First of all: I am not going to spend the month of April going on and on and on about MY PLAY. I can’t promise I won’t spend the first week and a couple days thereafter discussing it in some part, because it is a brand new project and I am excited about it and I’m in the first week’s throes of passion for it, like I can’t wait to work on it every day. We’ll see how long that lasts, but for right now wheee! I’m writing something I’ve never tried writing before! It’s fun! And actually, this post isn’t so much about MY PLAY as it is about the research involved in writing it, which is where you come in, which is why I mention it at all.

Second of all: yes, this is a plea for your contributions, whether in comments or email, and one that I would greatly appreciate getting passed around. (Normally I’m not one for reblog/retweet/link back/Digg/etc. requests, but this is in the name of Research, which makes it OK according to my set of arbitrary rules.)

So. My Script Frenzy (screen?)play takes place during September-December 1991, against the backdrop of the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings and their immediate aftermath. It’s not the central issue of the story, but it’s pretty crucial. This story, though many key elements have changed, is largely autobiographical.

I was a junior in college. The public hearings took place in early October, just a few weeks after the beginning of fall quarter. I had yet to be comfortable calling myself a feminist — at the time, I was telling people I “believed in feminist tenets,” like equality and respect for all people, but I wasn’t strong enough to stand up under the severe stigma the label had at the time. The fact that it’s nearly 20 years later and this much has not significantly changed is in part what inspired me to write this particular story (I still can’t decide whether it’s for the stage or screen, even though I’m writing it as a screenplay and I just wrote a flashback scene — I may be in denial here). And no — spoiler? — what happened during these hearings didn’t spur me to any sort of internal revolution or revelation. In retrospect, it had to marinate for a while before I could fit it in with other experiences.

I remember the hearings in brief flashes. Most of what I clearly remember involves the crude jokes that the guys I knew (but wasn’t necessarily friends with) would tell in mixed company, often targeting one or two women in the process. And I remember feeling hopelessly trapped by that; on the one hand wanting to tell these guys off because they were being disrespectful on so many levels, not to mention reinforcing the inequities that these hearings exposed, but on the other hand not wanting them or anyone to think I didn’t have a sense of humor. Even though they weren’t being funny. But that wasn’t the issue at the time, you know? The point I would be trying to make would be lost amidst the “It was just a joke, JEEZ” dismissal I’d surely have gotten. And I don’t remember anyone else telling them off in public either, though if we were in a group of just women we’d have all sorts of rebuttals that we’d promise to use next time it happened — but then we’d all chicken out or something. There wasn’t any sort of clear communication between me and my female friends that we had each other’s back. I think we were all still struggling with our (socially conditioned, culturally reinforced) need for male approval.

(And again, this much also hasn’t changed significantly over the past 20 years, and the idea that one doesn’t have a sense of humor and therefore one’s argument is invalid is . . . pretty stupid. Never mind how it deflects attention away from the issue by immediately putting one on the defensive. “Of course I have a sense of humor! Let me tell you this horribly offensive joke to prove it!”)

ANYWAY.

There’s more, but that’s what I remember in a nutshell. I’ve tracked down a number of resources about the hearings (as well as partial transcripts), but I’m more interested in hearing first-hand recollections about the hearings. What do you remember? (If anything?) Were you more politically advanced than I was? Were these hearings more galvanizing for you? Did they have a different impact on you? Did they have no impact at all? Were you one of the jokesters? (No judgment!) (Honest!) Please tell me your story in the comments, or send an email to smartgrrrl [at] gmail [dot] com.

Thanks in advance! I’m off to write more pages.

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