opera and ...

I was reading (and teaching) David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly this week
and so listened to Maria Callas singing Puccini's Madama Butterfly.

First of all, the play is FABULOUS, and I was totally seeing BD Wong and
John Lithgow playing it in my mind's eye. And Hwang started out wanting to
write an opera, but went with a play so he wouldn't have to collaborate

THEN i watched the movie. fuchi!
turned it into a trans-tragedy. John Lone was cute but no BD Wong
Jermy irons was way too butch for how the role was written

PLUS they still never showed Song's pensi.

We talked a lot about penises today.

None of the the little queerlings had ever even heard of Robert Mapplethorpe,
(I asked them to raise their hands if they had but nobody did)
which made discussion of Kobena Mercer's article Reading Racial Fetishism
a little slow.

When we got to Richard Fung's Looking for my Penis
I tried a different tack and asked how many people
have seen gay porn.
Everybody in the class raises their hands.
"FINALLY!" I declare