In response to the call to action to fix the “rape problem” in opera by denuding the productions of all that is likely to cause harm – i.e., the “Weinstein vibes” – and leaving the music intact, I suggest we go further in our drive to cleanse art of all beastliness (“Can opera overcome its rape problem?”, November 30). As Jacqueline Maley argues, we shouldn’t be afraid to “view art through a modern lens”. If bigoted attitudes are expressed, they will only be propagated – it is that simple. But please, let’s not stop at opera.
Central to the plots of many famous literary works are racism (Joseph Conrad), slut-shaming (Rebecca West), and victim blaming (Samuel Richardson). Don’t even talk to me about Shakespeare. In fact, the novel I am reading currently, Bohumil Hrabal’s I served the King of England, contains a scene with a 14-year-old protagonist engaging a sex worker. Such ribald, I mean illegal, depictions may be central to the novel, but who knows how such attitudes of consent and agency could affect twenty-first century readers?
Finally, the novels of Virginia Woolf, G.K. Chesterton, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Charles Dickens are crammed with anti-semitism. As a descendant of survivors of Buchenwald and Auschwitz, and given that anti-semitism is again on the rise, I feel strongly that these books should at the very least be reworked.
After all, why shouldn’t art be all about me?
Letter by Simon Tedeschi in The Sydney Morning Herald.