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Vagina Monologues Review: Utterly Ricockulous
by Ashley 'Danger' Meeks
Ashley takes on a buffalo stance - NO, she says. The Vagina Monologues aren't feminist at all. They are base, crude sexism, turning us all into jocks of the highest order, and we should fight back before it's too late.
Where is the man brave enough in this day and age to ask his fellow men to hold their penises (peni?) high and proud?
This man would be immediately dismissed as a loony. His rants would be shot down in long, bitchy Letters to the Editor by gals who can wield Ani DiFranco lyrics like sabers, and all without the fun of leather bras and rubber shorts.
In so many ways, the fight for feminism has turned into a war of snipers; girls who have turned the occupation of housewife into a synonym of "slave," girls who would kill a major called "Men's Studies" faster than you can say "female genital mutilation," and all without the word "hypocrisy" crossing their minds.
As Droz in the 1994 film "PCU" said, "Those aren't women, Tom. Those are womynists." And they fight dirty.
The Vagina Monologues lets women experience the heady thrill of sexism masquerading as pride. En route to the show, be sure to dig the few pamphlets about abortion and "vagina artwork."
Yes, that's right. Vagina artwork.
But newsflash. Sitting on a canvas for a few days in the middle of the month is not a radical feminist act. As George Carlin once said, "castrating a man in a parking lot with a broken bottle is a radical feminist act." This is just sensational hype, so that a crowd of girls in tank tops and purple ribbons can whoop like a bunch of boys watching "The Man Show." The Vagina Monologues couples WWII war terminology (V-Day) with the shock value of the word "vagina," resulting in a crusade that smacks of campaigns concocted by 12-year-olds: "SEX - now that I got your attention, vote for me for student council vice president."
As Maude Lebowski said in "The Big Lebowski," "The word itself makes some men uncomfortable. Vagina . . .. They don't like hearing it and find it difficult to say whereas without batting an eye a man will refer to his dick or his rod or his Johnson."
So what about the Johnson Monologues? Instead of the (this is real) "labia cast" and the "clit cast," there could be a "scrotum cast" and a "glans cast." If Eve Ensler et. al. want equality, surely they would have no problem with a male counterpart of their production. Perhaps it could begin with the immortal words of Doors frontman Jim Morrison, who in his "Lament for the death of my cock" wrote:
Sore and crucified I seek to know you Acquiring soulful wisdom You can open walls of mystery
All join now and lament the death of my cock A tongue of knowledge in the feathered night Boys get crazy in the head and suffer I sacrifice my cock on the altar of silence
In its original wording, it would be cause for coffeehouse rant against (sigh) oppression. But replace the word "cock" with "vagina" and -hey! - all of a sudden we have an empowering mantra, and we can smile across our chai tea and think we have made another baby step towards a perfect and diverse world. Namaste, Jim, namaste.
No, "The Vagina Monologues" is not an opportunity to spread the word about female strength and equality to biased and backward white males. It is a pep rally for feminists who believe that equality means sameness plus special privelege, a chance to preach to a choir in the broken spoken rhythm of open-mike night, to club moderates like baby seals, to further send the credibility of the feminist movement into the stone age. And indeed, "Kids In the Hall" could not come up with a better parody of the "feminist movement" than the cervix-centric crowd.
Selling purple ribbons only benefits the ribbon industry. The only way a purple ribbon will ever stop a rape is if it is tied tightly around a man's penis until the offending organ swells up with blood, turns black, and falls off.
Equality will never be brought about by a group of unshaven womyn with their jockeys in a twist, sitting around discussing how drum circles can change the world, batting around intimate sexual details like toddlers who have recently discovered the startling effects of saying naughty words around adults. This scenario will only serve to enforce the stereotypes of feminists as whiny, attention-starved cause-heads who couldn't get a date in high school.
Someone said once that the Vagina Monologues serve to "demonstrate the full realm of women." So what on God's green earth does that mean? That we can be just as sexist as men can? That our pride can be just as disgusting and turn off just as many people as theirs can?
If Eve Ensler wanted to help the female victims of domestic violence, why is the audience of her shows predominantly female? From title alone, this farce is guaranteed to make the majority of the public roll their eyes and buy a ticket for "Phantom" instead. Hell, I'd buy a ticket for "Transformers" instead.
In the words of a white male named T.S. Eliot, this is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper - Ms. Ensler succeeded in culling a crowd of wife-beaters, yes, but unfortunately they are all being worn by overzealous hippie chicks.
About the author
Ptiza Odelay was created in a factory by Nazi scientists during World
War II. She was to be the ultimate weapon against the Allies, but
before she grew into maturity in her birthing tank, the war ended and
the project was scrapped. Years later, she was found still in her tank
in a hidden sub-basement of a warehouse in Berlin and inadvertently
shipped to the United States. During transit the casing of the tank
was ruptured and she was born seemingly in her early twenties with all
of the knowledge of mankind programmed into her brain. She speaks
eighty languages and has been known to crush diamonds with her bare
hands. She is wanted in twenty countries and was last seen diving into
an active volcano somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. In her spare time,
she writes popular children's fiction, erotica and groundbreaking
journalism under the name Ashley "Danger" Meeks.Read her 'Confessions of a Recovering Teenager' column
Mission statement
Mookychick believes that climbing trees and riding giant turtles is more fun and girly than worrying about make-up. But if you want to worry about make-up instead of turtles? Fine by us. Be you feminist, kitten, punk, emo, indie, goth, witch, vegan, horror junky, intellectual, christian goth, corset queen, geek, unicorn, sea monkey... be you into alternative style, alternative health, spirituality, comics, manga, j-pop, harajuku or jock culture... we will always love you.
