The Vagina Monologues

This film (drama)Also known asThe Vagina Monologues，is aUnited StatesProducerwomen sex，At2002Released in year 。The dialogue language isEnglish，Current Douban rating8.9(For reference only)。

"The Vagina Monologues" is a play by American writer Eve Ensler, and in recent years, performing this play has become a hallmark of the international "Women's Victory Over Violence" movement. The "Vagina Monologues" won the Obie Award in 1997 and was published in book form in 1998. Ensler herself is a playwright, poet, and activist who has performed this play in theaters and universities outside of Broadway in New York, as well as in London, Jerusalem, and Zagreb (a city in former Yugoslavia). Her work "The Necessary Targets" was performed on Broadway, with proceeds used to fund women refugees in Bosnia. Since 1999, performing "The Vagina Monologues" during the traditional Valentine's season has developed into an international "Victory over Violence" movement, giving new meaning to Valentine's Day. The author welcomes anyone to perform "The Vagina Monologues" during V-Day events to "raise awareness and resist sexual violence against women." Ensler’s challenging and outspoken narrative style begins with the first word of her preface: "Vagina," I said it; "vagina," I say it again. How many times have I repeated this word in the past three years? I’ve said it in theaters, in schools, in living rooms, in coffee shops, at lunch gatherings, in radio programs all over the country. If someone would approve, I would say it on television. I say it one hundred twenty-eight times each night when I perform. Ensler states that "The Vagina Monologues" was created based on interviews; she interviewed over two hundred women from different backgrounds to understand their feelings about the vagina. The word "vagina" is considered a taboo; "it is an invisible word, a word that stirs anxiety, embarrassment, contempt, and disgust. But what we do not say does not get seen, acknowledged, or remembered. What we do not say becomes a secret, and these secrets produce shame, fear, and myth. I say it in the hope that one day I can say it easily, without feeling shame or embarrassment." "The Vagina Monologues" consists of eighteen segments, primarily in the form of monologues. They can also be classified into oral history-style monologues and mixed-voice interviews; in the mixed voice, sometimes it’s in the form of dialogue between the author and the interviewees, sometimes interspersed with multiple voices. Before most monologues, there are author’s notes—describing the inspiration for the piece, providing background on characters, and dedicating the story to a particular woman or group of women. One of the themes of the play is the exposure of violence against women in war—specifically, rape—expressed through a monologue by a Bosnian woman. The author discusses how in 1993, about twenty to seventy thousand women were raped in the wars in Central Europe. She was deeply shocked to see photographs of women who had been gang-raped in newspapers, leading her to consider the internal changes they must have undergone. She conducted interviews in Croatia and Pakistan for over two months and visited Bosnia twice, and what crystallized in the script was just a brief poetic narration: "My vagina is my village." In the script, past and present states of mind are distinguished by two different fonts, regular and italic, which create a contrast: "My vagina is green fields, is a flowing pink field, cows moo as the sun rises; the charming cowherd gently caresses it with soft golden straw." But soldiers intrude with guns, sticks, bottles, and brooms, tearing it apart; their continuous gang-rape fills the air with the stench of feces and pickled meat: "I become a river flowing with toxic pus, all the crops die, the fish die too." Reimagining women's bodies allows women's desires and fantasies to gain new cultural expressions, unfolding a richer dimension to the meaning of the play. Opposing sexual violence against women is not only about exposing the dire consequences of violence but, more importantly, about transforming our traditions and culture, liberating women's bodies, enabling women to affirm and empower themselves, reshaping female subjectivity, and reconstructing cultural subjectivity. The play includes timid sexual experiences, women's desires and fantasies, thus opening a deep space for women to express themselves, creating a realm filled with imagination, laughter, and humor. When the play was performed at Harvard University, the audience broke out in laughter continuously. As the playwright said, "As more women say the word 'vagina', saying it is no longer a big deal. It becomes a part of our language, a part of our lives. Our vaginas become whole, respected, and sacred. They become a part of our bodies, connected to our minds, igniting our spirits. Shame disappears, violence ends; because vaginas are visible, real; they are connected to powerful, wise women who dare to talk about vaginas." The final scene of "The Vagina Monologues" is a poem that the author dedicates to her daughter-in-law. The title, "I Was in That Room", refers to the delivery room in a hospital. There, the author witnesses this shy passage become an archaeological tunnel, canal, and deep well. The vagina changes color, blood oozes like sweat, and excrement and blood clots stretch all the passages... Mothers, husbands, and nurses gather around the bed; they forget the vagina until a little life pops its head, arms, into the world. The doctor's bloody hands sew up the torn vagina, which then resembles a pulsating red heart. This poem concludes the play: The heart has the capacity to sacrifice, the vagina does too; the heart can forgive and heal, it can change shape to contain us, it can expand to let us out, the vagina does too; the heart can hurt for us, stretch for us, die for us, it bleeds, and the bleeding is to bring us into this difficult, wonderful world, the vagina can too; I was in that room. I remember. The English version of "The Vagina Monologues" premiered in Shanghai in 2001, and the Chinese version was first performed in Guangdong in 2003.