#heidi schreck

[tippenfunkaport]

‘She-Ra’ Live-Action Amazon Series Taps ‘What the Constitution Means to Me’ Creator Heidi Schreck to Write (EXCLUSIVE)

The live-action "She-Ra" series in development at Amazon MGM Studios has found its writer.

Today Variety (see above) had an article naming Heidi Schreck as the new writer for the live action She-Ra series at Amazon that was announced back in Sept 2021 and, after seeing dozens of terrible takes and people who are fans of the Netflix's She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2017) freaking out, let's talk about this, shall we?

Disclaimer that I do not have any insider knowledge of this project specifically, this is just my educated perspective from my experience with IP and TV.

First and foremost, I will believe this project is actually happening when it is showing on my TV and not a moment sooner. Let's just say that.

Now assuming it IS happening, here's what you should understand...

IP is usually use it or lose it. If Dreamworks wants to keep the rights to make She-Ra content, they very likely must have something in active development or risk listing it. If Netflix isn't willing to make more of the animated series right now, then the Amazon deal is all they have or give She-Ra up entirely. 

If you're an SPOP (2017) fan, you're in favor of Dreamworks retaining the license over losing it because, so long as they have it, the door is always open for more of our SPOP in one way or another. This reboot doesn't negate the possibility of a continuation of the animated version or vice versa. (Fans of frequently rebooted properties like TMNT and MLP would be happy to tell you about how there's been content for multiple gens at the same time.) It's not like the new version erases the old. If anything, a reboot often makes it more likely you get content of a past gen because of renewed interest in the property as a whole.

"But what if it's sexist trash!" The biggest fear people had about this reboot was that it would be some male gaze disaster made to please the worst kind of people who hate all kinds of diversity. Obviously, we'll see what we get, but the fact that they specifically got a feminist playwright as the writer is a big thing should alleviate some of that fear.

"But will it be gay????" I've seen lots of freaking out that Adora's going to kill Catra and marry a man on her grave and other equally unlikely fears. And the fact is: We don't know if it will be gay! With this writer, the gay door certainly isn't closed, but that doesn't mean it's open either. But honestly the real question you should be asking is: will it be explicitly gay? Because the rainbow homo-eroticism is baked right into She-Ra OG so even if we don't get an explicit same-sex kiss on screen... it's likely still gonna be pretty gay.

Even a bad or infuriating reboot will revitalize the fandom and bring new fans to SPOP (2017) AND increase the chances of continuation. Say the new show is terrible. Say they annoy everyone by giving Catra and Adora a supercorp queerbaiting thing and then never make it canon or make Catra and Hordak in love and everyone is mad. (Which I feel obligated to point out is *extremely* unlikely as this is literally still Dreamworks' show. They are the same people that gave you the gay. They are keenly aware of what their audience wants so, even if they are reluctant to make it canon, at the least they are probably going to tease it.) But even in the worst case scenario of the straightest possible version of She-Ra, what are people going to do if the new show pisses them off? Turn back to She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, create more fanworks, interact with what's already there, keep the fandom alive for everyone. You want that!

"Well SPOP (2017) was perfect and they should never be allowed to make another version of She-Ra again unless it's just like the thing we just got!" Wow, where have I heard something like that before? Oh yeah, that's exactly what the nightmare chuds said about Netflix's She-Ra and if they had gotten their way, we wouldn't have had this show we love. So maybe take a nice deep breath, chill tf out and look at that fact that there is no reason yet to see this announcement as anything other than a good thing for both this new reboot and the animated version's future.

[caroleditosti]

'Uncle Vanya,' Steve Carell in a Superb Update of Timeless Chekhov

'Uncle Vanya' is a must-see, especially if you are an Anton Chekhov fan. Even if you are not, you will enjoy Heidi Schreck's adaptation and new version with superb direction by Lila Neugebauer.

The cast of Uncle Vanya (Marc J. Franklin) A favorite of Anton Chekhov fans is Uncle Vanya because it combines organic comedy and tragedy emerging from mundane, static situations, intricate, suppressed characters and their off-balanced, mired-down relationships. Playwright Heidi Schreck (What the Constitution Means to Me), has modernized Vanya enhancing the elements that make Chekhov’s immutable…

View On WordPress

[moxyphinx]

“My mom says when you are consumed, when you are paralyzed with rage and despair, you have to think of a woman running along a beach with a dog. There's more. She says if you watch the dog, it keeps running back and forth and back and forth, so it seems like progress is constantly being undone, but if you watch the woman, you can see that she is moving steadily forward and forward and forward. I hope.” WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME

[halles-comet]

I knew that Penny from Dirty Dancing had an abortion. And that when Jennifer Grey asked her dad, Jerry Orbach, to save Penny’s life after her back alley abortion almost killed her, she was asking a lot of him, because this was the 1960s, and Jerry Orbach could be arrested for getting anywhere near an abortion. This was how we were supposed to know Jerry Orbach was a good man.

[weirdcultstuff]

“Covert resistance is the idea that sometimes seemingly passive, victim-like behaviors, pleasing behaviors, are the sanest and smartest response to living in a violent culture, in a culture and a country that is making it clear every single day it has no fucking interest in protecting you. In the case of, say, my grandmother, covert resistance is all the invisible, brave actions a woman takes inside a violent relationship she can’t leave because she doesn’t make as much money as a man, because the police might not show up when she calls, or depending on the color of her skin, they might show up and something terrible might happen. Because she doesn’t have decision-making power over her own fucking body. Covert resistance doesn’t really fit into our traditional narratives of heroism. It involves a lot of tiny, daily actions. It involves things like a woman feeding her kids, working twelve hours a day for them, helping them get a good education, helping them graduate at the top of their class. It can also involve less positive things, things like getting sick, maybe dying of melancholia, and...not running away. Because in this country, the moment a woman decides to run away is the moment her life and her kids’ lives are in the most danger.”

- from the play What The Constitution Means To Me, by Heidi Schrek.

[contemplatingoutlander]

THOUGHTS ON: “What the Constitution Means to Me”

With Amy Coney Barrett another self-proclaimed “originalist” and “textualist” most likely going to be sworn in to become a Supreme Court justice, seeing the filmed play What the Constitution Means to Me by Heidi Schreck (newly released on Prime Video) was fortuitous. 

Here’s a preview of the original play from the New York Theatre Workshop:

If nothing else, I encourage you to see this play because of the moving performance of Heidi Schreck, who initially plays her memory of her 15 year-old self participating in a Constitutional debate competition.

The play begins with an idealized and naïve perspective about the Constitution as seen through the eyes of Schreck’s 15 year-old self. But as the show (and Schreck’s portrayal of herself) grows and progresses our understanding of the Constitution matures. We learn more about the documents weaknesses--as well as its surprising strengths.

THE NINTH AMENDMENT. One strength of the Constitution is the Ninth Amendment. Its inclusion in the  Constitution speaks to the possibility that the Founders viewed the Constitution as a living document--and not one limited by the rights delineated in the other articles and amendments. 

In the play, Shreck reads the Ninth Amendment (shown above) and then says: 

“Do you know what this means? It means that just because a certain right is not listed in the Constitution, it doesn’t mean you don’t have that right. The fact is there was no way for the framers to put down every single right we have. I mean, the right to brush your teeth—yes, you’ve got it, but how long do we want this document to be? [....]

“Our constitution doesn’t tell you all the rights that you have because it doesn’t know! [....]

“That is why I love Amendment Nine so much. Because it acknowledges who we are now might not be who we become. It, uh, it leaves a little room for the future self...”

[emphasis added]

According to Schreck that means that the Ninth Amendment left room for new rights to be defined as we continue to progress and change as a nation. For instance, Shreck says:

“Justice Harry Blackmun used the Ninth Amendment to find the right to privacy in the 14th Amendment. And he argued that this gave a woman the right to decide what to do with her own body. Well, actually, he argued that a doctor and his patient have a right to privacy so that he can decide what to do with her body.” [emphasis added]

THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT: CLAUSE 4. Above are Clauses 3 and 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Schreck was particularly taken with Clause 4:

“Clause 4 is even more miraculous than Clause 3. It is the Equal Protection Clause. It ensures that we cannot be discriminated against on the basis of race, sex, religion,  immigration status.” [emphasis added]

According to Schreck, because Clause 4 uses the word “person” rather than “citizen,” it means that anyone who is in the United States, regardless of citizenship, is afforded the protections of Clause 3:

“It, uh, it  actually uses the word ‘person,’ not ‘citizen,’ which means if you are an undocumented immigrant, you must be given all the protections of Clause 3, the Due Process Clause. You cannot be locked up without a fair trial. You cannot have anything—or anyone seized from you.” [emphasis added]

Does the Trump administration know about this? Wouldn’t this prevent all those undocumented immigrant families at the border being separated from each other and locked in cages without due process? 

[See more under the cut about “negative and positive rights” in the Constitution and why this writer (and apparently Schreck) is concerned about self-professed “originalists” and “textualists” like Scalia--and now Amy Coney Barrett.]

NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE RIGHTS. In terms of some of the drawbacks of the Constitution, Schreck  “learned about two kinds of rights: negative rights and positive rights”--and which kind are emphasized in our Constitution:

“Negative rights protect us from the government taking our stuff, locking us up, killing us.

“Positive rights are active rights. They are things the government must do or provide. They include things like...like the right to a fair trial, to an attorney, and in some countries, the right to health care. 

“Our Constitution, primarily, with some exceptions, is a negative rights document. It was designed to protect the men who made it and their property--their property that was sometimes people--from the government.” 

[emphasis added]

Shreck says it was because of the emphasis on “negative rights” in the Constitution that the originalist/ textualist Scalia was able to decide in Caste Rock v. Gonzales (2005) against a woman who sued the police for not having enforced a restraining order against her ex-husband (who ended up murdering their three young daughters). The police didn’t enforce the restraining order despite a Colorado law that seemed to state clearly that restraining orders should be enforced.

For a variety of reasons, Scalia claimed that the plaintiff didn’t have a right “to any active or positive protection from the police.” 

That decision according to Schreck was considered by a number of scholars to be “the death of the Fourteenth Amendment for women” because 

“it basically shuts down the possibility to look to our federal government, to our Constitution, for protection from physical or sexual violence.”  [emphasis added]

Schreck plays an audiotape where Scalia debates the meaning of the word “shall” in the Colorado law (the one to which the plaintiff maintained the police had not complied). It was chilling to realize that Scalia used his strict interpretation of the language of the Colorado law to undo the spirit of the law, which was to ensure the enforcement of restraining orders.

After watching What the Constitution Means to Me I was more convinced than ever that we as a nation will not become a fully developed first world nation as long as we have a court packed with conservative originalists and textualists, who are: 

Wed to the most limited view of the rights of Americans.

Inclined to protect the rights of the propertied classes

Question whether the government has a constitutional obligation to foster and/or protect the “positive rights” of the working classes.

Anyway, Schreck’s play is more than worth watching. It offers arguments both pro and con regarding our current Constitution and raises very important questions. It provides an enjoyable way to learn more about the Constitution--knowledge of which I believe is necessary for citizens to have at this critical juncture in our nation’s history.

[edited]

________

Images 1 and 2 were modified from an image from this source. Images 3 and 4 were modified screenshots from the play as seen on Prime Video. 

[oldfilmsflicker]

new-to-me #198 - What the Constitution Means to Me

[harknessbethyname]

What The Constitution Means To Me