What I want my words to do to you

This documentary with Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues, boasts performances by celebrities Glenn Close, Rosie Perez, and Marisa Tomei. And I'm angry with myself for caring that these big names were part of the production, but I'm even angrier with Eve Ensler for her performance in the documentary. She functions more as psychoanalyst than as writing teacher and she does even that poorly.

The documentary follows 15 incarcerated women at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility as they participate in a writing workshop conducted by Ensler. The film brings up so many issues that deal directly with so much of my scholarship that I'm still reeling a little bit. Authorship: why do these women need celebrities to perform their work for them? What happens to the text when such a performance changes so much of its meaning? Who's legitimizing who here and why? Autobiography: whose story is this, anyway? What role materiality? Embodiment? Social class: The term "class" is mentioned once, as far as I could tell on a first viewing, and it's in the familiar triad "race, class, and gender," as though saying those three words is sufficient to address the very real differences between performers and authors.

I need to see it again, and I'm probably going to show it in my authorship course very soon. Lots to think about, and I know that if I didn't keep this blog, I wouldn't have written even this much down, so thanks blogosphere.