Renowned University of Michigan professor who has taught at the school since 1995 is removed from his post after woke freshman complains about him showing Oscar-nominated acting legend Laurence Olivier in blackface in 1965 film Othello

[Dashinka 24,933]

Survives the Communist Cultural Revolution in China, but may not survive the Communist/Socialist movement here in Woke/Racist/Regressive America.  Of course his biggest mistake was to apologize to an indoctrinated snowflake.  Imagine if he had screened Blazing Saddles.

 

Renowned University of Michigan professor who has taught at the school since 1995 is removed from his post after woke freshman complains about him showing Oscar-nominated acting legend Laurence Olivier in blackface in 1965 film Othello

 

A music professor from the University of Michigan has been removed from his teaching post after a student at the college complained about him showing the 1965 film Othello starring Laurence Olivier in blackface.  
 

Bright Sheng, who teaches composition at the School of Music, Theatre & Dance in  Ann Arbor, Michigan, showed students the movie - which garnered four Academy Award nominations - last month. 

 

Shortly after the screening, one of those taking the class complained to higher-ups at the university.  

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10074869/Professor-composer-removed-teaching-Michigan-University-showing-1965-film-Othello.html

[laylalex 7,300]

Three tracks here: I know that Othello, and while Olivier is, well, Olivier and an amazing actor often, but... it's not that great. It was also considered pretty offensive at the time -- here's a review from 1966 basically saying, what the hell with the blackface and minstrelsy. 
 

Quote

 

However, one bold and singular aspect of this production immediately impels the sensitive American viewer into a baffled and discomfited attitude. That is the radical makeup Sir Laurence has chosen to use in his powerful and passionate characterization of the jealous Moor.

He plays Othello in blackface! That's right, blackface—not the dark-brown stain that even the most daring white actors do not nowadays wish to go beyond. 

...

He looks like a Rastus or an end man in an American minstrel show. You almost wait for him to whip a banjo out from his flowing, white garments or start banging a tambourine. What's more, he speaks at the beginning in a deep, densely dignified voice that distractingly reminded this viewer of Amos in the old Amos 'n' Andy radio serial. It is not the familiar four-speeds-forward, emotion-charged voice of Sir Laurence. Though he does get around to that later—when he starts to claw the walls and raise the roof—there comes then a further distraction in the inexplicable vocal switch.

...

But this is still a stage melodrama that is loaded with outlandish plot, and nothing that's done in this picture keeps it from seeming so. Anyhow, since it's not very likely that most of you will ever get to see it done on the stage with Sir Laurence giving the bizarre performance he does, I would say it is definitely a picture you should make an endeavor to see, so you can tell your children you saw Olivier's Othello, just as I've been able to tell mine that I once saw Primrose and Dockstater in their incomparable minstrel show.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/1966/02/02/archives/the-screen-minstrel-show-othelloradical-makeup-marks-oliviers.html?unlocked_article_code=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACEIPuonUkd_brYhkSlUbASbcR9MnrwOLnr_TwLF5nXTkISWTDDNDyf8JGYWEvlzNYrUmYMcz0jCfQ8VIPL4kTfg3y-ZcMlF1DgyhuJif3ZMBIjs0pJioGGMq2paHFZYJzQjXVEjrYuFu2O_4-BucLDm7BfDChXx3Ig5jo8Z6dwyq0WgPlvjCDrV-jtBh1KhwVMt_Q2xTZSLcrOCoX0slQKiOaBzW4wQ3XeFLC3qEzZPHteV2IEgFAknGTXh8_W4-9NpXXdgVN676JBMkE9Hs1fRTUic7adf0WOBiAtTchL5osrbSqRWTy8DQxPw-FKtcub2soX9VoMccc2nLDwTML_jG6RHK&smid=url-share (This is another free NYT link I'm providing for this month for those who complain about paywalls.)

 

The second track here is that it is wrong to say the professor was "removed from his post" as that article does. He has stopped teaching the class. That article makes it sound like he was ousted from the university -- he is still teaching. https://www.newsweek.com/college-music-professor-steps-down-students-blackface-othello-1637274 Both articles are dated today. Which is right? We aren't supposed to criticize sources, but I tend to trust Newsweek more than the DM, which is really most good for its trashy and breathless Harry and Meghan coverage, anyway.  

 

The third is that I find this situation staggeringly dumb. Art is art, and while that version of Othello is overly theatrical (I have seen it -- it's pretty turgid), and not really even of its time when it was made, it's still art. I think the students were wrong to call for his removal, and the professor wrong to apologize for offending sensibilities. Apologize for showing a movie that really can't connect with much of any audience anymore, as it is extremely stagey and dated. Show this one instead, which has Orson Welles -- another white man as the Moor -- but is a lot more watchable while still reaching the same point the professor was trying to reach -- how does Verdi adapt Shakespeare? 

 

Art is often spectacular when it isn't safe, and makes you feel uncomfortable or off your bearings a little. Students of art would do well to remember this. 

 

[laylalex 7,300]

Whoops -- left out the link to the Welles Othello:

 

 

[Dashinka 24,933]

Not really sure the issue is with Olivier playing Othello.  It is really about a snowflake being offended by a classic, but whatever it takes for those on the Left that claim to be woke.

[Boiler 46,325]

 

My Grannys favourite from when it was not an issue.

 

Now we have the likes of Trudeau

[TBoneTX 46,331]

Good grief.  Actually, nothing good about it, so just Grief.

[Dashinka 24,933]

Btw, Othello was a Moor or more precisely a Berber, not really sure they were sub-Saharan African.

[laylalex 7,300]

5 hours ago, Dashinka said:

Btw, Othello was a Moor or more precisely a Berber, not really sure they were sub-Saharan African.

Correct, which is why seeing someone like Welles attempt it not in blackface isn't jarring. Olivier's Othello is a hot mess, and blackface is part of it. But we can look on it as a curio that was far out of time at the time it was made, much like the Black and White Minstrel Show. My mother-in-law and I had a long discussion about that, she remembered it from when she was a kid and she had a gollywog doll as well. 

 

6 hours ago, Dashinka said:

Not really sure the issue is with Olivier playing Othello.  It is really about a snowflake being offended by a classic, but whatever it takes for those on the Left that claim to be woke.

The issue is (or could be): why this Othello? I understand the point the professor was trying to make, which is: how does one create an opera from a text like Shakespeare? This is an excellent point, and should be explored. But there are other, better examples than Olivier's. Why that one? And I stress again, the film was criticized in the mid 60s, over 50 years ago, for being racially insensitive. I'm not saying oh you must watch the Denzel one, I'm saying there are other versions that capture the play even better. It's a classic only in that it's pretty old.

 

And still, the students should be able to voice their disapproval without it rising to the level of (essentially) "Burn the witch!" I watched plenty of stuff in college, at college, in classrooms that made me feel uncomfortable or angry. We were free to voice our disapproval, but that's pretty much where it ended. And I went to a very, very liberal college. I make my point again: excellent art can make you feel weird or gross or angry, and we should be free to say that. But censorship is not the solution. 

 

I actually think you and I are not very far apart in this. 

[LIBrty4all 3,754]

If only there was a racist rock to blame all of this on.

[TBoneTX 46,331]

4 hours ago, LIBrty4all said:

a racist rock

Plymouth Rock started it all!

[Dashinka 24,933]

On 10/10/2021 at 12:00 AM, laylalex said:

Correct, which is why seeing someone like Welles attempt it not in blackface isn't jarring. Olivier's Othello is a hot mess, and blackface is part of it. But we can look on it as a curio that was far out of time at the time it was made, much like the Black and White Minstrel Show. My mother-in-law and I had a long discussion about that, she remembered it from when she was a kid and she had a gollywog doll as well. 

 

The issue is (or could be): why this Othello? I understand the point the professor was trying to make, which is: how does one create an opera from a text like Shakespeare? This is an excellent point, and should be explored. But there are other, better examples than Olivier's. Why that one? And I stress again, the film was criticized in the mid 60s, over 50 years ago, for being racially insensitive. I'm not saying oh you must watch the Denzel one, I'm saying there are other versions that capture the play even better. It's a classic only in that it's pretty old.

 

And still, the students should be able to voice their disapproval without it rising to the level of (essentially) "Burn the witch!" I watched plenty of stuff in college, at college, in classrooms that made me feel uncomfortable or angry. We were free to voice our disapproval, but that's pretty much where it ended. And I went to a very, very liberal college. I make my point again: excellent art can make you feel weird or gross or angry, and we should be free to say that. But censorship is not the solution. 

 

I actually think you and I are not very far apart in this. 

It is obvious I would think.  The professor is a racist and deserves to be canceled.

[LIBrty4all 3,754]

On 10/10/2021 at 4:12 AM, TBoneTX said:

Plymouth Rock started it all!

I was actually referring to the real racist rock that had to be removed.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/09/us/chamberlin-rock-removed-university-of-wisconsin-trnd/index.html

[Dashinka 24,933]

5 minutes ago, LIBrty4all said:

I was actually referring to the real racist rock that had to be removed.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/09/us/chamberlin-rock-removed-university-of-wisconsin-trnd/index.html

Those darned racist rocks!

[laylalex 7,300]

7 hours ago, Dashinka said:

It is obvious I would think.  The professor is a racist and deserves to be canceled.

No, I'd like to understand why this professor -- who has a history of prizing inclusion -- chose this one. Was it the aesthetics? I think an argument could be made that because the production is markedly "stagey," that perhaps a closer analogue could be made with an operatic production. 

 

Has anyone figured out if the professor actually was fired or if the Newsweek article is correct, and he decided to stop teaching the class? The latest reporting (from today) seems to indicate that he is still teaching at the university.

Quote

 

David Gier, dean of the School of Music, Theatre & Dance, referred a request for comment to a university spokesperson. That spokesperson, Kim Broekhuizen, said via email that it’s “important to note that Prof. Bright Sheng was not removed from teaching his seminar class this fall. The decision to have Prof. Sheng step away from that class was a decision that he and Dean Gier made together. They agreed to that approach and Dean Gier notified students in the class.”

Sheng continues to provide private lessons this term and is scheduled to teach in the winter term, Broekhuizen said.

 

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2021/10/11/professor-not-teaching-after-blackface-‘othello’-showing

 

I still think it's dumb, but getting facts right is important.

[Dashinka 24,933]

11 minutes ago, laylalex said:

No, I'd like to understand why this professor -- who has a history of prizing inclusion -- chose this one. Was it the aesthetics? I think an argument could be made that because the production is markedly "stagey," that perhaps a closer analogue could be made with an operatic production. 

 

Has anyone figured out if the professor actually was fired or if the Newsweek article is correct, and he decided to stop teaching the class? The latest reporting (from today) seems to indicate that he is still teaching at the university.

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2021/10/11/professor-not-teaching-after-blackface-‘othello’-showing

 

I still think it's dumb, but getting facts right is important.

He has been suspended from teaching, and put under investigation.

 

As to why he showed this particular version, this is what I found.  Btw, in Britain, it was fairly common for everyone to be able to play all parts and 1965 was a different time, but of course the woke regressives cannot be upset.

 

Sheng said the purpose of screening "Othello" to his students was to demonstrate how the opera composer Giuseppe Verdi had adapted Shakespeare's play into an opera.

 

https://www.theblaze.com/news/composer-michigan-professor-canceled-othello