#either it's bullshit or we're doing this opera wrong

[all-chickens-are-trans]

Sarastro: kidnaps a girl from her mother, says it's the will of the gods because she 'belongs' to some guy she never met, tries to force feed his weird religious cult to her, constantly expresses racist and sexist opinions, owns slaves,...

➡️ is supposed to be the good guy

The Queen of the Night: rightfully pissed because her daughter got kidnapped, by the same guy who, for sexist reasons, got the magic power-up that would have been rightfully hers, also unrelated to morals, but has one of the biggest bangers opera has to offer

➡️ is supposed to be the bad guy

[leporellian]

i think it 100% depends on exactly what it is we're trying to do with the production...

like IF i'm going to see a fairly lighthearted take on it or a 'there's something for everyone' type show... yeah cutting it is best tone-wise because otherwise the whiplash between 'show for everyone :)' and 'God let me tell you about these Fucking women' is enough to kill a wildebeest with cranial tension. also i am of the opinion we should be allowed to change the magic flute in whatever way we want, just like in general (to a degree far more drastic than most operas), and there's some pretty interesting and creative ways to cut the sexism or explain what exactly is sarastro's deal.

IF a production is trying to interrogate the work or ask why we still do it or any other sort of darker takes on the whole thing, then i'm more fine about it staying in- that is, IF the production can do something smart about it. which is a very big IF and honestly not one i trust many people with.

with Song of the Sky i just cut out nearly all of the gender-related conflict entirely. this is actually one of the reasons i wanted to do the magic flute with animals- specifically cats- and not something more person-adjacent. like they're cats man it doesn't matter. tamino and pamina don't fall in love, monostatos doesn't have a thing for pamina, the queen and sarastro being enemies has nothing to do with their gender, the only real trace of it is papageno and papagena and even then given she's dead before the story even starts they won't be going very far. (note: i am also bad at writing romance.) sarastro's council is gender-neutral; the character of the speaker is female. i don't want to be dealing with writing misogyny when the focus of SotS is elsewhere and too many animal books are like weirdly focused around it.

i am a believer in both sarastro and the queen sucking, and i like it when productions make it clear that they're both bad- or at least deeply, deeply flawed people. but you can still get that dynamic across without including the racism and sexism. sarastro still kidnaps pamina and tears her apart from her mother just so he can offer 'his side of events'. he still is fully willing to let tamino and pamina die if they can't become what he wants them to be (with the text implying that sarastro would absolutely subject papageno to this fate also and is simply choosing to spare him). he still goes about parading that he knows everything and that everything he does is correct, and finally i dunno i feel like the fact two different people nearly kill themselves over something caused by his bullshit kind of makes the point that Something is Wrong about this Man! like you don't need the misogyny when all that is happening!

(always so crazy to me that BOTH sarastro and the queen are like, kind of sacrificing tamino. like WHY would the queen send tamino if she can clearly just walk right on over herself like she does later, and why does she claim she's 'too weak' to do it. it feels like she's deliberately sending him because that way he'd die instead of her. then you got sarastro and his 'either you say i'm always right abt everything or you Die' thing. like god it's sad. tamino!!! tamino you laika coded bitch!!! you're not escaping the fucking cycles!!!!!! God Fuck! anyway.)

finally: i DO think productions should always work to cut the racism around monostatos's character and to reinvent much of him every time around, because i think that's an entirely different power dynamic at hand than the misogyny thing and can't be made into a 'haha! they are being proven wrong!' thing like the sexism can.

@leporellian

[homosociallyyours]

If you're still doing these: Ursula, Maleficent, Cruella and listen I'm going to say 10 but honestly I want to know your answers to basically all of those with these three so please feel free to answer as many as your heart desires

HIIIIII you sent this a week ago but i'm just answering now bc it's never too late to answer an ask as fun as this one, right??? This got long so I'm adding a read more!! And if anyone wants to send me three names and a number from this post please do!!!

stab, shoot or drown: I assume in this scenario I'm trying to defeat or kill these queens (sounds fake, but ok), so stab Ursula, shoot Cruella, drown Maleficent

fist fight, get drunk with, share a flat with: Right, so. I would absolutely lose in a fist fight with any of them, just to be clear. BUT: fist fight Cruella, get drunk with Ursula, share a flat with Maleficent.

fight aliens with, fight zombies with, fight capitalism with: The reality is that I would give up in the first two scenarios, but if I were the kind to try to take out aliens or zombies, I'd fight aliens with Cruella, zombies with Ursula, and capitalism with Maleficent (I mean she already hated the monarchy, right?)

write a book with, read a book to, hit with a book: OOF, this one is hard. But maybe write an erotic tale of fat femme on femme lust with Ursula, read a book to Maleficent and her crow, and hit Cruella with a book bc she kinda deserves it.

go on a six hour road trip with (no car radio, you choose who drives), sit next to on a six hour plane flight, sit across from on a six hour train journey: NICE ONE!!!! I would take a six hour road trip with Maleficent, trading driving duties. I would read her fic while she drives or else we'd make up shit about strangers in other cars. She would hex any cops we pass along the way, very sexy. Sit by Ursula on the flight and let her grope me with her tentacles only for both of us to walk away and pretend nothing happened at the end. And finally sit across from Cruella on the train thinking we had nothing in common for half the ride but then spend the other half gossiping about absolute celeb bullshit bc we share some of the same hot takes.

go clothes shopping with, go to ikea with, go grocery shopping with: You might think I would say go clothes shopping with Cruella, but you would be WRONG. Yes, she's a fashionista, but I just know deep down she's got serious fatphobia issues and we'd have to fight. Me and Ursula are going clothes shopping together, and we are two sexy fat bitches against the fashion world!!!! LOVE IT!! I'm going to ikea with Maleficent; I think she'd hate some of the same things I do. And definitely going food shopping with Cruella bc in spite of being skinny she IS a rich bitch and would probably let me indulge my fancy food sensibilities to create a truly decadent and sexy 7 course meal where money was no object. DREAMY.

go to a wedding with, go to a party with, go to a museum with: Wedding with Maleficent (either she got a great gift and I get to put my name on it OR she's secretly stealing all the gifts and we're running off together afterwards like two babes in a Taylor Swift song), party with Ursula (FANTASTICAL FEASTS!!), museum with Cruella so I can get her to buy me some art.

share a car with, share a bank account with, share a cake with: Me and Maleficent, in addition to being great roadtrip buddies, would also be excellent car sharers, idk why. I would share Cruella's bank acct because SHE'S RICH, HUNNY! But don't think she's my sugar mommy or something-- she's calling ME mommy in this scenario! And cake with Ursula...we're inviting Agatha Trunchbull and having a gay olde time.

watch a soap opera with, go to a play with, watch your favourite movie with: Hmmm a toughie. Soaps with Cruella bc she'd think the drama was nothing compared to her own life. Play with Ursula so that we could discuss the make up and costumes at intermission and then re-enact our favorite parts later like true drama heauxs. Meanwhile me and Maleficent are always down to watch Clueless bc obviously.

netflix and chill with, go ice-skating with, play dodgeball against: Listen I'm pretty sure me and Maleficent are netflix and chilling already (in my dreams)...she's literally running her fingers thru my hair right now (please i really wish). I'd ice skate with Ursula bc I have a feeling we'd both hate it and decide to get hot choccys instead, and I'd play dodgeball vs Cruella bc HOPEFULLY we'd both hate that too and would instead heckle all the people who decided that tossing balls at one another was a sport and not just some dull, sad version of torture.