Directions: In small groups, I would like you to respond to the following question and together draft a response that you will post to our blog. Take about 20 or so minutes to discuss this question and respond to it. Then, you will present your response to the rest of class, and we will use your thoughts as a way to open up a conversation about the film, its rhetoric, and research questions you might pursue in our first assignment.
Group #1: Oscar, Mary Claire & Colleen: In our course blog about the background readings to The Laramie Project, many students commented on the impact of not portraying Matthew Shepard in the play and later the film. As a group discuss why you think Kaufman made this choice. How did it enhance his purpose? How did it impact the piece? Identify three scenes that you think were enhanced by Shepard’s absence and explain how it enhanced the film’s main point.
Group #2: Nick, Alyssa & Jordan: In terms of its creative methodology, The Laramie Project draws on extensive interviews—a qualitative research strategy—which raises the ethical question of how fairly the film represents the people of Laramie. As Don Shewey writes, “On opening night in Denver, it was impossible not to be aware of the enormous responsibility that the actors felt to do justice to the people who had entrusted them with their stories and their innermost feelings” (68). In your group, discuss how the film portrays the different groups of people that comprise this town. How fair, authentic, or compassionate is this representation? Identify one scene that you think does justice to the residents of Laramie and one that you think might not and explain why you picked these scenes.
Group #3: Lauren, Brian & Zeke: In “Argument as Emergence, Rhetoric as Love,” Jim Corder suggests that “we are always standing somewhere in our narrative when we speak to other or to ourselves” (17). As a group, discuss Corder’s ideas about how the narrative of our lives influence the emergence of our identities as arguments and how rhetoric ought to function in our communication with each other, especially when we disagree strongly with each other. How does The Laramie Project dramatize the clash of different narratives about homosexuality with a small Western town? What role does love—or perhaps more precisely, forgiveness—play within the film’s argument about the murder of Matthew Shepard and what we as a community—or a nation—should do in response to it?
Group #4: Andrea, Ryan & Mike: One of the arguments that Amy Tigner makes in her essay about The Laramie Project is that as Kaufman and the Teutonic Theater Project shaped the interview transcripts into a play, they ended up conforming to conventions of Western American myth. In what ways is this film Western? Despite its appeal to a national audience, how does it shed light on life in a small university town in the rural West? How does this sense of region relate to our national identity?
Group #5: Christo, Cole & Jordan: In terms of rhetorical appeals, it probably goes without saying that the predominant appeal of The Laramie Project is pathos. As a group, remind each other what an appeal to pathos is and discuss how this kind of appeal works to help persuade an audience of an argument. Identify three scenes that you think demonstrates different, but particularly effective appeals to pathos and explain precisely what kind of emotional state the film cultivates within the viewer. How does this emotional appeal support the film’s main claim?
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Using the characters of the shopkeeper, Reggie's mother, and the gay rancher, the Laramie Project appeals to pathos in a definitive and sincere way. The shopkeeper talks about Matt, both from her personal exposure to him, as well as in relation to her daughter's closeness to him. Reggie's mother is involuntarily pulled very close to the story because her daughter gets infected with the HIV virus through exposure to Matthew's blood.
ReplyDeleteWestboro baptist church gives a different perspective on the whole affair. Their protest incites a very strong response from the community, prompting them to don PVC pipe angel wings, and position themselves to block their hate signs.
The film is obviously one-sided in how it wants its audience to respond, but it does still give a voice to people who are either uncomfortable with, or hateful towards homosexuals. There is an obvious expectation that the audience will sympathize with and grieve for Matthew Shephard; however, it still gives voice to people who may not approve of gays.
Kaufman made the conscious choice to leave Matthew out of the play for many reasons. By not including him, the viewer understands the community as a whole and the different dynamics involved in the incident and aftermath. This makes the play more emotional for the viewer because they are not seeing him specifically, they are understanding the emotions and responses of the people close to him. Also, the company stressed understanding their characters on a personal level and took the time to get to know the people they were portraying. Because Matthew is deceased, no one would be able to get to know him well enough to represent him as thoroughly as the other characters. The format of the play was also not fitting for the inclusion of matthew as a character because it was a documentary style play. If they included him, they would have to add a whole other storyline which could get confusing. One scene that was enhanced by Shepard's absence was the discovery of the body because rather than focusing on the brutality alone, it appealed emotionally by providing first hand accounts. Also, the scene in the bar allows the viewer to see the events unfold through the bartenders perspective. This allows the viewer to feel like they were there at the time, not just watching it for entertainment. Finally, In the hospital, the focus is on the doctor rather than Matthew. By doing this, you see his view changing slightly and this provides insight into how the views of individuals changed as time passed. Overall, the choice not to include Matthew was extremely effective.
ReplyDeleteGroup 3
ReplyDeleteIn his essay, Corder talks about different ways that we react to different narratives. He states that we reject other narratives, ignore other narratives completely, change our own narrative based on others, or argue against other opinions. In “The Laramie Project”, we witness each of these approaches. Some individuals said they don’t agree with homosexuality, but they said they were fine with homosexuals: a demonstration of how they partly ignore other narratives. For some, the Matthew Shepard case made them reflect on and change their own beliefs. And still, some people like the religious leaders would not budge from their original beliefs at all. Corder asks, “What happens if a narrative not our own reveals to us that our own narrative was wanting all along, though it is the only evidence of our identity” (19). At the end of “The Laramie Project”, all of the people who had remained in the closet for so long found courage from what happened to Matthew to come out and not hide their true identity any longer, finding strength from each other in their social meetings. This also holds true for the fifty or so people who joined the march at the end of the homecoming parade; they had always supported the cause but they never truly knew it because of the community they were in where there was a very low population of people who were openly gay.
As far as representation of the characters, Moíses Kaufman and company certainly did extensive research and study in order to get the best and most accurate information available. Their prolific number of interviews and numerous workshops gave them the knowledge and information in order to ethically and realistically portray the people of Laramie, Wyoming. We believe their work was successful because their objective research left little room for bias. The portrayal of characters was following the lines of what you see is what you get. There were those who perpetuated stereotypes such as the old rancher couple who kept to themselves and were “live and let live”. Another character who perpetuated stereotypes was the Baptist pastor who did not agree with the lifestyle of Matthew Shepard. In spite this negative fact, the representations were true to character. The film also presented characters that broke stereotypes such as the Catholic priest who was very open about his thoughts and opinions and the gay rancher who seemed to be an anomaly in the town of Laramie but didn’t want to leave the land he loved.
ReplyDeleteThe actors and researchers with the Tectonic Theater Project were objective in that they took the people of Laramie at face value, and the film was also fair in its representation of people but had a slight dramatized effect due to its ability to zoom in and out. These effects are used negatively in the shots of McKinney’s girlfriend and used sympathetically in the shots of Matthew Shepard’s father.
One particular scene that does justice to the residents of Laramie is the scene in which some residents of Laramie march in a local parade for Matthew Shepard. This does justice to the residents of Laramie because it indicates that there are people in Laramie who care about others and it shows that the people in Laramie rally around their fellow community members. A scene that is an injustice to the residents of Laramie are the scenes where people who have a hate filled or angry attitude towards homosexuals or have a nonchalant attitude about the crime itself. This scene does an injustice to the residents of Laramie because it enhances and reinforces the negative stereotypes of Laramie that people already perceived. It doesn’t help the audience feel sympathetic for the town and its tragedy. The representation of characters in The Laramie Project brings reality and a tangible aspect to the town of Laramie as well as life to its people.
Group #4
ReplyDeleteAlthough we understood Tigner’s argument and saw some of her supports in the play, as a group, Mike, Andrea, and Ryan felt that Tigner’s we somewhat farfetched and was not entirely supported by the play. For example, we felt the parralel she drew between Aaron Kreifels riding a bicycle and a lone horseback rider was reading too far into a coincidence. I rode my bike to work today, but that doesn’t mean I am going to brand cattle and ride of into the sunset equipped with a six-shooter. We also disagreed with her assertion that Kreifels was portrayed as both a major character in the play and also an admirable hero. No one would disagree that he performed a good deed, but as a group, we felt that he was not played off to be some spotless and selfless hero. Tigner claims that Kaufman and the Tectonic Theater Project edited away his homophobia and specifically chose to leave out his bigoted remarks to preserve his heroic qualities as a character, but we watched his personal questioning and conflict acted out in the film. In our eyes, he was merely a minor character swept up in all of the personal, moral, and societal turmoil that all Laramie found itself in. For as much as we disagreed with Tigner, we did agree with her on one fundamental point: in the process of whittling and organizing their research from 200 separate interviews down to an hour and a half stage production, of course intentional choices were made. The is bias and creativity, but as a play, it should not only be understood by appreciated.