Unhinged objectified women and their bodies. This is unacceptable. If any of this is triggering, please stop reading this article now.
Overseen by two male directors (Teddy Fatscher and his associate Frank Leone), the power of the patriarchy dominated this collage of short vignettes objectifying women and the female body. Kelly Trevlyn in her bra and underwear was nonconsensually chained at her leg by an unknown controller. For nearly the entire hour women’s bodies were unnecessarily wearing little to no clothes. I found this shameful and felt uncomfortable throughout the performance.
Other captives wore papier-mâché masks with accentuated smiling faces painted on them. These masks creepily obscured their identity, as well as their personal feelings in regard to their situation. Scantily clad women stumbled around displaying a lack of strength or direction. These wayward sequences triggered endless warnings to me, as women were treated as creatures. The chained woman, once released, remained weak—exhausted against the arms and shoulders of her captor (Fatscher, who also performs). The fact that there were more female-bodied performers than males on the project does not make any of this permissible. Even if each of these women felt this objectification was all right, it does not make it okay for the audience.
In these times of the #metoo movement and fourth-wave feminism, this piece made clear how far we have to go to redirect the still-prevalent male gaze.
Unhinged, Matter Movement Group, Piazza at Schmidt’s Commons, September 4 – 24
