Tom Santopietro’s “Why ‘To Kill a Mockgbird’ Matters” is pastakgly rearched, if substantively and stcturally flawed, Roxane Gay wr.
Contents:
- IN MOCKGBIRD, A GAY ACTOR HELPS BRG A STORY OF OTHERNS TO LIFE
- LOTS OF PEOPLE LOVE ‘TO KILL A MOCKGBIRD.’ ROXANE GAY ISN’T ONE OF THEM.
IN MOCKGBIRD, A GAY ACTOR HELPS BRG A STORY OF OTHERNS TO LIFE
Above, om left: Jeff Daniels ( background) as Attic Fch, Will Pullen as Jem Fch, and Gion Glick as Dill Harris To Kill a Kill a Mockgbird is, at s heart, a story about otherns -- the otherns of beg Black a world led by wh, of urse, but also the otherns of "a young butch girl and her iend who is this queer boy, " as actor Gion Glick puts, who is gay, is playg that queer boy, Dill Harris, the new Broadway versn of Mockgbird, adapted by Aaron Sork om Harper Lee's beloved novel, directed by Bartlett Sher, and starrg Jeff Daniels as lawyer Attic Fch, who's fendg Tom Robson (Gbenga Aknagbe), a Black man wrongly acced of play has the child characters -- Attic's son and dghter, Jem and Sut, and their neighbor and playmate, Dill Harris -- all portrayed by adults. He also read Capote's first novel, Other Voic, Other Rooms, which centers on a young gay boy the Deep South. Clearly, Santopietro intifi more wh Sut, Jem and Dill than wh, say, Boo Radley, the town recle who probably wouldn’t yearn for that simpler time when the townspeople regard him wh open distance and then the thor illtrat why is hard to take this book serly: “The Uned Stat found ‘To Kill a Mockgbird’ was unqutnably a more racist, opprsive Ameri, af to the sir and hop of women, homosexuals, mori and nearly anyone who did not f the prevailg fn of ‘normal.
The groundwork for “Why ‘To Kill a Mockgbird’ Matters” is astute, but the tellectual analys are not, and the book suffers for Gay is the thor, most recently, of “Hunger, ” and the edor of “Not That Bad. Classic movi wh gay subtexts – thk you know them all? In the novel Dill’s character is based on the gay wrer, Tman Capote who was one of Harper Lee’s childhood iends.
LOTS OF PEOPLE LOVE ‘TO KILL A MOCKGBIRD.’ ROXANE GAY ISN’T ONE OF THEM.
© 2014 GCN (Gay Communy News).