In the Soviet Union, there was and remains today a newspaper called Pravda. Pravda means “truth” in Russian. It printed everything good and patriotic about the Soviet Union, which sometimes coincided with reality, but too often didn’t. At a time when free markets were prohibited, there were shortages, including things like toilet paper, and there was a joke about what the newspaper could be used for.
The thing about propaganda is it can be difficult to spot unless you have some frame of reference, either through personal experience, knowledge of someone else’s experience, or from reading different source material. Recently, I heard someone casually refer to MV Pride, the newspaper of the MVSD, as propaganda, but I didn’t latch on. I didn’t have another frame of reference. If that’s what’s presented, then I guess that’s what’s going on. It’s human nature, in a way, to trust.
But then they published a story that I did know something about. A lot, in fact. In the June issue of MV Pride, a headline below the fold on the front page caught my eye: Ride the Cyclone inspired passion and bonding among drama students.” If you have read my coverage of this play, you know that I raised concerns about this as well as other plays chosen by the LBHS Drama Company. To be clear, this is not a critique of the staging of the show. The staging was good, but what the play stood for is vile. I don’t blame the students, either. This is above their heads. They are pawns of ongoing poor adult decisions, and it happened again in MV Pride.
The article only hinted at controversies about the play, mentioning that it’s “dark” but, as if to redeem it, noted it was the high school version, which was about “living life fully and accepting each other.” On the surface, yes, that could be a valid interpretation, but scratch beneath the surface, and it’s a can of worms. MV Pride’s article, unfortunately, is propaganda, and it’s supported by the community that tolerates it.
There’s a failure on two fronts. One, this play never should have been produced and financially supported as a high school production. But the students wanted it, Grayum says. Pray, where did they get that idea? Is it because LBHS has been putting on controversial plays since they were in middle school and these students have never experienced anything else? Could it be that highly sexualized curriculum prepares students to feel comfortable in these productions or regard them as normal?
Grayum had the choice of saying no or explaining to these children the sexualized underlying content of this play. He did neither. MVSD doesn’t have a problem with presenting sexualized content to children during school hours. Just not in this context. Grayum allowed them to perform what they didn’t fully understand.
This past spring, Grayum declined to talk to the PTA board, which this writer is a part of, on a late afternoon when we were all available, saying he needed to protect his “family time.” He offered this writer a time during school hours and only if I came alone. When I declined to meet alone with him, he referred me to LBHS Principal Elyse Darwood, who just didn’t respond.
When I raised LBHS’ choices of high school plays recently with two school board members, they were silent. When I asked one of the school board members, who had just been re-elected, what she wanted to work on in MVSD, her response was that she didn’t see any issues.
It’s not easy to come out against the status quo. It’s not easy to speak about important issues knowing your interlocutor may disagree with you. It’s not easy sticking out like a sore thumb. On the other hand, the difficulty in reaching our elected officials and school administrators shows how far down the rabbit hole we’ve gone.
