The parents at Rowlett High School who got Rent cancelled, that’s who.
I mean, I don’t know whether the “it” is the importance of learning other perspectives (even if you disagree with them), the importance of artistic expression that pushes boundaries so their children don’t end up stale and on stronger antidepressants than they take, the fact that lines like “hating dear old mom and dad” are jokes, or – yes I’ll say it – sex. Maybe they need to get laid. Maybe those parents just need to get tied down and something stiff extracted from (or inserted into) places they’re not supposed to be.
In case you haven’t heard, I’m talking about Rowlett High School’s recent cancellation of its student production of Rent, the hit Broadway musical set in mid-90’s East Village of Manhattan (“New York City?!” … “Get a rope.”).
Forget that the show’s depiction of drug use is anything but positive, or that its representation of gay lifestyles is anything but simple, or that the musical was made into a PG-13 movie just a couple years ago, or that some of the offensive material was pared down for the school version (which had already been approved by administrators who were very unlikely to be hippie liberals), what bothers me is that the kids are going to miss out on putting on a good show with a good message. Rent celebrates friendship, creativity, critical self-determination, and even monogamy and presents life as ambivalent and complicated.
Guess it’s better if the kids learn that on their own when they go away to college (not knowing how to put on a condom) or take a monotanous job down at the cubicle farm.
Honestly, I was surprised the cancellation came so slowly once the local news started to report, but the administrators were wiley. They got the theater director to cancel the production “for the good of the school” rather than cancelling it from on high. This way, not only is the director responsible for ever suggesting such a barbaric notion, it also keeps angry protesters from harassing the board and other administrators. “Well, we were taking it under serious advisement, but the theater director made the final decision before we had made up our minds.”
The theater director takes the fall, before the students or all of the parents could speak.
The noisemakers win this round.
I have an idea I would love to see happen for a reaction from the community. On the date when the play would have opened (or possibly the date of the next board meeting), gather as many local defenders of Rent and of student expression as possible outside the building and sing the soundtrack from the sidewalk, beginning to end. Show them what the play is really about: people coming together (Hell, if the musical glamorizes anything, it’s how absolutely lonely NYC can get when you haven’t found a community there, and that’s antithetical to the plot).
But I believe in grassroots starting locally. Such a protest should originate with members of the Rowlett community (preferably students and parents), and the only family I knew there moved elsewhere earlier this year (which is too bad, too, because the kids – ages 14 and 11 – know the Rent soundtrack by heart!). But if my idea happened to be picked up and promoted by a student, parent, or teacher in Rowlett or the greater Garland ISD, I would be happy to attend and invite all my friends and allies. Maybe they could tie it to Prop 8 protests… those folks are still trying to figure out what to do with all their anger.
But in the meantime, I hope a rebellious teacher will at least show the crappy film version on movie day. It’s a Christmas story, too, you know.
