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Attitude Diversity: Sexual PreferenceWilliam Elwood. American attitudes toward homosexuality and its variants such as bisexuality, transvestitism, transexuality and transgenderism have undergone significant changes since Robert Anderson’s Tea and Sympathy was produced on Broadway with its subsequent film version. In the beginning of the 20th century the subject was largely taboo. Homosexuality has been called the Vice that cannot be named,” with its Teutonic version, “the German vice,” “the unspeakable vice” and a host of other pejorative labels. I will show how sexual preference is treated from a mild, watered down Tea & Sympathy through tolerance, acceptance and violence in such works as Boys Don't Cry and the Laramie Project
Presenters William Elwood
(United States)
Professor and Chair, Theatre Chair, Department of Theatre Southern Connecticut State University Professor, University of Wisconsin, Madison 1967-1988; Dean of Graduate Studies, Emerson College, Boston 1988-1994; SCSU 2000-present. Fulbrights, Free U. in Berlin, 1966-1967; University of Munich 1975-1976. Recent: 8 essays in Essays on Twentieth-Century German Drama & Theatre. An American Reception (1997-1999) Peter Lang, 2004.
Keywords
(30 min. Conference Paper,
English)
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