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Post by kathryn on Jun 17, 2020 12:53:35 GMT
Isn't CM a billionaire? Leaves a sour taste in the mouth... He had a net worth of 1.1 billion. People really don’t understand what ‘net worth’ means. It’s the value of all of his businesses and assets, after running costs and minus the debt secured on it. It doesn’t mean he has a billion in the bank as cash. So no, while his businesses cannot operate - are literally making a net loss - he’s not a billionaire. The value of the theatre business at the moment is a negative against his personal wealth and assets. Typically the only way anyone realises their net worth in cash is if they sell up completely and retire. Or die, and have all their assets sold. No-one is going to buy a theatre business at the moment.
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Post by kathryn on Jun 17, 2020 8:47:13 GMT
Tim Rice has also mentioned he and Elton had been working on the revival and that they had hoped it would come to the West End at last.
Of course all bets are off now.
I’ve never seen it - I do recall that duet of Written In The Stars by Elton and LeAnn Rimes being on hard rotation on Magic FM of an evening, though. Takes me right back to having the radio on while I was doing my A Level homework.
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Post by kathryn on Jun 15, 2020 16:36:39 GMT
I looked the Lupin one up as it was being used as evidence of homophobia (because there’s a werewolf who attacks children) and it’s a partial misquote. www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/jk-rowling-harry-potter-theory-debunked-remus-lupin-aids-david-thewlis-a7235751.htmlAs I say, there’s quite a bit of stretching going on to make some of the metaphorical readings of HP fit. They can be fun intellectual exercises for kids just discovering the concepts of allegory and metaphor, but they do tend to unravel if you look too closely at them. Jo Rowling was adopted by a generation as some sort of Yoda figure, the fount of all moral wisdom, rather than as quite a good writer of entertaining kids’ stories with basic moral messages. That’s part of why the howling is so extreme when she disagrees with them, and the need to brand her as actually bad all along.
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Post by kathryn on Jun 15, 2020 15:51:46 GMT
The whole mudblood storyline was about LGBTQ+ rights anyway, so there is allegories in the books anyway. I always interpreted that as a racism allegory. But as you say, there's lot of potential allegories and metaphors in the series, and they're generally flexible enough to be read in several different ways.
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Post by kathryn on Jun 15, 2020 14:20:20 GMT
Hmm. It could have been openly stated in book 7 - as I recall we were just starting to see openly gay characters in YA fiction at that point - but I am not sure that would have made much difference to the reaction. Still would have criticised as being a bit belated and as a distraction from the main story/ ‘PC pandering’.
Also we need to bear in mind that there has been a huge sea-change in attitudes since even 2007 (13 years ago - where did the time go?!). Gay marriage really does seem to have been a tipping point. Publishing can be a bit behind the curve just because it takes so long to write and produce a book, and children’s publishing tends towards the conservative because of who is actually buying the books. (Middle-aged adults! Harry Potter did so well in part because it hit the nostalgia nerve of everyone who grew up with Enid Blyton and Chalet School books. It’s just a mash-up of those boarding school shenanigans/kids solve mysteries books with a bit of basic good vs evil fantasy template grafted on. JK Rowling is a better mystery writer than fantasy world-builder, which is why you shouldn’t think to hard about her mythology - it starts to fall apart when you poke at the joins.)
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Post by kathryn on Jun 15, 2020 11:44:10 GMT
Statistically trans sex workers are no more likely to be murdered than non-trans sex workers. Murder rates for all sex workers are extremely high. I just checked, and Statistically there’s no evidence that trans people have a higher murder rate than non-trans people in the U.K. (and I’ve seen similar breakdowns for the US). www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-how-many-trans-people-murdered-ukIt does seem that trans people experience a higher rate of domestic violence than non-trans. I really thought the rates were higher than that! It’s impossible to know what motivates any particular crime. But blaming a crime that happened in the 80s on JKR’s attitude is a bit much, isn’t it? I mean, there were all sorts of different factors at play in that time and place than there are now.
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Post by kathryn on Jun 15, 2020 11:06:44 GMT
They do. Unfortunately that appears to be linked to the overrepresentation of trans women among sex workers - sex work being an incredible high risk profession. Your example from Paris is Burning is one such case.
This is of course linked to being marginalised.
There is absolutely no question that trans women are among the most vulnerable to male violence due to the effects of marginalisation.
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Post by kathryn on Jun 15, 2020 9:03:41 GMT
I got INFJ-A / INFJ-T Advocate too. Which I think is probably a little flattering! Although evidently this is true, given my other posts in the trans issue thread.
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Post by kathryn on Jun 15, 2020 7:34:33 GMT
I don’t think there’s many women who haven’t wished they were a man at some point - but especially when going through puberty Men just seem to have it so much easier! But it does seem that women with autism spectrum disorders are over-represented among those seeking to transition after puberty. It’s a new enough phenomenon - and the follow-up procedures are lax enough - that no-one is quite sure how high the de-transition rate really is. ‘Lost to follow-up’ isn’t the same as discontinuing transition.
Unfortunately trying to ask the question about the number of de-transitioners and what that might mean about the validity of initial diagnosis gets people called transphobic.
And there's lots of evidence that gender non-conforming children often grow up to be same-sex attracted adults rather than trans adults. That has been well established over a number of studies. The rush to declare that such children are trans and should socially transition - rather than following the ‘watchful waiting’ method - is quite concerning.
Anyway, I just poked my head in this morning because his popped up in my Twitter timeline.
I seem to have ended up following a lot of theatre folks whose views on the trans issue are diametrically opposed to my own. I don’t quite know how to get the good theatre chat on my timeline without the frankly insulting accusations of white supremacy.
It’s a relief to see from this thread that I’m not as alone as Twitter makes me feel!
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Post by kathryn on Jun 14, 2020 17:11:50 GMT
Anyone else remember how they had to introduce a whole law to make ‘upskirting’ illegal because of men using smartphone cameras to perv on women in public?
In Japan the sexual harassment on trains is so bad that they’ve introduced women-only carriages.
It’s utterly depressing, but we’re not making these concerns up. I hate that the right-wingers are the only ones who have taken them seriously - I dislike intensely that I find myself reading The Times and The Spectator on this issue. I really think the trans lobby has shot itself in the foot by branding these valid concerns transphobic, and pushed potential allies away.
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Post by kathryn on Jun 14, 2020 10:16:02 GMT
Horrible fact: some people do things *because* they are unacceptable. Breaking a taboo is what excites them.
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Post by kathryn on Jun 14, 2020 10:05:49 GMT
If the world was as it ‘should’ be we wouldn’t have a lot of the problems that we have in the world today.
As I get older I increasingly believe that we won’t achieve a world as it should be. Humanity is fatally flawed, and all of our worst, most selfish impulses are too deeply ingrained.
We can’t even seem to resist those impulses for a full 3 months to stop thousands of people dying.
Oh, to be young and optimistic again....
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Post by kathryn on Jun 14, 2020 8:26:48 GMT
But it was never a girl who did it. It was always the boys. Always.
And it’s not like I ‘covered it up’ - I told teachers when it happened! The problem is when you’re in a busy corridor and someone grabs you from behind and you turn around to see 10 lads and they all say ‘what?! I didn’t do anything!’ you have absolutely no way to prove who did it. We didn’t have CCTV in every corridor.
Sheesh. Victim-blame much.
This is the reality of life - we don’t live in a lovely equal society where women are not preyed on by men in myriad ways. Wish we did, but we don’t. We have to deal with the world as it is.
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Post by kathryn on Jun 14, 2020 7:37:28 GMT
When I was at school, and the boys grabbed or slapped my backside in the corridor, I used to run into the girls’ loo to get away from them and cry.
I didn’t want them to see how much they’d upset me, so I needed some space to cry a bit and then clean myself back up before I had o face them again.
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Post by kathryn on Jun 13, 2020 11:35:33 GMT
Yes, really appreciate the insight and everyone’s hard work.
I think we’re all just chomping at the bit to get back to the theatre. The streamed stuff is great, but it really makes me miss actually being there!
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Post by kathryn on Jun 13, 2020 10:48:53 GMT
the ever-expanding 'trans umbrella' and the catch-all word 'queer' now allow pretty well anyone to claim membership of this group, Side note: Yesterday I saw a straight woman on Twitter describe herself as ‘queer’ because she is single, middle-aged and child-free. Now, being a single and child-free woman does have its occasional trials - I know that because I am one - but it certainly does not make one ‘queer’!
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Post by kathryn on Jun 13, 2020 10:19:17 GMT
So your issue is you are not allowed to say things without being attacked? This ain’t got nowt to do with the trans community. Eddie Izzard? Nowt to do with the trans community. The main argument I keep hearing is the toilet issue and that stems from transphobia Eddie Izzard was allowed on an all-woman shortlist because he falls within Stonewall’s definition of ‘trans woman’, and because Labour affirmed ‘tranwomen are women’. It’s nowt to do with most individual members of the trans community, I agree. I’ve never had an issue with individual trans people I have met. It’s to do with the trans activists who adhere to the most extreme gender ideology and who are driving policy by intimidating people who question them into silence. And THAT is why it was important for JK Rowling to make the statement she has made.
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Post by kathryn on Jun 13, 2020 9:41:56 GMT
My issue is with some trans activists - very far from all, a great many trans people will tell you that of course biological sex exists and is hugely important, otherwise they wouldn’t be trans in the first place - trying to convince everyone to ignore the reality of biological sex, and change the material reality of our society to match this pretence.
My issue is with ‘gender-neutral’ bathrooms and changing rooms and hospital wards - which force men and women to share the same spaces in intimate circumstances when most would rather not, and when doing so really does put vulnerable people at risk. I say vulnerable people because although biological women are most often vulnerable in these circumstances there are of course risks for men too.
My issue is with individual - usually Male-bodied - predators taking advantage of the loopholes. People like ‘Jessica Yaniv’ suing a beautician for discrimination for refusing to wax male genitalia, and threatening others who had declined to wax male genitalia with legal action.
My issue is with Eddie Izzard ending up on a ‘all-women’ shortlist of Labour candidates.
And my issue is obviously with the huge amount of actual abuse that comes the way of anyone who raises these concerns.
Note: very little of this is actually do do with trans people themselves. It’s the wider impact of attempting to make wholesale societal changes without thinking through the possible consequences, because just mentioning them is so fraught.
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Post by kathryn on Jun 13, 2020 9:12:21 GMT
Thank goodness she is using her platform and her position - one of the very few people who doesn’t have to worry about her career being ‘cancelled’ - to air the concerns of many in much more vulnerable positions. The trans rights lobby is so vicious in attacking anyone who refuses to toe the line and even raises the slightest hint of a concern about the importance of biology to women’s sex-based rights that people really are scared to do so.
If the trans activists were willing to have a reasonable conversation about the risk inherent in changing our society so dramatically - and pretending that sexual dimorphism doesn’t exist, and that anyone who proclaims themselves a woman should be considered the same as someone born biologically female is a dramatic change - we wouldn’t be in this position.
When just saying ‘err, hang on a minute, I think there could be some unintended consequences from that, can we just consider hat for a minute?’ gets you called a transphobe, and a TERF, and told to ‘suck my girldick’, then people are going to end up very concerned indeed about the impact on biological women. Because that’s already an impact on biological women that the trans activists are causing.
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Post by kathryn on Jun 12, 2020 21:38:52 GMT
It’d be illegal even to put people from separate households into a rehearsal space together. Tell that to the Old Vic, Claire Foy and Matt Smith! Using rehearsal space has never been illegal as it is work that arguably cannot be done from home. I’d assumed - since it’s a live-streamed production - that they’d been rehearsing that using video link. After all it needs to come across on camera, not to an audience in the same room, and need to socially distance the performance anyway.
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Post by kathryn on Jun 12, 2020 21:36:30 GMT
Ok, so they can rehearse, but they still can’t open the theatre.
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Post by kathryn on Jun 12, 2020 20:32:05 GMT
Huh. There really is no consistency in the rules, is there?!
I can’t even invite my parents in for a cup of tea, but it’s ok for a choreographer to be in a room with a couple of dancers working at peak exertion for hours.
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Post by kathryn on Jun 12, 2020 17:52:08 GMT
[quote author=" londonpostie" source="/post/351820/thread" timestamp= Why can't that type of production go ahead now with social distancing?[/quote] Because it’s still illegal. Currently it’s illegal for non-essential shops to open and to invite non-household members into your house. The ‘bubble’ rules are not in effect until next week, and that’s only for one single-adult household to mix with another household. It’d be illegal even to put people from separate households into a rehearsal space together.
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Post by kathryn on Jun 12, 2020 16:26:02 GMT
I suspect part of the answer is that reserves of cash are so low that they just haven’t got the money they’d need to get the experiments up and running, so unless they can be profitable enough to tempt an investor it’s not feasible.
Which is why they need government investment - to be repaid later, in the Mendes ‘Angel’ Scheme, once productions are profitable again.
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Post by kathryn on Jun 12, 2020 7:52:22 GMT
Outside would be best, but tricky to organise for a lot of places without any outside space, since it’s likely to be in high demand this summer.
The type of thing that they did for one of the Shakespeare anniversaries - performers staged at particular points outside that the audience walked between - might work, with a timed ticketing system to control the numbers in each spot.
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Post by kathryn on Jun 12, 2020 7:41:26 GMT
Binged it last night. Glorious!!
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Post by kathryn on Jun 10, 2020 19:14:52 GMT
Let’s not throw baby out with the bath water - many of those positions will be in revenue-generating positions, and effectively pay for themselves.
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Post by kathryn on Jun 10, 2020 15:08:33 GMT
It’s starting to look like social distancing is much less of a necessity outside* - I wonder if open air theatres nights be able to open to near-capacity audiences sooner than we’d thought.
*Basing this on the fact that those packed bank holiday weekend beaches and parks haven’t yet led to a spike in cases. I guess we will know for sure by the start of next month, if there’s spikes in cases among the people who have been out protesting.
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Post by kathryn on Jun 10, 2020 13:09:19 GMT
Jake Shears has said that he has been obsessed with Tammy Faye since he was a kid - and apparently Elton was also fascinated by her, because of her embrace of AIDS victims in the 80s. So there's hopefully enough background understanding there.
(And of course, sometimes an outsider actually sees more clearly than someone from the same background.)
I'm hoping that Elt can still bang out a good tune still when he is writing for other people, and not limited to his own greatly reduced vocal range to carry the melody.
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Post by kathryn on Jun 9, 2020 12:23:42 GMT
Tiniest sliver of news on this:
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