[Jef Hall-Flavin]

2021

Featuring Ruby Wolf as Blanche DuBois, Cut Blanche was an illuminating performance-lecture using A Streetcar Named Desire to explore the topic of censorship. I hosted an interactive presentation that compared rare footage of cuts from the original 1951 release of the film with live performances from the 1948 stage play. 

​

The film touches on suicide, gun violence, spousal abuse, racism, alcohol abuse, and mental illness, but yet homosexuality, underage sex, and female sexual desire never made it from the stage to the screen. How should homophobia be handled for a worldwide audience? Is underage sexual contact appropriate on screen? Why is female desire so dangerous?

The event focused on three key scenes from the play, one of which was filmed live, then censored during the presentation by Hunter Styles using data from surveying the live audience about what they thought was appropriate.

The event provided a forum to ask questions about "decency" that still resonate today. Can an author’s original intention survive the demands of the marketplace and its competing moralities? How do content warnings intersect with authorship? In a hyperconnected world, where is the line between editing and censorship, and when – if ever – is censorship acceptable or necessary?