'Grease' too immoral for Missouri town

[Jessterw]

Why not? Everyone has an agenda, and she'd be a rather worthless teacher if she didn't.

[KvHagedorn]

Depends on the agenda.. if the parents of these kids perceive that her agenda is acceptance of amoral behavior and knocking Christianity in general by focusing on the excesses of the Salem witch trials, I could see a problem. There are lots of plays that she could pick that adolescents could relate to strongly.. even classics like Cyrano de Bergerac. Why these two?

[KvHagedorn]

Really, the bad thing here is the lack of public debate over the issue. There should be PTA meetings where everyone gets some input, instead of an authority figure just declaring a play unsuitable and banning it. The best solution would probably be a balanced approach. Go ahead and do The Crucible, but do something positive about Christianity as well. Do something where decency gets rewarded, like It's a Wonderful Life. Young people should be exposed to positive things as well as the darker side of life..

[TnT]

She probably did Grease because it is a common high school play to do. If you have any acting friends, ask them if they ever did Grease. Chances are they did.

Also from the article we have to assume she did her best to take in account the audience by changing/removing the more questionable material. At some point it looks like she decided you need to keep certain aspects in to retain the heart of material.

Personally I hate the play, but it seems to be popular.

[KvHagedorn]

I think it's a pretty crappy play too, but only peripherally because of the bad behavior. I have no idea why it's so popular.

IMHO, Cyrano would be an excellent play for high school kids.. it deals with someone who is not physically perfect and humanizes him.. even makes him a hero. Every high school kid has issues with their looks on some level, so why is this play not more popular?

[Jessterw]

Depends on the agenda.. if the parents of these kids perceive that her agenda is acceptance of amoral behavior and knocking Christianity in general by focusing on the excesses of the Salem witch trials, I could see a problem. There are lots of plays that she could pick that adolescents could relate to strongly.. even classics like Cyrano de Bergerac. Why these two?

My question is still, why not these two? It was a choice. Maybe she wanted to provide the students with different material than the normal fare. True, 'Grease' is relatively common as a play, but I don't know many that do 'The Crucible', compared to say 'A Midsummer Night Dream' which damn near everyone does.

Keep in mind that it never says the 3 people who had objections were even parents, hell, one of them had not even seen the performance. 'The Crucible' is far from an attack of Christianity. It is a relavent commentary on several social issues, not the least of which is unjust persecution based on ignorance and fear and driven by ulterior motives.

Why did we do 'Othello' and 'Hamlet' in school? Or any of the several others?

[schmosef]

If they were to make a play about stories from the OT it would be the most violent and carnal of all!

[Wombat]

I love a scene from some movie where some thug tests a Christian (obviously a "stupid" southerner) by sucker punching him and then saying something like "so what does your good book tell you about that?"
Christian responds: "It says to turn the other cheek." which he does.
Thug hits him again. "so what does your good book tell you now?"
Christian: "The good book don't say nothing after that." And he knocks out the thug.

Which means the guy doesn't understand Jesus in Luke 6. Why am I not surprised?

[schmosef]

See? Deconstructionism!

You're not calling him an apostate! You're not saying that he's not a Christian. You're not calling for they guy, ficticious as he is, to be hanged, etc. You're just saying that you disagree with with that guy's understanding of the relevance of certain passages.

Isn't it wonderful?!!! It's the framework that allows us all to get along.

As soon as Islam is allowed to adopt it, we'll be that much closer to peace on earth.

[Wombat]

Christianity isn't any better off about it than Islam, IMHO. My Muslim friends (not only American, but Indonesian, Iraqi, Indian, etc) are not literalists. Meanwhile, in America, with "Intelligent" Design, less than 1/2 the country believing in evolution, and the rise of the pre-millenial dispensationalists, Christian literalists have me worried. They're a phenomenon almost unheard of until ~150 years ago.

[KvHagedorn]

That's a good boy.. be worried about what you are supposed to be worried about.

[schmosef]

The point I was trying to make is how we deal with the different interpretations within our own religions.

Anyone is allowed to criticise any stream of Christianity without worrying that it will immediately turn violent. We all accept deconstructionism even if we haven't heard of the concept before. After all, G-d hates shrimp. We all know it. Yet I've never met a Chrisitan who didn't eat shrimp specifically for religious reasons.

That same leeway just doesn't exist in Islam. If your "non-literalists" friends were to go into any mosque, anywhere in the world, and start to talk to other Muslims about their beliefs they'd be in serious physical danger. They just wouldn't be able to ask questions without some risk.

Anyway, the reason that I keep harping on this is because Nowhere asked if the situation was the same between issues of the two religions. I say no. I've said why too.

I'm sorry that this thread got hijacked.

[Wombat]

That's a good boy.. be worried about what you are supposed to be worried about.

Which means what, exactly? I mean, I guess I shouldn't expect too much. Your two modes are "insipid" and "inciteful."

[Brian Ellis]

Schmo

Have you any close Muslim friends? I have, but I can't relate any of them to anything you say. I have discussed Islam with some of them, even those who are sufficiently strict that they have done the Hadj, pray five times a day and follow all the dietary laws to the letter. I have had them visit us and one even asked the latitude, longitude and orientation of the house so that he could face Mecca when he prayed (he had a pocket calculator to give him the right direction).

[schmosef]

Schmo

Have you any close Muslim friends? I have, but I can't relate any of them to anything you say. I have discussed Islam with some of them, even those who are sufficiently strict that they have done the Hadj, pray five times a day and follow all the dietary laws to the letter. I have had them visit us and one even asked the latitude, longitude and orientation of the house so that he could face Mecca when he prayed (he had a pocket calculator to give him the right direction).

I'm not sure what your point is.

And I don't want to hijack this thread further.

Start a new thread and we can discuss it at length.