Exposing the Subtle Racism of Come From Away

Racism has at last become unfashionable, at least in the mainstream. So when racism makes a high profile appearance it’s a surprise. I haven’t seen Come From Away for nearly six months, and for six months I’ve been asking everyone the same question — ‘why is such a mundane, unhummable musical so popular?’

I’ve also been complaining about the token gay characters. The musical is all about the kind, nice, straight people of Gander — but now and then a chirpy gay couple pops in and makes us laugh with their harmless shenanigans. Why is this offensive to me as a gay man? Because gay men have been represented as secondary characters who provide comic relief since the dawn of time. (This even applies to Will and Grace, which — though it features a gay man as the leading character — is all about his friendship with a woman, leaving Jack MacFarland, Will’s sidekick, to be the effeminate guy who actually has gay sex and is therefore, well, the real gay man.) 

The presence  of these two ‘chatty Jacks’ in Come From Away does not explain its popularity.  But this mega-musical’s treatment of people of colour may very well do so. The theme of Come From Away is ‘Aren’t the people of Gander, Newfoundland kind and wonderful?’ The plot centres around the population of a mainly white little town that opens its heart to foreign airplanes forced to land there temporarily during 911. It makes much of the ability of the town’s mostly white, Celtic citizenry to put aside their prejudices and welcome a Muslim passenger. Of course Come From Away makes every attempt to humanize its token Muslim character (just as it tries to humanize its token gay couple) — but  ultimately this is a musical about how wonderful white, straight people are. The leading white characters are extolled for helping the marginalized secondary characters. It’s a giant congratulatory slap-on-the-back for North American whites — who are specifically celebrated in Come From Away’s opening song: ‘Welcome to the Rock.’ Come from Away, like Kinky Boots,  is part of a new trend: mega-musicals that celebrate tolerance. Funny, but I personally have never been very fond of being tolerated.

Am I being a nit-picky, political correct lefty a-hole? After all, how can you possibly accuse an anti-racist musical of being racist? I’m not saying that any play that celebrates the fabulousness of white people is racist. But, sorry, the person most likely to get-teary eyed over the fact that some old Newfoundland lady has to go out and buy extra toilet paper for an unexpected guest is probably another old white lady (the target audience for this musical) and her husband — that she dragged out to see this corny stuff. And how did that lady get her ‘hubby’ there? Well, both of them feel a little guilty about being white people these days — and Come From Away makes them feel better.

I’m not blaming anybody (certainly not the fine cast, director, etc.)  — just our messed up ‘tolerant’ culture. But perhaps this is something to think about? When plays become all about making money (not art) then sometimes quality is sacrificed for pandering to our very worst instincts.

And we may not even know it’s happening.

Plays That Turn Into Land Acknowledgements

Have you noticed that land acknowledgements have started to turn into plays and plays have started to turn into land acknowledgements?

No, really.

I affirm the importance of land acknowledgements. We must remember that we are settlers here and that this land was not given to us, but stolen by force. It’s also important to acknowledge that we heartlessly exterminated another culture, and to take responsibility for our crime.

Perhaps in a  good land acknowledgement the speaker might suggest some course of action? Some way to try and compensate aboriginal people for the wrongs done to them? I know it’s not easy to figure out how to actually make change, but anything would be better than what land acknowledgements have been turning into.

Like…. personal memoirs? Like when the (usually white) person who is doing the land acknowledgement does not want to appear cold, or impersonal, or uninvolved, so they set about offering us a personal anecdote that they reckon is related to aboriginal issues? Inevitably the speaker strays from the topic at hand and sometimes (embarrassingly) ends up doing a little (perhaps unintentional) self-promotion?

Ugh.

But what’s really frightening is that not only are land acknowledgements turning into plays but plays are turning into land acknowledgements.

These days when I read a review of a play in Toronto tells us what the theme of the play is. And the play is judged to be good if the reviewer agrees with the that theme and bad-to- middling if the reviewer cannot find a theme to agree with. Is this what a theatre experience should be? I remember when a good play would set the reviewers puzzling over what it meant, or arguing about what they thought it meant — but nobody really knew for sure.

And I kind of liked that.

These days, at the beginning of the play, the author(s) tell you who is oppressed and who is not. After that it’s very boring. Am I suggesting that writers should be on the side of the oppressors? No. I’m just suggesting that plays should be more complicated and interesting than a game of football where you know before it starts which side you’re on.

I used to write gay plays that sometimes featured awful and nasty gay characters. I remember someone came up to me once and asked ‘Why do you hate gay people so much?” And I said “I don’t hate gay people it’s just that a lot of gay people are stupid and mean just like straight people. Would you like to see a play about people who were smart and nice? I think it would be a very boring play.”

Land acknowledgements are not suppose to be entertaining. They are supposed to make a point.

But plays…well plays used to be something other than well just — political views you know you agreed with before you came in, and still agree with, only more so, when you come out.

I long for that.