Globe Theatre makes Joan of Arc non-binary in new play

[ChristinaXYZ]

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/11/globe-theatre-makes-joan-arc-non-binary-new-play/

"Joan of Arc is represented as non-binary in the Globe show, and the pronouns of the French patron saint have been changed to “they/them” rather than “she/her”.

Women’s rights campaigners have raised concerns that the move is another example of female figures being “erased” from history.

Promotional material for the “powerful and joyous new play” sets the scene: “Rebelling against the world’s expectations, questioning the gender binary, Joan finds their power and their belief spreads like fire.”

The play is written by writer Charlie Josephine, whose web biography states: “My pronouns are they/he. I’m an actor and a writer."

The Telegraph writers, who like The Spectator staff, know their stuff on this and have included a Women's Place comment too:

"Campaigner group Women’s Place UK said in a statement on the issue: “Women are getting really tired of being erased from history and having our achievements diminished.

“Joan of Arc was an astonishing woman who rebelled against the authoritarian oppression she faced for being female.

“Theatre has a fine tradition of inverting reality to encourage us to look at life differently but the fact remains that Joan of Arc was a woman and was persecuted as such.”"

Yes, imagine arguing Rosa Parks was actually white for refusing to move from a seat allocated to a white person.

I don't mind the play, they're allowed to do it their way even if I'd rather a different way.

What I do mind is who the Globe include first and foremost in their values. The first two sentences carefully include everyone except women, the boring old cunty kind (who might see Joan of Arc differently). I still remember when we used to say "women and minorities". Then we got gender and women got dropped. No wonder so many girls want to be trans or nonbinary now, the world's moved on and women are just dull.

Or do you think when they say "trans men and women" they mean "trans men" and "women" and not "trans women"? Or even - did someone spend hours figuring out that with that wording they could have it both ways? Sorry, I'll stop. I have got an especially dull task at work just now

What I do mind is who the Globe include first and foremost in their values. The first two sentences carefully include everyone except women, the boring old cunty kind (who might see Joan of Arc differently).

I suppose their values are based on the good old Shakespeare days, where female roles were played by young men & boys.

FFS.

Back in the real,world, people generally know about the issues of women's achievements being undervalued or written out of history. I'm visiting Lincoln at the moment and did the tour of the castle this morning which focussed on aspects of history and people. Very nice (male, not young) guide. Covered Stephen and Matilda (comments indicating she was rejected as rightful heir mainly for being a woman) ; a notable highly eligible Sheriff's daughter who was married off at the king's command 3 times to wealthy old nobles to provide heirs. After the third died she petitioned not to be married off again and the king consented for a fee of the equivalent of a third of a million pounds. The guide commented on the price for 10 years peace for a woman then. And finally a remarkable woman worth reading a bit about

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NicoladeelaHaie

• without whose defence of Lincoln castle at a pivotal moment, the course of British history might have been very different

Some great comments and suggestions including coming soon...Titus Androgynous.. and Julia Caesar (they did wear a skirt after all)

Surprised they didn't ask Eddie Izzard to perform the leading role in EI's girl mode.

That’s a push on age alone (again, unless you listen to Old Harry’s Game)!

I thought you were supposed to be
the Maid of Orleans, not the menopausal woman of Orleans…

ImWell · Today 14:15
Well put,ImWell.

Found the link.

www.shakespearesglobe.com/discover/blogs-and-features/2022/08/08/it-was-necessary-taking-joan-of-arc-on-their-own-terms/

The ninth-century English ruler Æthelflæd, who governed Mercia after the death of their husband, was later described as ‘conducting…Armies, as if she had changed her sex’: to take on a male-coded military role was, in some sense, for Æthelflæd to become male. Elizabeth I, similarly, described themself regularly in speeches as ‘king’, ‘queen’ and ‘prince’, choosing strategically to emphasise their female identity or their male monarchical role at different points. Clothing has, likewise, not always been seen as simply a costume we put on over our essential, unchanging self. This was one of the reasons that onstage gender nonconformity drew such ire when the Globe first opened, with antitheatrical writer Philip Stubbes exclaiming that wearing clothes associated with a different gender could ‘adulterate the verity of [one’s] own kind’: change the truth of one’s very nature.

This made me laugh from Anya Palmer.

ErrolTheDragon · Today 14:40
Thank you for that wonderful account of Nicola de La Haye.

Let us not forget the nuns. They were so much more than incarcerated women. They were in some ways more free by not being married. They wrote music and theology to the highest standards. Were very brave missionaries setting forth into difficult territories against all the odds. Some would have been doctors. They all must have been secretly trans.
This society, The History of Women Religious writes about the some of the most fascinating unknown aspects of these women who were hidden away.
historyofwomenreligious.org/

@PurgatoryOfPotholes Isn't it interesting that Globe writes that 'antitheatrical writer Philip Stubbes [was] exclaiming that wearing clothes associated with a different gender could ‘adulterate the verity of [one’s] own kind’: change the truth of one’s very nature'

Isn't that exactly what Stonewall et al (and Eddie Izzard) tell us? They essentially agree with Philip Stubbes?

That was exactly what I thought when I read it.

Seems that some opinions become sensible to hold, if the right person voices them.

Ricky Gervais' commentary tweet: https://mobile.twitter.com/rickygervais/status/1558062397558079490

@Lockheart
The history and the woman in it is not being erased. You can't erase something that's already happened

I grew up in fifties and sixties, when there were very few historical female figures. In fact my brother told me that there were no famous women artists nor scientists, because women aren't that able.

In fact, there are very few famous women scientists because men often took the credit for their work and likewise, with artists.

At a later date, I research the history of women in Ireland in the early 20th Century and discovered that women abounded in the fight for Irish Independence, but all but one had been left out of the history books. Yes they existed, but when history is written as if these people never existed it makes a huge difference.

I know that, for some reason, Michel Foucault is blamed for all this madness, but I took a couple of courses on him in the eighties and the one thing I came away with was that he was totally opposed to applying modern terms anachronistically to other eras.

I don't think there's any onus on you to agree with medieval writers about masculinity and saintliness (it'd be a bit weird if you did, right?).

But actually, yes, Mary has often been constructed as quasi-masculine, because purged of nasty femininity. Sorry. Tis what tis.

I know it might sound strange, but some of the views medieval Christians held are not quite the same as what school kids today understand.

It's not about 'masculine women' or 'feminine men' (though honestly, I'm not sure what you really mean by that - what makes a woman 'masculine'?). It's about the fact that medieval Christian thinkers had quite a different perspective of masculinity and femininity as qualities. They certainly did wonder whether people could change sex; some people clearly thought you could, or thought you could take on the spiritual value of a man while being a woman.

This is a culture where some people sincerely imagined that Jewish men menstruated, and that the Virgin didn't have periods. It's really quite far from the 'but women are just women innit' viewpoint.

The idea might come from Gnosticism, but it was also quite mainstream medieval Catholicism. Bernard of Clairvaux writes quite a bit about how the Bride in the Song of Songs (who is understood to be a type both of Mary and of the Church) is a virile figure, and therefore desirable to Christ. Bernard is absolutely not a heretic here; he's bog standard.

Oh and - and I promise I will now stop posting; I've been at work all day and the replies piled up! - but, @ScrollingLeaves, yes, many people have read Uncumber as a trans or trans-like saint, but she's also been interpreted through the lens of PCOS, which also gives women more body hair.

Identities are entirely subjective, so unless the playwright has hard evidence that Joan herself thought she wasn't really female, they're just misgendering her.

Poor bloody Anne Boleyn. If only they'd realised Elizabeth was a bloke, she could have lived to a ripe old age, having successfully produced that healthy male heir. The injustice of it.

Have any equally famous blokes been retrospectively trans'd to be 'nonbinary' or women? I've only ever heard of the already too-small number of famous women being depleted by this idiotic trend.

I'm answering from my own wheelhouse, but look at Eleanor Rykener. Not as famous at all as Joanne of Arc, but there will obviously be a far larger pool of candidates in the one situation, won't there? You want to fit women who've lived as men, in a misogynistic society, you'll find them. You want to find men who lived as women, ok, you might find them, but 1) being read as male will make them less subject to scrutiny, so less likely to be investigated and 2) they will be fewer, because the dangers and rewards don't stack up so well.

(Though, I am not sure my answer really fits, because Rykener wasn't so much read as a trans woman after the fact - there's a whole complex history of how contemporaries read the situation.)