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I am always suspicious when people claim that a massively successful work rips off their work, mainly because human experience is limited and people tend to see connections that they want to see. I don't know if this woman is correct when she says that Jonathan Larsen plagiarized from her in writing Rent, but I do know that I would be more inclined to believe her if she were not such a complete ass in this piece in Slate.
Sarah Schulman states "I [published] a novel in 1990 called People in Trouble, which was based on a love relationship I had with a married woman in the East Village during the advent of the AIDS crisis. The gay part of Rent is basically the plot of my novel, but with a slight shift."
She's a gay man? She had a love relationship with a drag queen? Oh, wait, that's not the real "gay part" of Rent. No. It's the triangle between a lesbian, a bisexual woman and her former boyfriend -- a storyline which impressed me as being mostly for comic relief, the triangle part, at least -- that's the "gay part". Let's ignore the truly tender and moving love story -- the most functional love relationship in the play. It doesn't count.
That in itself was annoying enough, but she seems determined to refuse to admit that Rent is in any way progressive. She mischaracterizes the way people deal with each other in regards to their AIDS:
It's true not only with Rent, but with all the iconic works about AIDS. The political movement of AIDS activism—which is an integral, organic part of the history of the crisis—has been removed from most of the mainstream storytelling around AIDS. [In these pieces,] gay people are always alone and self-oppressed, and have no community, and are dependent on some kind of other—a benevolent straight person, a homophobic lawyer, or even, in some cases, a woman—to take care of them, because they're so self-hating that they cannot take care of themselves.
Excuse me? What the hell is she talking about? Of the major characters in the story, half have HIV, and they are tapped into a community that supports them -- they are not "alone and self-oppressed". Roger was at the beginning, but it was Angel, a drag queen with AIDS, and Mimi, a HIV positive junkie, who drew him out of himself, who "rescued" him, NOT Mark, his straight non-HIV friend. Angel is not "self-hating." Neither is Collins, Angel's HIV-postive lover. The two HIV positive characters that *might* be characterized as self-hating, Roger and Mimi, are NOT gay, they're junkies.
And then there is this:
In a time when people denied the existence of gays and lesbians, work that asserted that gays and lesbians existed with some minimum of human integrity could be coded as progressive. But since the AIDS crisis, most Americans personally know people who are openly gay. At this point, to simply represent or acknowledge that gay people exist is no longer inherently progressive, and to depict gay people as people who have no agency is retrogressive.
You know, honey, you really should try living in the real world sometime. A place where people recognize that there is a difference between "Joe and Steve live together, I think" or "The woman on the corner is a lesbian" and "Oh my God there are two men kissing!" In much of the country there are a hell of a lot of people who yes, personally know someone who is openly gay, but only on the condition that they are reminded of that fact as infrequently as possible. It's one of the "attitudes" that you complain about in the next paragraph. The problem is that there are some people who don't think of gay people as being worth caring about, except for maybe the few gay people they know personally.
I know that I am biased. I loved the movie, and I would love to see the play -- from listening to the Broadway cast recording, I am getting a feel for ways in which the work was tweaked for the big screen and I think it would be good to see it in it natural environs, so to speak. However, if this woman is right, and her work was appropriated, I have no problem with her being compensated. The work, like all works, stands on its own, regardless of the hands responsible, and her getting a cut from the Larsen estate will not damage it.
I just think she is a complete ass, is all.
Sarah Schulman states "I [published] a novel in 1990 called People in Trouble, which was based on a love relationship I had with a married woman in the East Village during the advent of the AIDS crisis. The gay part of Rent is basically the plot of my novel, but with a slight shift."
She's a gay man? She had a love relationship with a drag queen? Oh, wait, that's not the real "gay part" of Rent. No. It's the triangle between a lesbian, a bisexual woman and her former boyfriend -- a storyline which impressed me as being mostly for comic relief, the triangle part, at least -- that's the "gay part". Let's ignore the truly tender and moving love story -- the most functional love relationship in the play. It doesn't count.
That in itself was annoying enough, but she seems determined to refuse to admit that Rent is in any way progressive. She mischaracterizes the way people deal with each other in regards to their AIDS:
It's true not only with Rent, but with all the iconic works about AIDS. The political movement of AIDS activism—which is an integral, organic part of the history of the crisis—has been removed from most of the mainstream storytelling around AIDS. [In these pieces,] gay people are always alone and self-oppressed, and have no community, and are dependent on some kind of other—a benevolent straight person, a homophobic lawyer, or even, in some cases, a woman—to take care of them, because they're so self-hating that they cannot take care of themselves.
Excuse me? What the hell is she talking about? Of the major characters in the story, half have HIV, and they are tapped into a community that supports them -- they are not "alone and self-oppressed". Roger was at the beginning, but it was Angel, a drag queen with AIDS, and Mimi, a HIV positive junkie, who drew him out of himself, who "rescued" him, NOT Mark, his straight non-HIV friend. Angel is not "self-hating." Neither is Collins, Angel's HIV-postive lover. The two HIV positive characters that *might* be characterized as self-hating, Roger and Mimi, are NOT gay, they're junkies.
And then there is this:
In a time when people denied the existence of gays and lesbians, work that asserted that gays and lesbians existed with some minimum of human integrity could be coded as progressive. But since the AIDS crisis, most Americans personally know people who are openly gay. At this point, to simply represent or acknowledge that gay people exist is no longer inherently progressive, and to depict gay people as people who have no agency is retrogressive.
You know, honey, you really should try living in the real world sometime. A place where people recognize that there is a difference between "Joe and Steve live together, I think" or "The woman on the corner is a lesbian" and "Oh my God there are two men kissing!" In much of the country there are a hell of a lot of people who yes, personally know someone who is openly gay, but only on the condition that they are reminded of that fact as infrequently as possible. It's one of the "attitudes" that you complain about in the next paragraph. The problem is that there are some people who don't think of gay people as being worth caring about, except for maybe the few gay people they know personally.
I know that I am biased. I loved the movie, and I would love to see the play -- from listening to the Broadway cast recording, I am getting a feel for ways in which the work was tweaked for the big screen and I think it would be good to see it in it natural environs, so to speak. However, if this woman is right, and her work was appropriated, I have no problem with her being compensated. The work, like all works, stands on its own, regardless of the hands responsible, and her getting a cut from the Larsen estate will not damage it.
I just think she is a complete ass, is all.