Arts
Oliver Button is a Star
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On Sunday, November 18, the AIDS Project of Southern Vermont will host the area premiere of Oliver Button is A Star, an hour-long video ‘docu-performance’ that explores bullying, tolerance and positive alternatives for expressing children’s gender differences.
Filmmaker’s John Scagliotti (Before & After Stonewall, In the Life) and Dan Hunt (After Stonewall) use the Twin Cities Gay Men’s Chorus Production of Tomie dePaola’s children’s classic book, Oliver Button Is A Sissy, as their narrative structure, interweaving a mix of animation, archival film, news stories, home movies and personal interviews with such well known figures as arctic explorer Ann Bancroft, dancer/choreographer Bill T. Jones,
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makeup artist Kevyn Aucoin and Tomie dePaola, who offer moving accounts of the defining moment in their childhood when they were forced to confront conventional constructions of “masculine” and “feminine” (Tomie dePaola “acting like Shirley Temple or Mae West”, Ann Bancroft playing Tarzan, Kevyn Aucoin being subjected to endless beatings in school because of his “effeminate” behavior, Bill T. Jones “sitting-like-a-girl”).
Also sprinkled throughout this production is documentary footage of elementary school teacher, Mary Cowhey, reading dePaola’s book to her first grade class as well as conducting engaging “tolerance” exercises.
Oliver Button is a Star is being released at an important time in America as its theme strikes a deep chord that is currently resonating throughout our society. The almost daily headlines about young boys, alienated and neglected, causing violence, hate crimes and needless suffering confront us with the question — What does it take to pass into manhood? In its whimsically powerful way Oliver Button’s story presents a positively transforming answer.
| Oliver Button is a Star will be shown at Landmark college in Putney, Vermont at 2pm. Tickets are $10 for general admission and $5 for students. Tickets will be available at the door. For more information contact the AIDS Project of Southern Vermont, 802-254-8263. There will be a reception following the show. |