Um, Humor? - The Vagina Monologues

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Boston Herald

`Monologues' incomplete without Hillary by Margery Eagan

Sunday, March 25, 2001

It's been four days now since I experienced a collective I-Am-Woman moment: ``Vagina Monologues'' at the Wilbur Theatre, everyone talking ``vagina,'' thinking ``vagina,'' sort of a vaginal 12-step confab.

``If your vagina got dressed, what would it wear?'' (Glasses!)

``If your vagina could talk, what would it say?'' (``No - over there!'')

Is your vagina righteously angry? Why, in 2001, can't they warm up that torturous speculum?

``VAGINA!'' ``Monologues'' author/actress Eve Ensler must have said the word about a thousand times. And the mainly female audience was practically chanting ``VAGINA'' back, newly vagina-centered as we were.

It's not, alas, a sexy word, Ensler concedes, sounding ``like an infection at best'' or a medical instrument: ``Nurse, hand me the vagina.'' Yet she believes we should all feel ``comfortable'' saying vagina, not guilty and ashamed. ``When you can say that your vagina exists, and you can talk about your vagina anywhere, anytime, you exist. You exist.''

Well, if you say so, Eve.

Your mega-hit play is sold out. You're the darling of the terminally P.C. Hollywood ladies: Jane Fonda, Susan Sarandon, Whoopi Goldberg and Glenn Close. You've written plays about nuclear disarmament and homelessness. ``Monologues'' goes from hysterically funny riffs about vaginal disinfectants to painfully serious scenes from Bosnian rape camps to, oh my God, genital mutilation.

Eve, you've even befriended . . . Hillary. So if you think the nation's vaginas are disrespected and oppressed, that our collective ``vagina intelligence'' has indeed been damaged, you must be right.

But to be frank here, Eve, I think the American vagina has made significant strides since, say, 1952. Personally? I did know I existed before you told me my existence, my very essence, must be confirmed by talking about my vagina anywhere, anytime. Honestly, Eve, what to say about it to my colleagues sitting here, as we are, at our computers, in the center of the newsroom.

Should I tell the reporter across the aisle, ``You know, Tom, my vagina feels a little stressed today''? To what end?

I regret to add as well that in the four days since Wednesday, my relationship with my vagina has returned to its pre-hear-me-roar ``Monologues'' state. That is, a ho-hum state. It is still there. Certainly, I'm glad. But do I want to march out and start a V-workshop with my friends on our little blue floor mats with hand mirrors?

We already did this. In the 1970s. Something to do with The Women's Movement.

Lastly, Eve, I am so disappointed. For ``Monologues,'' you interviewed more than 200 women about their vaginas. Then you got chummy with Hillary and chickened out: You didn't ask her. ``I feel like Hillary Clinton has the potential to be a true leader of women,'' you actually said to Time magazine, ``to really speak our voice.''

Please, Eve, how could you? If there's anyone's vagina I'd really like the skivvy on, it's the one that's got, at least, a passing acquaintance with The Vagina King. What would Hillary's vagina have to say, huh? Would it be ``angry''? ``Don't even try it, Bubba.'' Or resigned? ``It's this one Bill, remember? Over here.''

OK, having tweaked Ensler some let me add: ``Monologues'' is a great night out. Ensler reminds me of Agent 99 in ``Get Smart.'' She's incredibly talented, that rare didactic soul who's maintained her wit. And she's raised millions to combat violence against women.

What bothers me about ``Monologues'' and the cause it's become is Ensler's at least half-serious notion that we need vagina-speak to be sexually whole. Come on. That women today suffer more sexual insecurity than men. We do? That women are mostly victims. Mostly, we're not. And it's depressing that a woman playwright still thinks she can't make worthy art about female sexuality without adding on layers of female sexual degradation. Just Ensler's image of vaginas dressed in berets shouting ``Slow down!'' - that was worthy enough for me.

Margery Eagan's radio show airs weekdays from noon to 3 p.m. on 96.9 FM-TALK.

-- Anonymous, March 25, 2001

Answers

Hillary wouldn't make a good spokesperson, according to some rumours...



-- Anonymous, March 25, 2001


Damn, Spy magazine is good. A few years back, their cover featured Martha Stewart starkers on a clamshell, shades of Bottecelli (sp?). It must have taken a whole lot of bread to persuade Martha to do that.

-- Anonymous, March 25, 2001

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