The Elephant in the Room (for my fellow Lecoqians)
It would appear that someone at school has read my blog, found something they disliked and then spread it around the changing rooms until everyone has read it. Although, judging by my statistics most people are only reading one or two entries and not the blog as a whole. That is the nature of a blog and I cannot complain if people find the blog hard to understand from one entry. It is my fault as a blog writer if I don't express what it is I am trying to express with the blog as a whole in each individual entry.
Clearly, not always has the firm tongue in cheek and self-mocking tone I am hoping for come across. Firstly, the first person I mock in this blog is myself. Heavily. I am not a fan of taking oneself seriously. After that I also accept all mocking humour aimed at me. I like this humour, I am very British and so is my humour. It is not really understood here and I don't help, rather than censoring it and trying to be polite I tend to respond by going even further down the road of offensive jokes. Apologies but this is a vital aspect of my personality and I cannot apologise for it or change it because I wouldn't change who I am for anyone. But if you have come across this blog and been offended by it's more politically incorrect tone I feel compelled to point out a few things.
I do like the French. I really actually do. I find it funny to mock them and play up to the fact the British hate the French. It's a joke. We don't hate the French. I don't hate the French. There are aspects of the culture I don't like on a very serious note but I actually do take the time to discuss and understand these aspects openly and honestly with those that are willing to indulge in a discussion. My main argument has been with the men in the street and the seeming disregard for my rights as a woman to walk along the street in peace and the, at times, shocking racism on show here. In the tone of self mocking criticism that I am trying to strike I attempt to use a racist voice towards the French whilst criticising aspects of their culture, like racism, in order to highlight the absurdity of pot, kettle, black. As a British person, who as a people are widely despised for their self-riotousness and ignorance World Wide I like to use this stereotype in my critical voice. I have experienced a lot of racism towards my own nation but only in the context of misunderstanding, of our humour or nature or even belief systems. This lack of understanding comes from us. I am mocking it. By displaying a racist response to the French I am also self-mocking the Brits right to tell anyone else off for racism, well that is what I am attempting!
I must stress that because in this blog I try not to be serious, I allow my sarcasm to overtake and maybe that sometimes goes too far but I believe as long as you are prepared to take the mickey out of yourself and take it when someone does the same to you then any subject is fair game.
The next part where I take the mickey out of the funnier parts of clown school (clown school I ask you!) and also express a little of the genuine difficulty I have with school I believe will only offend students of this particular school. As much as I don't wish to offend I am also not writing for those ears and the style of the writing is geared to entertain someone who is not inside the actual process at the moment. All drama schools are very intense, emotional and vulnerable places and they become a bubble that it is very hard to see past. On the outside they are hard to understand and I use a mocking tone to invite someone to read. I believe artists can lose a bit of perspective at times due to the emotional nature of the work and the vulnerability of the exposure of themselves in its expression. I make it a point to always try and catch myself in this process. This blog to a non-actor would be very self indulgent and uninteresting if I didn't attempt to temper it with self-derision. I am more interested in reaching a reader who won’t understand this experience than one who is or has gone through some kind of drama training and so my voice is targeted at this market.
At drama school insecurities are constantly breached and being defended. It doesn't necessarily show anyone at his or her best as a human being. Everyone is exposed and vulnerable and as a reaction often defensive. Myself included. I vent my anger and frustration here in my blog. I do this in a self-mocking and Lecoq mocking manor for the entertainment of others whilst off loading and venting for myself. It is self-mocking to help me not to take the stresses of school seriously and to allow the reader to be a part of it. If I took myself seriously then I would be doing a terrible job as a writer whose key aim must always be to entertain or move their readers, even to anger. I would also be a nervous wreck. If anyone finds this offensive I completely understand and apologise, I am not writing to offend you and I am not writing for the market of current students. If I was I could not offer an honest reflection of my very personal experience to this school, which is and was my original intention with the blog.
Now to address the city, I don't like Paris. I don't mean to offend her citizens but I don't like her as a city. She doesn't like me back. It's mutual. We've discussed it. It doesn't offend either of us and we'll both live despite it. I have found her very hard to live in. In defence of myself I mock her voraciously in this blog. I also hope to offer an alternative view to the numerous accounts of Paris that are positive. I do like to be a little contrary as a rule. Unfortunately I think this is the only side of my personality I have made a huge effort to express since I have been here. There are other sides I promise.
And so, to come to my main point, when I refer to wankers doing back flips and miming you should note that it is as a fellow 'wanker' at that school that the joke is made. I also refer to all actors as such because for anyone on the outside we do often come across that way. I mean please I don’t care how much you believed in the ‘integrity’ of the script Ben Affleck, Gigli was a BAD film. We are heavily mocked as a society and quite rightly so, we put ourselves out there to be judged and judged we are. The entry in which I said 'Don't do it!' about Lecoq I had hoped would be read with a tongue in cheek. I am mocking myself here. I am also mocking the school. But in amongst that I went on to praise the school. It is in fact a school I would and do highly recommend. For very personal reasons I feel the need to keep that recommendation true to my personal experience of the school which hasn't been positive on a day to day basis. I shall explain this in a separate entry, as it has no place here. It is true to the mocking sense in which I have commented previously on the school and would make sense in this context to one of my regular readers. It was not meant to be read in the blunt manor I imagine my fellow students have arrived at it.
I have not allowed many people to really get to know me whilst I have been here and so the fault is with me if I am misunderstood, not with those around me. This is not due to a sense of being better or uninterested. In fact this has come out of personal circumstances that have gone alongside school. I have attempted to control myself at school whilst at times in my personal life I have been crumbling. This has meant I've avoided the spotlight and social interaction. This is personal. I can only assume that this personal breakdown was supposed to happen now, as it has when I am miles from home and comforts and friends. It has been a catalyst in distancing me from my fellow students and my lack of openness and sense of reserve here has very much worked against me. Anyway, I digress, needless to say in the words of all great break ups, 'It's not you, it's me.'
Finally I write this blog mainly looking to entertain those people I know who read it regularly and so the humour and the opinions are not as censored as they would be. I have learnt a lot about writing whilst doing this blog and self-censorship is one thing. For goodness sake, please go and read the one about my first professional wax for an example of a lack of self-censorship! It is not only in my opinions about school I am a little innocent and ignorant here but I have talked in detail about areas of my body no lady would discuss.
I would like to apologise to my fellow Lecoqians who have been offended by this blog and I ask only that you know that wasn't my intention and that because I don't make myself open to integration amongst you (a self preservation thing) I do understand that you will have found this blog quite aggressive. It wasn't my intention and in this experience alone I have learnt a huge amount about how I have allowed myself to be so misunderstood and rather than take it personally it is for me to understand why and attempt to make myself understood.
It is also a good thing to remember that criticism of others often comes from a defensive reaction to insecurity, looking at it that way you may re read some of the entries you find personally offensive as actually quite revealing about my own personal failings instead.
I would like to ask that you take me in the context I am, one person with an opinion, no matter how different to yours, about my experience at school and one in which I am trying to understand and express. Don’t take me so personally and please allow me to finish my studies without the silent bullying I have experienced this week. If I thought you were genuinely wankers for being at the school and enjoying the physical side that I simply can’t do it would make me a very small and narrow minded person who wouldn’t be worthy of the offence you have clearly taken. I mock that which I can’t do for the benefit of entertainment.
And for my regular readers, actors are wankers, Lecoq is shit, the French are ridiculous and George W Bush is a genius...Too soon to make jokes???
And the mouse is STILL not dead.
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