ARTICLES
January 2004 ARTICLES
Contents © 2004
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
Noodlehead Teaches Banana Brain
How Public Schools Promote Sodomy
BY CHRISTOPHER ZEHNDER
In 2002, a group of parents filed a lawsuit against the Novato school district. The parents had learned that, without obtaining parental consent, two elementary schools had showed students plays from the anthology, Cootie Shots: Theatrical Inoculations Against Bigotry. According to the September 17 American Civil Liberties Union news release, Cootie Shots "tackles the issue of stereotypes and discrimination in an age appropriate way, through short plays and poems." But plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Citizens for Parental Rights v. Novato Unified School District, said that the main thrust of Cootie Shots is to promote the normalcy of homosexuality.
In September of this year, though, the parents initiating the lawsuit, dropped it. Julia Harumi Mass, staff attorney for the ACLU (which took the part of the school district) said that this outcome "is a great victory for the District" and those in Novato "who are concerned about fostering tolerance in their community." The fact that the plaintiffs walked away from the lawsuit, said Mass, "shows that their claims were baseless to begin with and sends a message throughout the state that schools have the authority to require mandatory attendance in tolerance-building and diversity education programs."
However, Brad Dacus of the Pacific Justice Institute, which filed the suit on behalf of the parents, had a different take on the outcome of the suit; it was, he said, a victory for the parents. In a September 25 news release, Dacus wrote that the school district "vacated its original position, replaced its outgoing superintendent with a parent-friendly administrator, and adopted a parental opt-in policy." Satisfied with this result, the parents dropped the lawsuit, said Dacus.
Whether the outcome of the lawsuit was favorable to parental rights or a "great victory" for the district is, of course, important for those concerned; yet, the fact of the lawsuit points to problems that will continue to beset those children who attend public schools, their families, and society at large. A campaign to promote the normalcy of homosexuality is certainly underway in the schools. Cootie Shots is but an example of it.
I obtained a copy of Cootie Shots, curious to review its contents. It was as I expected: gooey. The poems in the thing were unctuous with boomer angst. The melodies for some of the poems (provided in an appendix) were faux Broadway and reminiscent of ditties from Sesame Street (or Glory and Praise). The plays themselves were of the canned sit-com variety. Yet, the themes presented throughout the pieces were of a more serious cast. Some might call them dangerous.
According to the Cootie Shots' preface, written by Rose Furumoto, a faculty advisor with the Center X Teacher Education Program at UCLA and a trainer and director for the "school-based Every Child A Learner Project" in Pacoima, "the Cootie Shots performance pieces contain powerful messages against discrimination and intolerance based on race, class, gender, sexual orientation, religion and physical ability." They "encourage children, young adults and adults to work against name-calling, bullying and other acts of violence in their schools, homes and neighborhoods." This might sound very innocent; who can object to being against cruelty? Yet, it turns out, Cootie Shots does far more than encourage kindness. It pointedly promotes the notion that the institution of the family, gender roles, and sexual orientation are fluid things, to be determined merely by individual desires and societal manipulation.
Cootie Shots was worked up by a group called Fringe Benefits, which, in the anthology's introduction, editor Norma Bowles and associate editor Mark E. Rosenthal, describe as a "Los Angeles-based educational theatre company." According to Bowles and Rosenthal, Fringe Benefits operates "within a collaborative frame whereby contributors use their own stories" not only "to generate understanding and compassion, to generate sociopolitical activism," and "to dismantle the conventional theatrical frame," but "to de-essentialize cultural and gender identities." That Fringe Benefits is primarily concerned with sexual orientation issues rather than racial, religious, and other forms of discrimination is evident from the contents of Cootie Shots. Of the 52 pieces presented in the anthology, only six deal, in whole or in part, with racial issues; five, with cultural issues; six, with religious issues; six, with physical disabilities; and 20, with various other issues, including age, labor, and alternative family issues. The largest concentration goes to sexual orientation/gender issues, with eleven pieces dealing with these issues in part (ranging from mere mention of these issues to presenting them as sub-themes) and fifteen dealing with them as their main topic. Altogether, 26 of the pieces have something to do with sexual orientation and gender issues. That is half of all the pieces presented in Cootie Shots.
In the effort to "de-essentialize cultural and gender identities," Cootie Shots promotes new paradigms of marriage. For instance, in "The Duke Who Outlawed Jelly Beans," the Grand Duke Archibald decrees, "Hear ye, hear ye: Since I grew up with just one mother and one father, and I turned out so well, I proclaim that this arrangement will work best for everyone. In one week any children who have too many mothers or fathers or not enough, will be thrown into a dungeon." In response to this, one of the children, Peter, who hears the decree, says in some dismay, "There's Nicholas. He has two dads. That's one dad too many, according to the Grand Duke!" Instigated by the children who, in Cootie Shots are (along with school teachers) for the most part the ones who teach wisdom, especially to parents, the Grand Duke is laughed to scorn and departs the kingdom in shame.
The theme of alternative family is presented in non-performance interludes in the book that give excerpts written by school children. In one of these, a child writes: "My other mom's name is Sharon / She has a big hat, big hair, big socks and little shoes." Another child, Breauna, writes of her dad, David, and her "other dad," Greg: "My dads are gay, and gay means when two men or two women love each other. It's sort of like having a mom and a dad who love each other. It's just that it's a man and a man, or a woman and a woman. I wish more people understood about being gay and weren't afraid of gay people, and then they wouldn't say mean things about them." An accompanying picture shows the girl standing with her two "dads," one dad with his arm around the other. On the same page, a girl, Alma, explains that "people at my school, they know that my moms are gay."
The theme of homosexual marriage is revisited in "Play Wedding," where Noodlehead explains to Bananabrain (both playing with stuffed animals) that Mr. Lizard can marry Gorilla instead of Barbie, even though Mr. Lizard and Gorilla are both boys. Bananabrain is incredulous until Noodlehead relates that her Uncle Chester married his boyfriend and had a wedding. To questions posed by Bananabrain, Noodle asserts that the two grooms wore ties and not dresses and had flowers. "Did they kiss?" asks Bananabrain. "Yup," replies Noodlehead. "For a long time." This fact is a sticking point, it seems, for Bananabrain, for he later asks the same question, and Noodlehead replies with the same "Yup. For a long time." Finally, Bananabrain accepts that "boys can have a wedding" and allows Mr. Lizard and Gorilla their nuptials. What became of Barbie we never learn.
A poem called the "The Princess Petunia" presents the traditional story of star-crossed lovers, but with a queer twist. Princess Petunia doesn't object to Prince Poppy, whom her father has intended for her husband, because he is in any way objectionable in himself. "Do you think him too old and too tired?" her father the king asks. "'No, no,' Papa,' Petunia confessed / 'The one I love. she wears a dress!" The king gives a rather rational objection to this proposed arrangement, grumbling, "She'll never have sons or daughters this way!" and forbids Petunia's marriage to Violet, her lover. But, seeing Petunia's woe, the king finally relents. "I love you, Petunia, and I must let you be. / Whatever makes you happy is okay by me!" Not only that, the king makes a new decree for all his subjects: "All the peasants below and royals above / Are now free to marry whomever they love."
A play called "The Parable of the Stimples" attempts to portray those who oppose "inclusiveness" as irrational, angry, and, finally, fear-filled. There are two kinds of people, according to the play: Blimbers and Stimples. Both come "in all shapes, sizes, colors, ages and abilities," but the big difference is that Stimples make funny noises, and Blimbers don't. In fact, Blimbers have been taught that making funny noises is "BAD! WRONG! Something to be afraid of!" (according to two characters). So it was that "people were mean to the Stimples" -- though, "to be fair, some Blimbers like Stimples," the play's narrator concedes. "And some Blimbers didn't care what noises the Stimples made -- as long as they didn't have to hear them."
Those especially cruel to the Stimples are the Megmazoids. Megmazoids think being a Stimple is bad. The play concerns a young boy, Gilbert, who discovers he's a Stimple, and one of his teachers, Ms. Flimmer-Flammer, also a Stimple. The upshot is that a group of Megmazoids discovers that Flimmer-Flammer is a Stimple and stages an angry protest against her, with picket signs! Finally, it is Gilbert who makes the discovery that he can frighten the Megamazoids with funny noises: "The MEGMAZOIDS were afraid of the funny noises," says the narrator. The play even includes a sort of Stimples-rights parade, with "balloons, colorful placards and banners," and a "rainbow banner," carried by Gilbert's mother and father. The conclusion: "The Blimbers saw Stimples were just like them: / Some were even their parents and friends!"
Cootie Shots also focuses on cross dressing, as in the play, "What's With The Dress, Jack?" In this play, a boy, Jack, decides to put on a dress after a Sioux Indian named Running Eagle visited his school. Running Eagle, it turns out, wears a dress, of his own making. Jack explains that "a lot of American Indian tribes believe that your SPIRIT, not your body, tells you what to wear and what you do. Like when Running Eagle was little, he played with dolls and liked basket-weaving, and he felt like he was a girl." When Jack's friend Jill asks, "I don't get it. is this Running Eagle person a man or a woman?!" Jack replies, "Well, both, kinda. Since Running Eagle has the body of a man but the spirit of a woman, she's what the American Indians call a 'two-spirit.' Like half-boy, half girl."
Fringe Benefits, it seems, is not simply a fringe group. Bowles' and Rosenthal's introduction to Cootie Shots quotes the influential National Education Association that "discrimination and stereotyping based on such factors as race, gender, immigration status, physical disabilities, ethnicity and sexual orientation must be eliminated. The Association also believes that plans, activities and programs for education of employees, students, parents and the community should be developed to identify and eliminate discrimination and stereotyping in all educational settings." Bowles and Rosenthal quote the American Psychological Association to the same effect. Bowles and Rosenthal say that Fringe Benefits works in "collaboration with more than 500 elementary school teachers, parents, therapists, administrators, theatre artists, visual artists and youth." The collaborators also include one Catholic priest, Father Cris Rosales, a Salesian. Father Cris wrote one of the plays, "Just Because You're You," in which a father assures his effeminate son that God loves him just the way he is.
Bowles and Rosenthal claim in the introduction that Fringe Benefits has staged over 100 performances of Cootie Shots, mostly in elementary schools in California, "reaching over 20,000 youth, parents and teachers." This they wrote in 2001.
One performance referred to by Rosa Furumoto in her preface will give Catholics pause. It was performed, at least in part for, Latina parent leaders. Although these leaders, writes Furumoto, had demonstrated their concerns about racism and other forms of discrimination, "I wasn't sure how they would react to the play, "Doing the Right Thing," about a Latino homosexual young man and his younger sister. Homosexuality," explained Furumoto, "is a highly sensitive issue in this overwhelmingly Catholic Latino community, but the parents unanimously responded by saying: 'We want them to perform Cootie Shots for the parents at our next parent multicultural training session.'"
Cootie Shots, continues Furumoto, was then performed for about forty Latina parents from two elementary schools. Furumoto was "stunned by the reaction of the parents. Something about the plays struck a sympathetic chord with these Latina mothers." They wanted to make their own plays about "gender stereotyping, machismo and homophobia in the Latino community." The Latina parents even began "talking to their children and other family members about gender stereotyping in the families" and began "encouraging tolerance and understanding [towards homosexuals] with their families."
Norma Bowles and "other committed members of the artistic community," explains Furumoto, have "made this happen time and time again."