Raisin of a different kind

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Author Message   Yvettep AALBC .com Platinum Poster Username: Yvettep Post Number: 2704 Registered: 01-2005 Rating: N/A Votes: 0 (Vote!) Posted on Tuesday, February 26, 2008 - 02:38 pm:        Let's be honest: most people will probably tune into ABC's drama A Raisin in the Sun tonight to see if Sean "P-Diddy" Combs can act. He can. In fact, the entire cast is achingly brilliant... And with the 40th anniversaries of the assassinations of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy coming up - and the new "I have a dream" candidate Barack Obama trying to turn a political campaign into a movement for social change, many might think that the dream deferred -- the "raisin" of the title from black gay poet Langston Hughes' poem "Harlem" ("What happens to a dream deferred?/Does it dry up/like a raisin in the sun?") -- is outdated. It's not. Racism is still rampant, the film's gay co-producer Craig Zadan points out. So is homophobia and the closet -- one of the subtexts of the original play written by African American lesbian Lorraine Hansberry. Lorraine Hansbery "is one of the most famous lesbian playwrights who nobody knew was a lesbian," Zadan told me by phone as he drove to a press conference with Combs at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. ...All these elements -- racism, sexism, and homophobia -- occurred to Zadan and his producing partner Neil Meron (also openly gay) at Storyline Entertainment when they saw the revival of A Raisin in the Sun on Broadway with the same cast that's in the ABC movie. The producing partners have a long history of consciously using diversity in theme and casting. ...What I found particularly interesting was that beyond racism are other prejudices. You have everybody trying to hush up about the fact that [Hansberry] was a lesbian playwright. I think part of it comes from the fact that she had a heterosexual marriage. I'm sure it was a loving relationship and I'm sure they cared about each other a great deal. But the point is -- when that marriage came to an end, we found out where her heart was. {Hansberry] wrote a lot of lesbian political stories in different publications and at that time signed it "LH." So she was willing to write constantly about the gay and lesbian cause but at the same time, she was never willing to sign her real name to it. Talk about the closet - I think that's amazing. It is very, very important that people understand that you can tell different kinds of stories and they do related to gay and lesbian issues -- especially when you know the people behind them. Lorraine Hansberry was clearly writing from the gay experience. The character that Senaa Lathem plays is the Lorraine Hansberry character. She represents Lorraine. If you look at the ideas and you look at what she had to say and how outspoken she is and how she's breaking traditions and breaking rules and being rebellious and experimenting -- you can look at that very clearly as her exploring her lesbianism, from a political point of view. Even though she's talking about other things, beneath the surface you can see what she's really talking about. So I think if you watch the movie and you know that Senaa Lathem is playing Lorraine Hansberry's character, expressing Lorraine's point of view -- you then start to see the ramifications of the gay and lesbian experience screaming to come to out... Full story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20080225/cm_huffpost/088407   Cynique "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Cynique Post Number: 11701 Registered: 01-2004 Rating: N/A Votes: 0 (Vote!) Posted on Wednesday, February 27, 2008 - 01:17 pm:        I didn't think it was that big of a secret that Lorraine Hansberry was a lesbo. It did sort of leak out after she got divorced in the 60s. This gay producer seems to be projecting his own mindset on the play. Rebelliouness and frustration are universal themes. Everybody is trying to find their true self - their true calling, not just closet homosexuals. Maybe Ms Hansberry was speaking to anyone seeking liberation from living a lie. Some gay men are so histrionic and seem to suffer from persecution complexes. IMO.