Categories: uncategorized
Date: 30 January 2007 14:02:35
As I mentioned the other week I've been reading the play Shopping and F**king (1996) by Mark Ravenhill. Darkly comic is the first thing that springs to mind. Almost in a Reservoir Dogs style, but with sex rather than violence. That's only on the surface though, if you can see past the surface and relate to the characters as people then the play becomes a deeply cutting critique of our society which reduces many to one form of prostitution or another. As one of the characters explains; money civilises and yet in order to acquire the money to become civilised you have to let yourself be fucked by those who have the power to give you money, by those who are civilised. And then you become a civilised fucker of the uncivilised. Of course all this will be considered quite beyond the pale by many - granted, S&F probably isn't for everyone. Sadly, the propensity to judge before understanding is the dominant impulse in much of our society, the church included, and as long as that remains the case then plays like S&F will be ignored by those who most need the touch of the precarious redemption offered by art, i.e., civilised fuckers. Try reading the play in the light of the governments pushing of super-casinos for an extra edge.