May 10, 2007
Cleanliness Is Next To Milquetoast
Filed by Bries at 2:36 pm under Fightin' Words, Social Issues, The Arts
A letter to non-smokers: I appreciate your decision not to smoke. I really do. Hell, it’s not like I’m even a regular smoker, I’m only on the heavy side of social. When the smoking ban kicked in, I said “All right, non-smokers, I can deal with this.” When the smoking ban, Mk II will kick in, eliminating smoking in bars as well, I may grumble, but I will cede, saying, “All right, non-smokers, I can deal with the fact that your sort are the ones in power.” But, non-smokers (and I understand I only speak to a fraction of you when saying this), you’re not gonna fuck with my art.
Non-smoking theatre goers: Don’t like it? Leave the show. No, you do NOT have the ‘right’ to a comfortable smoke-free evening of theatre. You have the right to whatever the artists in front of you decide to give you, and you have the right to leave if you don’t like it. Beyond that, it’s our rules, and if our rules say that we smoke, you can either suck it up or you can leave. As much as the Great White Way has persuaded you otherwise, art is not created for your best interests. We make what we want, yearn, need to make. You are welcome to tag along — if you can keep up. But you don’t make the rules, any of them. And I dare you to try. Those who know me will attest that there ain’t much that I truly get up in arms about, but A-Number One is my right — and not some “bleeding heart, constitutional, don’t pick on me” right, but my “inalienable (in the truest sense), primitive, I will fight your entire family for this” right — to be an artist. In every manner that that term applies. So grow some thicker skin, ’cause I will not allow you to use my art to further hide from your fears.
Non-smoking actors: Do your thing, man, that’s cool by me. If you are that die-hard dedicated to not smoking that you must avoid its presence at all times that’s fine, but then you need to come to terms with the fact that you have automatically decreased your work potential. Your prerogative, but don’t think you can have it both ways, because the rest of us aren’t going to tip-toe around your delicate sensibilities. You’re an artist, learn to suffer.
To Lisa, the allergic theatre critic (the comment posted on May 8, 3:44 pm): That sucks. I’m truly sorry you have such a shitty allergy. That said, where do you get off asserting that your right to be able to sit in and criticize my work trumps my right to create that work? Either find a new profession or find a colleague who can cover the smoking shows, because you are no longer welcome.
To the MPAA: Suck my dick.
Bries.
I wonder if this is just a case of some hotshot young alderman trying to prove he can “make a difference.” Good Goddamn luck trying to enforce that rule. You make it law, theatre companies will simply start breaking the law.
And another thing: it’s pointless to enforce herbal cigarettes over real ones — the smoke they each produce is equally bad to inhale (which, in both cases, is a danger greatly exaggerated by many “study” groups). If it’s the actor you’re worried about, relax — the actor will take care of the actor. If the actor prefers herbal to real, then the actor will smoke herbal; if the actor prefers real to herbal, then the actor will smoke real. Hell, the actor might even choose to smoke filterless Camels; the audience will suffer no more and no less.
Smoking is not the issue to the people who are against the ban, and the freedom of expression is not the issue to the people who are for it. We’ve got two very stubborn and very excitable sides that aren’t even arguing the same thing.
My personal stance is this: you can write all the laws you want to, you’re not gonna stop us from doing it (and you’re not going stop people from coming to see it). Theatres break laws all the time. If the city actually bothers itself with a gesture as grand as shutting down a production, then at least two of three things will happen: 1) people will fucking riot, 2) the production will be restaged somewhere else in the city WITH SMOKING, and 3) the sky will fall down.
Politics will never defeat the arts. Never.
What are they going to do, raid productions of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” just to prove their point? Ridiculous.