Pushing It to the Next Level

I sat in the audience of a Hasty Pudding Thearticals production for the first time ever last Friday night. My three previous years at Harvard, I had been strutting my own stuff on that very same stage. This year I decided to remove the heels and the hose and distance myself from the show, Yet, given the fact that recently The Hasty Pudding Theatricals has felt more than its usual share of pressure--both internal and external--to re-consider its all-male casting policy, I would like to take this opportunity to clarify what I believe to be the most important facets of the Pudding; and to delineate why it is of utmost importance that the organization include women in its cast.

I decided not to do the show this year not only for scheduling reasons, but, to some extent, because I've always had problems with the content of the shows. Certainly, the composition of the cast had always seemed peculiar to me when I was in the show, but at the time, I thought it was given that the Pudding would remain all-male. Moreover, I felt that was something the Pudding didn't necessarily have to change. The most difficult thing for me to digest was the Pudding's brutal sense of humor. A firm believer in the power of theatre to present political messages and to change people's lives, I was utterly confused about what signals I was sending. Did the fact that I was a man playing a woman who comically sang about the women's liberation movement indicate that I was making fun of women? Since the Pudding often stereotyped groups that historically have been the subjects of discrimination, were we simply perpetuating negative myths in the same of comedy?

Sitting in the audience the other night, however, I truly enjoyed the experience. I began to understand that the `beauty' of the show lay in the talents exhibited on and off the stage, delivering a witty, entertaining and spectacular, albeit lewd, production.

Consequently, my `politically correct' instinctual response--my disapproval of characters such as the one with a speech impediment--began to recede. For I saw that the Pudding's humor is truly all-pervasive. They make fun of everyone, for everything; and it is so "over-the-top" that it almost becomes politically correct in its political incorrectness.

Believe it or not, sitting there, I finally began to think about the Pudding as an art form, one well worth preserving. I understand that this in itself is a dangerous notion--that the glimmer and glitz of a production often overshadow the fact that, either consciously or not, it might perpetuate negative stereotypes. It is, as I said, one of the reasons why I've always felt a bit out of place at the Puddig. But this a cyclical debate, rooted in personal perceptions of art. It is a debate which will always haunt, or at least confuse, artists, and especially comedians, who are conscious of their work. It is a debate that informs my perceptions, of all comic productions, whether on the Pudding stage, "South Park" or "The Simpsons."

However, the debate over whether to include women in the Pudding is not cyclical, however. Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 remarked recently that the University does not view the Pudding's policies as discriminatory, in part because women are included in the Pudding in other capacities, but also because the University views it as a "special and unique theatrical genre."

Yet, how can anyone describe such exclusionary casting methods based on gender as anything but discrimination? The real question is not whether the Pudding discriminates against women, but whether such discrimination is necessary for the production of the Pudding's humorous, engaging, and, at times, professional art form. If one discriminates in the name of art, one should able to prove that the art require such discriminatory practices.

Thus far, while resisting change, no one has been able to show decisively that women would alter the Pudding for the worse. Rather, the introduction of women to the cast is something that the Pudding should embrace, not bemoan. Just as its male cast did on Friday night, the organization as a whole should continue its tradition of going "over the top"--of pushing its genre to an even greater complexity. Including talented women in the cast would do just that.

No on will ever fully understand whether the traditional appeal of the Pudding show--its unique brand of humor--will either `benefit' from, or the `hurt' by, such an increase in complexity until the Pudding gives women the creative consideration they deserve. But if the it simply continues it discriminatory practices in the name of art, the Pudding will continue to totter on the high-heels of tradition, unable to stand up straight, smile and kick. Jesse Hawkes '99 is a history concentrator in Dudley House.