Venus,
Priests, and Superwomen
Venus, Priests, and Superwomen captures the tumultuous
climate that exploded on Providence College’s campus when
President, Father Brian J. Shanley, proclaimed that the Vagina Monologues,
did not reflect the college’s Catholic mission. Eve Ensler’s
The Vagina Monologues, performed by college students as a way to
raise awareness about sexual violence, has become a potent feminist
icon for many women around the world, but for others, the play has
fueled controversy. In December 2006, Father Shanley’s decision
to ban the production sparked a large protest at Providence College.
Venus,
Priests, and Superwomen:
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from protest | Reviews
|
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The film follows over a two year period Providence College’s
undergraduate’s who chose to produce the play off-campus and
their struggle to be heard by their school’s administration.
The women sponsored by V-Day and deemed Vagina Warriors, discuss
their personal experiences as a result of their involvement with
the play and their subsequent bonding and new-found power as a result
of their confrontation with their college’s president. The
film traces their fight to keep The Vagina Monologues on their campus.
The film examines the varied and conflictive perspectives concerning
the play’s censorship at Providence College and also examines
wide-ranging views on what some consider offensive and demeaning
about the performance. President Shanley cites his reasoning behind
his decision to ban the play and the film also examines the views
of Providence College’s students and faculty and Eve Ensler’s
viewpoint.
By exploring different perspectives, the film addresses what is
at the heart of this debate and discovers why some people feel threatened
by the material portrayed in the play as well as enables its audience
to understand the transformation that many women experience when
viewing The Vagina Monologues and the play’s complex meanings
to women of many different cultural backgrounds and ages.
“I
would say this is a dangerous play because whenever you get a bunch
of women in power they make changes and we do amazing things and
that’s the part that’s the scariest.”
- Erica Rioux last
year’s coordinator for Providence College’s
The Vagina
Monologues
"The
Vagina Monologues is deeply at odds with the Catholic Church’s
understanding of human sexuality and I don’t impute to the
playwright anything explicitly anti-Catholic, let’s just say
its non-Catholic, that it espouses a view of human sexuality which
is deeply at odds with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church
and in fact articulates understandings of human sexuality that by
Catholic lights are deeply immoral…”
- Providence College’s
President, Brian J. Shanley, O. P. PH.D.
 |
 |
Erica
Rioux |
Fr.
Shanley |
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Useful links
Venus,
Priests, and Superwomen:
Main Info | View
online trailer | Images from protest
| Reviews
Purchase
DVD | Providence College Update | Premiere
|
Useful
links: | vagina
vérité® | Rhode
Island NOW | Providence
College Vagina Monologues 2008
Not Your Mama's Roller Derby:
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online trailer| Images
| Reviews
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