[lit-ideas] Re: Tibet, Google and Moomins
- From: Mike Geary <jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 23 Apr 2010 20:47:49 -0500
Why have any play if you don't want it to be foreign -- or any art for that
matter. I've always thought that art is subversive -- play itself is
subversive, not in its mission but in its effect. But that's not to say
that play is not serious. And, yes, I'm a sucker for all that Joycean stuff
about the prison gates of the soul and to press out again from the gross
earth or what it brings forth, etc., but one of my favorite quotes from
Joyce is, ''There is no heresy or no philosophy which is so abhorrent to the
church as a human being.' I would change "church" to any governing power.
Human imagination is the preeminent threat to all authority.
Mike Geary
Memphis
On Fri, Apr 23, 2010 at 5:04 PM, Teemu Pyyluoma <teme17@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Too weird not to pass on, translation mine. From Helsingin Sanomat news
> paper web site, while waiting for a better one, my translation:
> Chinese Officials want to censor Moomins
>
> 23.4.2010 21:22
> Petteri Tuohinen
> Helsingin Sanomat
>
>
> Stage version of Moomin Pappa at sea is to premier in Shanghai. Official
> censors have critized the play for not making a clear enough distinction
> between good and evil.
>
>
> A co-production of Svenksa Teatern (Swedish language theatre in Helsinki)
> and Chinese actors has been approved by the officials, but now they want
> changes made.
>
>
> "I have not accepted changes", says director Anneli Mäkelä.
>
>
> For example the boogie man (troll? I don't know what the character is in
> English translation) has been a source of confusion, being in its own way
> enduring and someone to relate to. The invidiualism of Moomin Pappa is also
> a source of puzzlement.
>
>
> Chinese theather manager Xia Xiaoxue understands the censors. Cultural
> differences between Finland and China are big.
>
> "According to Chinese tradition of teaching parents tell childeren what is
> good and what is evil. In the play characters each have their own character,
> and are not clearly good or evil", Xia wonders.
>
>
>
> I wonder what they would make of the 60's comic strips of Moomins
> experimenting with psychedelic drugs. Seriously, I understand cultural
> differences, but I don't understand why do a foreign play in the first place
> if you don't want it to be foreign?
>
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> Teemu
>
> Helsinki, Finland
>
>
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