While I could maybe address this in the comments, I thought it might be worth exploring why I posted a particular guest from Penn and Teller: Fool Us a few days ago. A female guest, as it happens. And that's significant because, well, how many female stage magicians do you hear about, anyway? The field seems to be heavily slanted towards the wand, with the top hat hardly getting a chance to shine at all.[/Freud] Women are free to do the kind of magic that gets you burned at the stake, but otherwise...I don't know, is it considered cheating to have boobs when you do sleight of hand?
Samuel Johnson, wise in most cases, is reported to have said, "Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all." While the apparent sexism isn't in fashion now, the tenet that certain things can be dismissed as novelty for novelty's sake still gets a lot of play. But I don't entirely agree. And for certain, I think it's worth paying attention to when people do something or create something that they're not really expected to on a demographic basis. Like when black musicians play in genres that tend to be considered "white." (country, heavy metal, punk, etc) It's interesting to see how they do things differently, or don't do them differently for that matter.
2 comments:
The magicians we've grown to admire the most these past few years have been those who have dedicated huge amounts of time to perfecting moves that can astonish anyone who witnesses the tricks. It's a matter of mastering the basics and then putting in the time it takes to become proficient. While magic has definitely been a boy's club for the most part there really are very few top-name male magicians among them. We've seen several excellent women magicians and hopefully there will be more of them in future.
Two we both enjoyed seeing on Penn and Teller were Laura London and Alexandra Duvivier (who thanks her magician father for his inspiration and help).
One phrase I've read - and this might form the basis of yet another blog post, I don't know - is "a big move covers a small one." That gives you one of the principles, in that you just have to make your big move good enough that it will distract the audience from the little move where you're really doing things. And it sounds easy enough. But of course the devil is in the details. Penn and Teller are notable in that they break it down between the two of them, one specializing in big and the other in small. I suspect that this is a misdirect in itself some of the time.
Both London and Duvivier were really fun to watch, and that was a fiendish card trick. Plus the phrase "three baguette monty" made me laugh out loud.
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