Elevate Difference

Reviews by Joan Dawson

In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play (8/29/2010)

“Please turn off anything that beeps, buzzes, or vibrates.” And with that comic admonishment to the audience, Pulitzer Prize-nominated writer Sarah Ruhl’s play about the advent of vibrators began. The setting is Dr. Givings home, where his living room is located next to, and within earshot of, the “surgical theater.” Here, Dr. Givings (played by Eric Hissom) treats hysteria, a “medical ailment” dating back to about 300 BC, when Hippocrates thought women’s madness stemmed from their womb.

2010 Wall Calendar: Anne Taintor

“She was one cocktail away from proving his mother right” is the text accompanying a modestly dressed, yet sexily posed, 1950s woman that adorns the cover of the 2010 Wall Calendar by Anne Taintor. Why is it that these satirical sentences bring a smile to our faces? Why does it give us such pleasure to poke fun at these Leave it to Beaver prototypes? Whatever the analysis, it works.

Street Art San Francisco: Mission Muralismo

I have to admit: laziness compelled me to review this book. It is, after all, a book on murals, containing over 500 illustrations. How difficult could that be? Plus, I spent one month in 2002 as an intern at the Women’s Building in San Francisco’s Mission District. The Women’s Building is aglow with a brightly colored mural of women, hovering powerfully over the sidewalks. I had also gone on the Precipita Eyes mural tour. I had some sense of what to expect then.

Women, Violence, and the Media Readings in Feminist Criminology

At times, much like a good teacher, this book had my full attention. At other times, I nodded off. When I was three-quarters the way through, I began to wonder why it sounded like one of my old college text books. When I finished the 279 pages and went back to the preface, which I had long forgotten, I learned why: it was written for college students. That explained it.

Chicago: The Musical (4/1/2009)

A few years ago, I took my two twenty-something nieces to see the Oscar-winning movie Chicago and was aghast at the plot. I thought, to borrow their words, “OMG!” Surely, my nieces would tell my family their “radical” aunt took them to see a movie where women imprisoned for killing men belt out, “He had it coming!” while doing the fiery Cell Block Tango.
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