it’s alright if everyone’s doing it

today, my partner and i walked out of the musical ”avenue Q” at intermission, and we never looked back. as a full-fledged theater nerd, this is not something i have ever done before; typically, i cry at the theater because i am so moved by a singer’s voice or by a cast’s performance. this time, i found myself crying because the absolute steamrolling of identities by the show’s script left me feeling so uncomfortable and so downtrodden that i couldn’t think of anything else to do. (granted, i was having a terrible day, and i may have held it together on an afternoon when myriad things hadn’t already gone wrong; i doubt strongly, however, that i wouldn’t have still been offended and upset.)

i recognize that there is a possibility that the script was written with that smug, tongue-in-cheek, sarcastic style that leaves the author room to say, “but i was CLEARLY joking!” if he is called out on the ridiculousness and offensiveness of the words (see also: hipster racism). i also acknowledge that i walked out before the show was over, and perhaps there is a redeeming moment in the second act in which all of the characters renounce the words and actions that occurred before the intermission (but i doubt it). but if that’s the case, what about the folks who walked out with me at halftime? what if the damage had already been done?

in a theater in one of the wealthiest states in the country, surrounded by some of the most privileged people in the world, i listened to the laughter of the mostly-white audience at the jokes coming at the expense of people of color, gay people, and women, and i just felt like we were all taking one enormous step backwards from being able to respect or empathize with the oppressed groups taking a verbal beating by the show.

some of the lyrics encourage listeners to tell racist jokes because everyone secretly enjoys them; one character suggests that it’s ok to pass little racist judgments like “wishing the mexican busboy would learn to speak goddamn english” as long we’re not making BIG racist judgments like hiring or hate crimes (oh, wait, we’re still doing both of those, too!); the one black-identified character declares that “bigotry isn’t exclusively white!”; the scripted accent of one asian-identified female character is the butt of several jokes throughout the play.

“tongue-in-cheek” or not, this is dangerous.

and i found myself thinking also of a norton anti-virus software commercial i’d seen recently {link here; trigger warning}. a naked, dead, mutilated chicken is “pitted” in a “battle” against four male humans. at the :20 mark, the narrator says something along the lines of, “the chicken doesn’t have feelings one way or another” — and i remember being stunned by those lines, because it has been proven that, yes, chickens DO have “feelings:” they have just as much interest in living free lives — in not appearing naked, dead, and mutilated on television or on our plates without their consent — as anyone else. i could just imagine the hundreds of thousands of people who might catch this on TV and consciously or subconsciously receive this reminder that animals don’t have feelings and can be manipulated in any way we so choose.

it’s also important to keep in mind which groups are creating these lyrics and commercials. i guarantee you a chicken didn’t storyboard that norton commercial, and i doubt either of the creators of “avenue Q” ever actually was an individual of limited english proficiency working for significantly less than a living wage in the food service industry.

any time i encounter something like this, i just cringe (or cry) at what an enormous step backwards this feels like. people who might have been in the process of committing to an animal-free, vegan diet may find themselves wondering why they’re doing so, if yet another commercial reinforces the popular notion that non-human animals are not sentient beings (not to mention all of the advertisements that straight-up portray them as food). people who may have been making an effort to be more aware of the identities and the oppression of people around them may be shamed by the lyrics of “avenue Q” (and the seeming agreement of everyone in the theater) into being more careless about their behavior.

as anyone working against the dominant forces of the world can attest, i’ve been told that i’m too critical, that i’m humorless, that i take everything too seriously — but today, i think i’ve finally stopped feeling ashamed of analyzing the world in this way. i am simply reinvigorated to keep fighting, keep speaking out and standing my ground, until the world begins to operate in a way that doesn’t require so much critical analysis and so many tears.