Wednesday 8 March 2017

flipping the script

Writing for Marginal Revolution, Alex Tabarrok confronts us with a preview of an unsettling theatrical experiment conducted by New York University, wherein professors reversed the genders of the two US presidential candidates and directed professional actors to recreate the debates—portraying not only the dialogue and tone but also their respective body language.
Audiences expected confirmation of their beliefs that as few could stomach the behaviour of Candidate Trump on the dais, no one could tolerate such conduct coming from a woman. Instead their actual reception was quite different and spectators (participants in the experiment) could hardly reconcile themselves to what they were feeling, relating to the actress and harbouring distrust for the actor. What do you think is going on here? There’s a clip from the NYU campus at the link up top. Does unscripted lashing out come across as extemporaneous speech when one sees it coming from a woman?