The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler
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Book Reviews of The Vagina Monologues
Book Review: Interesting, but......
Summary: 3 Stars
I rented this book from the library I work at. I work at my university's library and we host a large collection of plays. We are also located in the same area where the Center for the studies of women is at. I first encountered the Vagina Monologues around 2001 while watching Lifetime. I never considered myself a feminist (though I am grateful that I can do things that women were denied 50 to 100 years ago) so this didn't catch my attention at first. It was only after I had taken a few women's studies course for my history major and seeing the book was available for borrowing at the same place where I work at, I decided to take the plunge.
The primary reason I decided to read this book was because it was heralded as the new Shakespeare. Normally I avoid fads like the plague but out of pure disgusting curiosity, I decided to take a read. Eve Ensler offers a variety of voices for the vagina. Some of them made me laugh, others were poignant, but overall, the book read like gratuitous self glorification which I find interesting because after all, the early feminists wanted women to be defined as people and not just by their organs below the belly button.
For me, this book read like the women's version of Everbody Poops. I am not saying that it's not worth reading but I will say that Ensler offers a sort of gateway for women to talk about their most private part with some comfort and for that I am grateful. I liked the humor incorporated in 'What would your vagina say?'. I liked that part and the poem that dealt with Bosnian rape victims. That was dark and brilliantly written. I would have enjoyed that poem as a standalone piece in a collection of poetry instead of being placed in a book that defines a woman by her special body part and perpetuates the internalized victimology that I have seen in alot of women that I encounter. What I mean by that is that I got way too much of that victim mentality and I felt that the Bosnian rape victim poem sealed the deal.
I won't get into specifics but I have had experiences like some of the women mentioned in Ensler's book and if you ask me, from what I got out of the entire thing was that I am not a woman unless I have been some sort of victim and continue to carry that chip on my shoulder. I understand that women have had a history of violence imposed on them but it is a tad unrealistic to say that women are the end all be all victims when they are just as equal to men when it comes to domestic violence (see RADAR for more detail).
I also did not like the rampant misandry as well as the constant self glorification of the vagina. I remember a passage somewhere about how women have issues with their vaginas because they don't look at them. Um, there is a reason why I don't look at mine when I am putting on my tampons (it's uncomfortable and there is no reason to. I am not disgusted by it but there is no point in looking at it when I am doing that as well as other things). One of the first passages that I can recall dealt with a woman who couldn't find her own clitoris and her husband had to call out her itsy bitsy for intimacy. I find it a tad hypocritcal that when a man cannot get off, we laugh at him through Viagra commercials but when I woman cannot find her own clitoris everyone acts like it's World War Three. Aside from this, I found it unrealistic to put men and stamp them with the scarlet letter as rapists. Speaking as someone who has a father, three little brothers and owned a male cockatiel and watched him die after his mate passed, I find the misandry here a little bit of a turn off. It didn't offer anything new to me other than the usual ideological dribble that women are always victims and that men are always the perps. Ensler makes a poor attempt to undo this (unless that was her purpose) with the 24 year old in the 'coochie snorcher that could' because she places these perps as secondary characters. They are outsiders and not real 'women'.
It just tells me the same thing when in real life, I have encountered the opposite.
That being said, I don't regret reading this book. I am glad I was exposed, so to speak, to this but by no means, it isn't Shakespeare. Magical peace rays don't shoot out of my vagina. It's not the cure to cancer, either. It's just a body part. To be honest, the notion of calling the vagina a sort of magical sacred space just makes me cringe because I would rather be identified as a person who just happens to have a vagina. If I wanted to, a baby would come out, but that's it.
Overall, I would say it's passable. There was another review I read that said that said "if you are sexually repressed this might be good for you" and I would have to agree (and I am over twenty and still a virgin).
Book Review: Please get the terminology right!
Summary: 3 Stars
Throughout reading this, I was bothered repeatedly by one major error: she frequently uses vagina when she means VULVA! It makes me cringe that a play dedicated to freeing women from shame about this most intimate of body parts can't even name it correctly.
I also didn't really connect with the monologues and no doubt that's because they were meant to be seen performed, not read. I would probably only buy this if I had already seen and enjoyed a performance.
So why 3 stars and not fewer? It's an acknowledgment of the positive impact Eve Ensler's play has had worldwide bringing women's experiences (some funny, some horrific) out into the open. She has also used the Monologue's huge success to initiate campaigns against violence towards women. Which is a good thing. (I'm aware that this means that I'm bringing in factors other than the text for my rating - just call it female solidarity).
Book Review: Vaginas Good. Poor Writing Bad.
Summary: 2 Stars
I'm sorry to slam something that has clearly moved so many people as has this monologue script. I also hasten to note that I'm frequently out of step with the tastes of general public, so feel free to take what I'm about to say with a grain of salt....
I do NOT, in ANY way, get the merits of this book/play! What are we going to read about next -- our anuses? The spaces between our toes? Our tongues? ("My tongue, when it curls -- warmly, trustingly, joyously -- against my hard palate... brings me home to myself....")
This piece of work strikes me as the HUGEST fit of public navel-gazing (except lower down, of course) in the past 30 years -- and when you think about some of the writing we've seen in this time, that's going some. On the other hand, maybe it's the naturally-arising response to the massive cuts in NEA funding in this country:
The 15-year surge of one-man and one-woman monologues in our non-profit theatres is purely due to the fact that there's virtually no money anymore for full stage productions. Costumes, sets, and ensemble casts have given way to a solitary actor standing on stage under a single spot, in black slacks and the obligatory "gem-toned" shirt, possibly using a prop or two as s/he describes some aspect of his/her life to the audience. Many times, this is good theatre -- I don't suggest it's not. My point is that this kind of low overhead allows both the actor and the venue to make a BIT of money out of their efforts, whereas a real play no longer can.
So here's the logical extension: You can't slash overhead more than by offering a monologue, but you CAN raise attendance by making the monologue all about vaginas! Please note this bit of dialogue from "Curb Your Enthusiasm":
[Actress who got the part:] Here's to "The Vagina Monologues"!
[Manager who got her the part:] Here's to the vagina!
Recognizing the deadly forces arrayed against our American dramatists today, I hate not to support them. But my support stops short of reading -- or attending "dramatic" productions of -- irrelevant tripe. Life is just too short.
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