Steelier Magnolias and A Play A Day

Lifetime Network 2012

Motion Picture 1989

Spolier Alert! If you haven't seen Steel Magnolias: 1) This blog post contains spoilers and 2) What the hell is wrong with you?  Go watch it and come back. Don't worry, I'll wait. 

Just a couple of visuals to start us off this evening.  I was able to catch most of Lifetime's latest made for television movie Steel Magnolias. It is, of course, a remake of the 1989 motion picture version. For the most part, there is not a lot of difference between the two versions. Shelby still has diabetes/kidney problems and still drinks a glass of orange juice on her wedding day.  The story is told unchanged and most of the dialogue remains the same. The laughing scene after the funeral was transformed to a scene taking place in the beauty shop (maybe an ode to the original script?) and the final scene, at the Easter party, is cut completely. A still pregnant Annelle asks the friends after M'Lynn leaves the beauty shop if  they think M'Lynn would like it if she named her baby after Shelby and doesn't ask M'Lynn directly.  However, M'Lynn does run home to Jack Junior after Shelby's death. For those audience members who are not super familiar with the original film, a lot of these minor changes probably would not be noticeable. I'm just not one of those people. 

I both appreciate and am critical of this remake. I appreciate that they took a story of a group of women and did not feel that it needed to be altered so that it could be performed by women of color but could that also be seen as problematic? I understand that there is no such thing as color-blind casting but in this case, skin color does not factor in to the story. I must also note here that while I am very interested in this topic I feel somewhat uncomfortable discussing race on a blog post. I would however love to actually talk about what it means if anything that this story was remade with an all black cast of women instead of a mixture of all different races. Why are we trying to function and produce performances as if we still live in a weird race binary?  

 I am also critical because I don't understand why this film with a fairly significant cast was produced as a made-for-tv film as opposed to the big screen.  Is it that hard to imagine that Queen Latifah, Phylicia Rashad, and Alfre Woodward would not draw a movie crowd? It was a pretty successful venture for Lifetime earning the 3rd highest ratings their network has ever seen.  I also wonder what future this tv-film has in being released to dvd/blu-ray.  

All in all, it is still a wonderful story of a mother-daughter relationship and friendships but I am bothered by the issues of race and market viability I discussed earlier. For those reasons,  I give Steel Magnolias 2012 4 out of 5 lecterns. 

***********************

My second announcement for the evening is brief.  I feel that I have a very unfortunate lack of knowledge in the play department. To try and begin to remedy this situation, I am going to try and read through the Norton Anthology of Plays volume 1&2 by reading one play a week. Ambitious, yes when you tak in to consideration all the other PhD. work I have but I do not believe it to be impossible. I think this is something that I need to do to not only become more familiar with what LSU feels is important to teach our theatre students but to be able to converse with the larger community of performance/theatre scholars. I no longer want to be the girl at the party that nods her head in affirmation while taking a mental or literal note to google that play when I get home.  I am being proactive, and damn it feels good! If you would like to throw in any plays you think would be good to read just comment below!  Thanks! 

 Some time same place tomorrow!