The Vagina Monologues

This film (drama)Also known asThe Vagina Monologues，is aUSAProducerwomen sex，At2002Released in year 。The dialogue language isEnglish，Current Douban rating8.9(For reference only)。

"The Vagina Monologues" is a play by American writer Eve Ensler, and in recent years, performing this play has become a signature event of the international "Victory over Violence" movement for women. The Vagina Monologues won the Obie Award in the United States in 1997 and was published as a book in 1998. Ensler, who is a playwright, poet, and activist, has performed the play in theaters and universities outside of Broadway in New York, as well as in London, Jerusalem, and Zagreb (a city in former Yugoslavia). Her work "Necessary Targets" was performed on Broadway with proceeds going to support women refugees in Bosnia. Since 1999, performing "The Vagina Monologues" during the traditional Valentine's Day period has developed into an international "Victory over Violence" movement, giving new meaning to Valentine's Day. The writer welcomes anyone to perform "The Vagina Monologues" during V-Day events to "raise awareness and combat sexual violence against women." Ensler's challenging and forthright narrative style begins with the first word of her preface: "Vagina," I said it; "Vagina," let me say it again. In the past three years, I’ve repeated this word countless times. I’ve said it in the theater, at school, in living rooms, in coffee shops, at lunch gatherings, on national radio shows. If someone approved, I’d say it on television. I say it a hundred and twenty-eight times whenever I perform. Ensler explains that "The Vagina Monologues" was completed based on interviews with over two hundred women from different backgrounds, exploring their feelings about their vaginas. The word 'vagina' is considered taboo, "It’s an invisible word, one that stirs up anxiety, embarrassment, disdain, and disgust. However, what is not spoken does not get seen, recognized, or remembered. The things we do not say become secrets, and these secrets foster shame, fear, and myths. My intention in saying it is to hope that one day I can say it freely, without feeling shame and embarrassment." "The Vagina Monologues" consists of eighteen segments, primarily in the form of monologues. Among them, there are both a verbatim style of monologue and a blended interview format; sometimes it consists of dialogues between the writer and interviewees, at other times multiple voices are interspersed. Before most monologues, there are explanations from the writer—describing the origin of the creative concept, providing background on the characters, and dedicating the stories to certain women or groups of women. One of the central themes of the script is exposing the forms of violence inflicted on women during war—especially rape—expressed through the monologue of a Bosnian woman. The writer mentions that in 1993, around twenty to seventy thousand women were raped during the war in Central Europe. She was shocked by the photographs of women who were gang-raped published in newspapers, leading her to reflect on their inner transformations. She conducted interviews in Croatia and Pakistan for over two months and visited Bosnia twice, yet only a brief poetic narrative condensed in the script: "My vagina is my village." In the script, the moods of the past and present are distinguished by two different fonts, regular and italic, juxtaposed for contrast: "My vagina is the green fields, the flowing light pink fields, where the cows moo, and the lovely cowherd caresses it with soft golden straw as the sun rises." But soldiers shove guns, clubs, bottles, and brooms inside, tearing it apart; their gang-rapes continue for seven days, causing a stench of feces and salted meat: "I have become a river flowing with toxic pus, all the crops die, the fish die." Reimagining women's bodies allows for the expression of women’s desires and fantasies to gain a new cultural representation, expanding the richer dimensions of the play's meaning. Opposing sexual violence against women is not only about exposing the devastating consequences of violence, but more importantly, transforming our traditions and cultures, liberating women's bodies, empowering women, reshaping female subjectivity, and reconstructing cultural subjects. The play incorporates the taboo topics of sexual experiences, women's desires, and fantasies, thereby opening up a profound space for women to speak for themselves, creating a world filled with imagination, laughter, and humor. When the play was performed at Harvard University, laughter erupted throughout the audience. As the playwright said: "As more women speak the word 'vagina', it becomes something ordinary. It becomes part of our language, part of our lives. Our vaginas become whole, respectable, and sacred. It integrates into our bodies, connects with our thoughts, igniting our spirit. Shame dissipates, violence ends; because vaginas are visible, real; they are linked with strong, wise women who dare to talk about vaginas." The final scene of "The Vagina Monologues" is a poem that the writer dedicates to her daughter-in-law. The title "I Was in That Room" refers to the delivery room in a hospital. There, the writer witnesses this shy passage transform into an archaeological tunnel, canal, and deep well. The vagina changes colors, blood seeps out like sweat, feces and blood clots stretch open all passages… Mothers, husbands, and nurses surround the bed; they forget about the vagina until a new life emerges, its head, its arms, coming into the world. The doctor’s bloodied hands stitch the torn vagina, and at that moment, it beats like a throbbing red heart. This poem concludes the entire play: "The heart has the ability to sacrifice, The vagina does too; The heart can forgive and heal, It can change shape to accommodate us, It can expand to let us out, The vagina does too; The heart can ache for us, stretch for us, die for us, it bleeds, And the bleeding is for us to enter this challenging, marvelous world, The vagina can as well; I was in that room. I remember." The English version of "The Vagina Monologues" was performed in Shanghai in 2001, and the Chinese version had its premiere in Guangdong in 2003.