Reliving Women's Fears of V-Day Can Cause Panic

I celebrated Valentine’s Day last night by going to Viva La Diva, a “caburlesque show” at [Ars Nova] hosted by [Bridget Everett](http://www.atleastitspink.com/).  I admit, I'm still new to all this female empowerment through performance thing. So I was amused when [Mel and El](http://www.melandel.com/) did a hilarious dance and song number that loosely parodied Madonna’s "Vogue," singing “F-A-G + Magnet= I’m a Fagnet” explaining their miraculous phenomenon of attracting gay men with their fagremones (pheremones). But I also felt frightened when I heard what sounded like vengeance in their voices.

I felt the same way as I watched Daiva Deupree of [Two Girls For Five Bucks] do her sketch of a desperate dumped girlfriend on her cell calling her ex at a bar on Valentine’s Day.  It all had a little too much emotional honesty that hit a little too close to home.  While others laughed, I couldn’t help but feel this was an actual re-enactment of what I’ve seen countless times in real life with real women. We can pretend to laugh at so-called hyperbole, but the sad thing is it really isn’t hyperbole, and our laughter’s a disguise for panic.

So do women really want or need to see the horrible things society does to women replayed on stage? A good portion of the audience were gay couples.  The women who were there were there with men.  I was with my friend Eric, a free-spirited hippie who had frolicked down the street on our way to the show saying, “It’s Valentine’s Day, what a wonderful holiday, love is in the air!”  Naturally, in his high spirits, he found the show “great and joyful and humorous.”  He thought the “beauty” of the show lay in the women’s ability to address real issues and be able to laugh at them. But as a woman, I found it difficult to be able to laugh freely, it only seemed to be dredging up my own anxieties.

I did definitely feel something happening during the show… I couldn’t pinpoint what it was exactly until a man waiting in line for the bathroom said, “It’s sexual liberation here because they’re taking control and power of the sexual dynamics.”  Maybe in this pretend space called theater. And no one said catharsis is supposed to be easy.