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Phyllis
Chesler, Ph.D, is an Emerita Professor of Psychology
and Women’s Studies at City University of New
York. She is a best-selling author, a legendary feminist
leader. This article first appeared in her newsletter:
https://phyllis-chesler.com
In the beginning, my 1970s pioneering work on feminism
got me in trouble at my university (but, thank God,
due to a rising movement, not with publishers). However,
my more recent radical feminist work on pornography,
prostitution, gender as a primary identity, and the
trans issue also got me in trouble.
Trouble,
trouble, always knows how to find me.
For
the last twenty-five years, my work on anti-Semitism,
Israel, Islam/jihad, and on Islamic gender apartheid
and on femicide (honor killing) has been what’s
gotten me in trouble.
I
knew I was doing something right, but the price kept
getting higher and higher–my earlier much-praised
work was “disappeared,” forgotten, and my
ongoing work was censored or cancelled; I was increasingly
disinvited.
Well,
ho-hum.
But
who would ever have thought that a piece about opera
by a music and opera lover (that would be me) would
lead to one Substack subscriber, whom I do not know,
cancelling me? Whoever she may be, she felt obliged
to tell me that she’d done so.
True,
I praised the production of Aida at the Metropolitan
Opera and condemned the politically correct reviewers
that had damned the production as “Orientalist,”
exploitative, and as yet another example of “the
West’s artifactual rapaciousness.”
I
felt so strongly about the superb performance at the
Met that I tried to move heaven and earth to obtain
contact information for Peter Gelb, the Met’s
General Manager, and for each and every member of the
cast and crew. It was a desperate fool’s errand
but I did finally get one contact address, and after
several phone calls, I received a promise that they’d
get it to Gelb’s office.
I
asked him to share the letter with every member of the
cast and crew, who deserved only praise, not condemnation.
Please
understand: I do not feel badly about this at all. Those
who are Old Time aficionados, not only of fine art and
poetry but also of classical music, wrote very informed
and therefore supportive emails and comments at Substack.
One
aficionado said: “You are so right! This woke
attitude towards art is despicable. But then, how many
critics are qualified to review a work of art on its
own merits? Personally, I hate the updated contemporary
productions of opera. They are so misguided. Old opera
was written for and in its time…there is no objective
reason to transplant it to modern times . . . it should
be done in the period represented in the opera.”
Another
art lover and author wrote: “I saw the performance.
Had tickets as soon as I knew Elina Garanca was appearing
after a 5-year absence from NY. She was, as you know,
spectacular in her interpretation . . . Someday when
fact and truth are there, we will have a reckoning with
the Ottoman Empire–its murderous subjugating of
every other civilization it conquered and extracted
payment from in all the worst ways. But woke folks won’t
go there.”
She
is talking about Islamic imperialism, colonialism, and
conversion via the sword as well as gender and religious
apartheid.
This
next comment is witty.
“Does
no one recall what an Arab said when the story of Aida
was explained. ‘Why did the Khedive (Radames,
set to rule Egypt with the Pharoah’s daughter)
go through all that anguish over Aida? He could have
simply made her his concubine.’”
The
Biblical Pharoah in Abraham’s time was ready to
kill God’s chosen in order to add our foremother,
and Abraham’s sister-wife, Sarah, to his harem.
Circling
back to the issue of political correctness invading
the precincts of art. And here I am about to court trouble,
my old and endearing friend yet again.
I
actually do not think that the great soprano Anna Netrebko
should have been exiled from the New York stage because
she failed to condemn Putin. Who knows how many relatives
she has back in Russia?
I
am very torn about the very understandable dismissal
of the great conductor James Levine, because indeed,
credible evidence was found to exist in the matter of
his use of power to harass and sexually abuse or exploit
younger musicians. Had it become a criminal matter,
one tried by a judge and jury–absolutely yes–but
this was not the case. Like so many priests, Levine
preyed on young and vulnerable men–but in Levine’s
case, they were not underage.
As
a rule, I try very hard to separate the art from the
artist. So many of the greatest novelists and poets
were philanderers, scoundrels, and misogynists. Dickens
was beyond cruel to his wife, Catherine, and took up
with the actress Ellen Ternan. Tolstoy forced his wife,
Sophia, into lifelong celibacy while he busily impregnated
the female serfs on his estate. Rimbaud became a slave
trader and a rum runner. Lord Byron was a regular Don
Juan. Flaubert–a brothel hopper in Egypt.
And
yet: Would we really want to censor David Copperfield,
War and Peace, Le Bateau ivre or Childe Harold’s
Pilgrimage, or Madame Bovary?
Here’s
the point. So many men behave badly and in similar ways.
But they do not grace us with great works.
I
am not urging us to lower our moral standards for Great
Men–but just to wrestle with this problem.
