shrewish, comical dame. Bring back the principal boy!

Isn't it also interesting that the theatre world is at forefront of performative wokeness but, when it comes to it, just cares about making money? They bang on about the cross-dressing aspect of panto being subversive but get rid of the principal boy because they've already cast an attractive, young female star as the princess and they know it will be more commercial to attract a soap hunk or ex-boybander in the lead male role. They've probably run workshops on toxic whiteness or fragile white tears or whatever, but they cast a white actor in a Chinese (via Arabia) role because it's about getting a household name and selling seats.

@Hdhdjejdj

That isn’t missing the point at all *@NewMutiny*

I am fully expecting to be directed to Pedants' Corner

Or possibly Wrong People's Corner...

I think that in the days of the Arabian Nights they just used "in China" to mean "a very long way away in a mysterious land" which is why it's such a strange hodge podge. It's not actually from the original 1001 Nights, it was inserted in from another Arabic source by a French translator.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aladdin

The British panto version of the story goes big on the Chinese element, probably because it gave the Edwardians additional opportunities for exotic costumes and jokes about Chinese names in a way that ranges between somewhat problematic to indisputably horribly offensive. but the Disney version tidied it up by relocating the story back to a Middle Eastern city. Hence Americans just know it as an Arabian story whilst most Brits simultaneously know the Chinese and Arabian settings without ever consciously clocking that something strange is going on. I read up on it when DC were tiny because I found myself reading them the 1001 Nights version from a storybook and not understanding where it was actually set.

Which is a major digression but actually explains why Mr Hound got into such a mess. He did "evil eyeliner" and because he hasn't started rehearsals yet he didn't realise that his character, Abanazer the Grand Vizir, is actually meant to be Chinese, and hence his eyeliner made him look like a racist stereotype.

I had no idea it was supposed to be Chinese? Every day's a school day!

@EsmaCannonball

Some aspects of drag or individual drag artists I find unpleasant, but pantomime dames don't bother me. It does annoy me that they've kept the dames but mostly got rid of the principal boy. Not only is that fewer roles for women but the woman got to play the clever, plucky hero of the piece and counterbalanced the man playing the shrewish, comical dame. Bring back the principal boy!

Isn't it also interesting that the theatre world is at forefront of performative wokeness but, when it comes to it, just cares about making money? They bang on about the cross-dressing aspect of panto being subversive but get rid of the principal boy because they've already cast an attractive, young female star as the princess and they know it will be more commercial to attract a soap hunk or ex-boybander in the lead male role. They've probably run workshops on toxic whiteness or fragile white tears or whatever, but they cast a white actor in a Chinese (via Arabia) role because it's about getting a household name and selling seats.

I love the principle boy concept, because not only does it emphasis the topsy-turvey element, I think it's quite funny that the dame is so obviously a man pretending to be a woman, but the young woman playing the male lead can pass as a teen idol type pretty well.

It's all about different kinds of opposites, things looking one way but being another, or saying they are one thing when they obviously aren't.

It's a very British kind of humour that you see in other places like Monty Python, or even P.G. Wodehouse.

The exotic elements that also aren't PC now are sometimes part of that, but also often originate from a time in the not really so distant past when travel and access to other places was much more limited for most people.Often they weren't ever intended to be realistic.

It does annoy me that they've kept the dames but mostly got rid of the principal boy. Not only is that fewer roles for women but the woman got to play the clever, plucky hero of the piece and counterbalanced the man playing the shrewish, comical dame. Bring back the principal boy!

Totally agree and many traditional pantomime dames would agree. One said to me once that he thought the Dame and the Boy balanced things out in terms of the weirdness of cross-dressing.

Hence Americans just know it as an Arabian story whilst most Brits simultaneously know the Chinese and Arabian settings without ever consciously clocking that something strange is going on

Oh my god, I have just realised this is so true!

Which is a major digression but actually explains why Mr Hound got into such a mess. He did "evil eyeliner" and because he hasn't started rehearsals yet he didn't realise that his character, Abanazer the Grand Vizir, is actually meant to be Chinese, and hence his eyeliner made him look like a racist stereotype.

The eyeliner just wings out on him though? Is winged eyeliner racist?! I don't mean that in a 'gawd you can't do anything now, it's PC gorn mad' way, it's a genuine question as I've never heard this before?

Interesting point about the topsy turvy element. I saw The Mikado recently and this is performed with no costume or make-up references to Japan. I think there is a nervousness about this particular production. However it is such a clear example of the comedy/satire of the age. As such it is part of our National culture. Should the want to preserve this trump the possibility of causing offence?

The eyeliner just wings out on him though? Is winged eyeliner racist?! I don't mean that in a 'gawd you can't do anything now, it's PC gorn mad' way, it's a genuine question as I've never heard this before?

Same, I've never made the connection either.

@BraveBananaBadge

The eyeliner just wings out on him though? Is winged eyeliner racist?! I don't mean that in a 'gawd you can't do anything now, it's PC gorn mad' way, it's a genuine question as I've never heard this before?

Same, I've never made the connection either.

I wear a lot of eyeliner

When i went to india many years ago the two lads we met commented on the fact that i wore eyeliner ‘like our women’

@Hdhdjejdj

Interesting point about the topsy turvy element. I saw The Mikado recently and this is performed with no costume or make-up references to Japan. I think there is a nervousness about this particular production. However it is such a clear example of the comedy/satire of the age. As such it is part of our National culture. Should the want to preserve this trump the possibility of causing offence?

Did they skip If you want to know who we are ??

From memory I’m pretty sure they didn’t.

All the dialogue and lyrics in the classic Jonathan Miller production of the Mikado remain identical and repeatedly states that the characters are Japanese. However they are all wearing 1920s English costume and speaking in exaggerated RP accents to make it clear that this story has nothing to do with Japan and everything to do with England. It gets around the obvious issues rather brilliantly IMO.

Oh I should caveat, not all the lyrics remain the same - one casual use of a racial slur is replaced nowadays, and the Little List song is updated for topicality.

They wore 1920s clothes in this production.

Oh dear. Until late C17 in Britain, women's roles were played by men because it was considered immoral for women to appear on stage. "Travesti" was/is a theatrical term for actors/actresses playing roles of the opposite gender. It's being going on for over a century - nothing new in other words. Women have played "breeches roles" for over a century. Cross dressing is not new. Panto is not new either, and has roots in Roman times, Mummer plays, and comedia dell'arte. To be traditional, the dame is played by a man. That is the point of the roles, as developed from the earlier forms of theatre.

Yeah, I think making the costumes etc look western for The Mikado is supposed to avoid people making complaints, and also allows them to use non-Japanese actors without getting criticism which might be expected in a more Japanese setting.

IN and of itself, the different setting isn't a problem and can be quite fun IMO. But as a way to avoid "problematic" elements I find it quite patronizing. We all know where it's meant to be set, we all know that it's a very typically Victorian bit of musical theater taking advantage of a setting and costumes which the audience had some new exposure to and found fascinating and beautiful.

Who is is really fooling?

*Hdhdjejdj
I think Rufus Hound has said that the character is Arabic.

Jaysmith71
....Oh No He Isn't!*

😂😂😂

www.victoriabeckhambeauty.com/products/satin-kajal-liner/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwm9yJBhDTARIsABKIcGYS0yrWSYCMff0zKHD9OysF2BbAedjrbBm7l-wAyZttMn-RovLNlmoaAoa7EALw_wcB

More culture appropriation. Should be banned.

So I guess no more nativity plays at Christmas now either.

@TheWeeDonkey

I think a lot of people outside of UK don't understand panto, which to be fair is pretty bizarre and plus its Twitter. So you take something silly, lighthearted and meaningless entertainment and turn it into something deliberately offensive and not just literal but actual violence.

The terror of the left wing mob. Instead of sitting there knitting, they sit tweeting.