quote: The film version of "1776," based on the Broadway musical about the crafting of the Declaration of Independence, has been banned in Fairfax County middle schools because of sexual innuendo in a conversation between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.
Jefferson is balking at staying in Philadelphia to write the declaration and protests to Adams: "I've not seen my wife in six months."
Adams responds, "You write 10 times better than any man in Congress, including me. For a man of only 33 years, you possess a happy talent for composition and a remarkable felicity of expression. Now, will you be a patriot . . . or a lover?"
Jefferson, clearly preferring the latter, says he "burns" for his wife, at home in Virginia.
posted
I burn for my wife too, but then again, I am a hopeless sinner with no remorse.
This is silly beyond compare. Shakespearean ludeness is millions of times worse than this. I know because I saw Porkys...
Posts: 1870 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
I attended a religious HS, with standards even more prudish than mine. And we watched that movie!
Anyway, if they want innuendo, as I recall, that scene is not nearly as suggestive as a later scene with Jefferson's wife and a violin.
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posted
Don't you love it when the ancients try to stifle their pseudo-guilt about their own youth, sixties and all, through zombification of today's kids?
Posts: 1045 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
Don't encourage me Liz, it only gives me incentive to keep behaving badly.
And as for stifling the youth of America, I can't wait until I am an old and miserable old man. I intend to use my age and so-called wisdom to be as bucolic and enigmatic as I possibly can.
posted
Well, we are talking "middle school" here folks! They don't have enough violins for all the kids that would be inspired after seeing this movie!
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
I just want to be able to sit in the garden and read all day long when I get old. In a screenhouse. With iced tea.
Wait a minute, I AM old!
As for Thomas Jefferson, he was a sexy guy. He was a patriot and a lover. It ticked Adams off. I love how he berates him and praises him all at once. That is what kids would focus in on, I think. And if they realized that Tom Jefferson loved his wife, so much the better.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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quote:That is what kids would focus in on, I think. And if they realized that Tom Jefferson loved his wife, so much the better.
Can you imagine?
Maybe if people thought marriage and love actually went hand-in-and, there'd be less divorce? Maybe if people thought the passion could continue after the "I Do's" and the honeymoon, there'd be more fidelity? Maybe . . .
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My choir, a group from my school, went to see that on our trip to D.C. last year! An organized group, from my school. And it's banned for that silliness. Wow. That's pathetic.
Posts: 7877 | Registered: Feb 2003
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I was at Ricks college (now BYU-Idaho) when they performed that show. I was dating a guy that was in it at the time, so I was more involved than most people.
For those of you that don't know, this school is a private school owned and run by the LDS church and has a very strict code of conduct. The theater department ended up cutting out the "Lord's name in vain" swearing, but left in a couple Damn's and Hells. Normal forefather swearing, right? They also left in SOME of the innuendo...and they were asked to cut it more after the president of the college saw it.
Well, I didn't mind that so much, they did such a beautiful job that the cuts didn't make much of a difference (whether I thought they were silly or not). What I did mind was the group of holier than thou students that started writing to our newspaper and denouncing the show as something evil, bad, wrong, etc....
I promptly, with my 18 year old fire, determination, and bad word choice, wrote a letter of my own to the paper. I'm too lazy to copy it here, but it basically burned everyone for their raunchy sit-com, adam sandler movie- watching double standard. Or something like that.
Anyway, this doesn't say anything about what I think of this ruling or not. It's funny that they focused on this movie when there are so many other MORE questionable things allowed into the classroom...
Posts: 6415 | Registered: Jul 2000
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quote:The film version of "1776," based on the Broadway musical about the crafting of the Declaration of Independence, has been banned in Fairfax County middle schools because of sexual innuendo in a conversation between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.
...was I the only one whose eyes became saucers at that line?
posted
Karen, that was actually my first thought too. I'm surprised no one has brought up that Sally Hemmings was also at Monticello. Or was he at Monticello yet at this point? Anyway, I'm not 100% on board with the whole Sally Hemmings thing since there was a brother and a nephew who could also have fathered those 12 children or however many it was. Edit: spelling
[ March 21, 2004, 06:24 PM: Message edited by: Trisha the Severe Hottie ]
Posts: 666 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
Fawn Brodie's interpretations of Thomas Jefferson have turned things which would be sweet coming from any other husband into something highly questionable. I'm not saying that the folks behind this decision don't have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, I'm just saying womanizing and smoking dope have become part of his aura.
I think these ideas were perpetuated a bit more in the last decade to try and make Clinton look less bad. Maybe it worked for some folks, but for others it just made Jefferson look bad.
Posts: 666 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
I saw 1776 live in Logan, Utah (big Mormon community), performed by a light opera troupe founded by Michael Ballam (music prof at Utah State University, a State school but heavily LDS demographically). Ballam, who starred as John Adams, is somewhat of an LDS celebrity. He is mostly known for playing a key role in one of the most widely viewed LDS (meaning actually created by the LDS Church and approved by its top leaders) films of the past 13 years.
The production of 1776 I saw was not altered from the original in the least as far as I could see. It was great.
1776 is one of my favorite musicals.
Posts: 1652 | Registered: Aug 2003
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And USU wouldn't censor anything. Did you ever go to the student plays in the Black Box? It's a Mormon community, but the humanity profs are usually not.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
Well, the Utah Festival Opera Company is not really sponsored by USU. It does have some USU faculty involved, most notably Michael Ballam.
And no, I never went to any student productions. I haven't spent a lot of time on campus, never having been a student there.
I do know that one of USU's dairy-related programs makes the best ice cream I've ever had in my life.
Posts: 1652 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
I know there is a joke about Jefferson and his slave in here somewhere. I'm just too polite to bring it up.
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