A WOMAN ON HER KNEES – REVIEW OF LOUISE ORWIN’S A GIRL AND A GUN

Posted on October 11, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged a girl and a gun, art, arts, cinema, feminism, femme fatale, film, gender, gender roles, gun, guns, jean-luc godard, louise orwin, lust, media, movie, NAC, narrative, norwich, Norwich Arts Centre, objectification, patriarchy, performance, piece, playwright, review, revolver, role reversal, sex, sexism, theatre, violence, Western, women.

by Hannah Rose

He is driving, she is hanging on his arm. Behind them a vista depicting a wide road disappears into desert upon a large screen. The cherry red of her lipstick matches her low-slung red dress, punctuated by a pair of cowgirl boots. Her dreamy expression says she’s completely at ease, hanging off her man; pleased as punch, because he is in control. But he has never seen the script before; he will be reading off an autocue. She is the one driving the show.

Performer-playwright, Louise Orwin, is touring the UK with her new theatre piece, A Girl and A Gun which was performed at Edinburgh Fringe this summer. Jean-Luc Godard’s adage “All you need to make a movie is a gun and a girl,” is the springboard from which Orwin’s performance dives headfirst into a chilling reality which is anything but surface deep.

LONE-WOLVES AND STATE WARRIORS

Posted on June 23, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national, Perspectives and tagged another angry voice, bicuriosity, Bill O'Reilly, britain first, church, daesh, drug abuse, equal marriage, gun, gun control, heterosexist, heterosexual, homelessness, homophobia, individualism, islamophobia, Jo Cox, left wing, LGBT+, liberal, lone wolf, lone wolves, marriage, media, mental health, monogamy, murdoch, Muslim, Orlando, Orlando shooting, Owen Jones, queer, race, religion, right wing, same sex, scapegoating, sex work, sexuality, state, suicide, xenophobia.

by Joshua Ekin

Content warning: mentions suicide, homophobia, Islamophobia, xenophobia, mass shooting, murder

A massacre in an LGBT+ space, by a Muslim, with a legal gun, and alleged connections to Daesh. It’s easy to see how contemporary American anxieties converge in the political aftermath of the Orlando shooting. The media response to this — the largest massacre in modern American history — exposes how truth is controlled by the present political regime.

For those who do not spend their days fretting about radical social discourse, homophobia can be difficult to define. Before Obama legalised same-sex marriage federally, it dominated the media conversation, establishing rights as the fulcrum of group empowerment. While the LGBT+ movement focused on this, statistics revealed that LGBT+ kids across the world were entering sex-work and committing suicide at an alarming rate. If such statistics were ever mentioned, it was to bolster marriage as the unequivocal endowment being denied to the LGBT+ community. The institution Australian Marriage Equality claims that the ‘higher rates of drug and alcohol abuse, homelessness, early school leaving, conflict with peers and parents and suicide ideation [are] all directly related to the discrimination.’ Marx might have called this ‘bridal false-consciousness.’Continue Reading

THEPEWPEWLIFE AND WHY I’M HOPELESSLY ANGRY

Posted on June 14, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged #thePewPewLife, America, Boston Marathon, Colion Noir, daesh, FBI, firearms, Florida, G4S, gay bar, gun, gun law, gun sales, gunners, guns, homophobia, islamophobia, Julia Hartley-Brewer, Latinx, LGBT+, lgbtQ+, Mark Longhurst, mass shooting, massacre, Mateen, non-binary, NRA, Orlando, Orlando shooting, Owen Jones, POC, police, Rick Scott, Sky News, Smith and Wesson and Ruger, US.

by Zoe Harding

Content warning: mentions mass shooting, homophobia, Islamophobia.

As you know, on Sunday a homophobic mass-murderer killed 49 people and seriously wounded 53 others in the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. He used a handgun and a semi-automatic rifle, took hostages and was only finally killed when the Orlando police rammed the wall of the club with an armoured vehicle and forced him to come out, before gunning him down.

News media and political statements have been full of Islamophobic vitriol and scaremongering. Owen Jones walked off Sky News after deciding he was sick of listening to Mark Longhurst and Julia Hartley-Brewer trying to downplay the homophobic aspects of shooting up a gay club in favour of a more anti-Daesh approach — despite the attack not yet being confirmed either way if in any way connected to Daesh. As Julian Canlas commented for The Norwich Radical, ‘It is not just an ‘Orlando nightclub massacre’. It is an Orlando lgbtQ+ Latinx nightclub massacre.’ Florida governor Rick Scott suggested that the best thing one could do to aid victims of the shooting was pray, and dodged questions about what could be done to stop further shootings— the NRA logo practically glistening behind his eyes. Continue Reading

#WEDESERVEBETTER

Posted on June 5, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged #wedeservebetter, art, art work, arts, character death, death, design, gun, identity, media, Pagalini, queer, queer characters, queer narratives, radical, sexuality, TV, tv executive.

by Paige Selby-Green

THE COLOUR OF SAYING NO

Posted on November 10, 2015 by Norwich Radical in Arts, Perspectives and tagged #readwomen, anti-war, armistice day, army, Bogle, cenotaph, Charlene Wight, CND, gun, jeremy corbyn, Jon Snow, memory, peace, poppy, PPU, red poppy, Remembrance, Scotland, shoot, soldier, speech, violence, war, white poppy, women, women writers, writer, writing, WWI, wwii.

by Sara Helen Binney

It was November, and the school hall was packed with pupils and teachers freed from lessons. In the festive atmosphere people mingled and chattered and joked. A few nervously practiced their Bible readings; I stood, arms crossed, before a school administrator. She shook her collection box.

‘Poppy?’ she said. It wasn’t a question.
I said, ‘no.’ I doubt I was very polite – I was sixteen, angry and definite.
‘You have to wear a poppy, for the service,’ she said.
‘Why?’ I demanded.
‘Everyone has to wear a poppy.’
‘But I don’t agree with it. Can’t I refuse?’
‘You have to take a poppy – just make a donation.’

Neither of my parents had ever worn a poppy. They brought me up listening to the anti-war songs of the folk revival, and took me to CND marches while I still struggled to pronounce ‘disarmament’. But at school, saying no wasn’t an option. I eventually put a penny in the box.Continue Reading

WHITE POPPIES

Posted on November 8, 2015 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged anti-war, armistice day, army, art, artist, arts, gun, memory, non binary artists, original art, original design, peace, poppy, PPU, red poppy, Remembrance, shoot, soldier, speech, violence, war, white poppy, women artists, WWI, wwii.

by Asia Patel

TRIGGER

Posted on October 6, 2015 by Norwich Radical in Arts, Inter|national and tagged #readwomen, America, arts, charleston, Congress, creative writing, Deer Lodge, gun, gun control, gun laws, guns, Houston, Inglis, killings, mass shootings, mental health, news, NRA, obama, Oregon, Phoenix, Platte, poem, poet, poetry, race, response, Roseburg, shootings, speech, Troup County, Tulsa, Tyrone, US, USA, Waco, White House, women poets, writing.

by Cadi Cliff

In response.

Troup County, January 26th 2015, 5

What is it about the rifle, the pistol, the Ruger 22?
Protection you can prop, old-school, by the front door
keep walking the perimeter of your picket fence
come on boy, let’s have some father son timeContinue Reading

gun

A WOMAN ON HER KNEES – REVIEW OF LOUISE ORWIN’S A GIRL AND A GUN

LONE-WOLVES AND STATE WARRIORS

THEPEWPEWLIFE AND WHY I’M HOPELESSLY ANGRY

#WEDESERVEBETTER

THE COLOUR OF SAYING NO

WHITE POPPIES

TRIGGER

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