The Problem with Miss Saigon

Via Racialicious
The Ordway Still Doesn’t Get Sexism and Racism (The Problem with Miss Saigon)

By Mai Neng Moua

Racism didn’t end with the March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.  The Ordway would never open a show about the “romance” between Thomas Jefferson and his slave mistress Sally Hemmings.  The Ordway would never dream of mounting a play about the “romance” between a Jewish prostitute and a Nazi camp guard during World War II.  It would never open a show with actors and actresses in blackface performing a minstrel show.  The Ordway would find such shows racist and sexist.  The backlash in all those cases would be, justly, brutal.  Miss Saigon is exactly that with an Asian visage.  It’s not beautiful, it’s not romantic, and it’s not tragic in the tradition of Shakespearean drama.  Miss Saigon is racist and sexist.  The Asian community will continue to speak out about Miss Saigon because institutions such as the Ordway still don’t get it.

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