The Archaeology of Muff Diving

HUGHES: I like that line, I think it's really funny-but it needs some explanation because I'm a feminist, and I think I'm right! [Laughs.] And not just about feminism! When I say feminists, it's shorthand for the politically correct, antipornography branch of feminism: that tendency in a movement that started out as a radical movement toward liberation-which to me implied a continual evolution and questioning of assumptions-that ossified into a system of beliefs. In some ways, it's just as oppressive as other systems of belief. I was a born-again Christian. It was something I did in the off-season from bowling when I was growing up. I suppose it's better than if I had gotten into mainlining hard drugs or something else that might have had a similar effect of wasting the mind. I guess it's easier to recover from. What was attractive to me about being a born-again is that I've always wanted to be taken over by something larger than myself-of course, until I was! I was looking for a container, some format or vocabulary for a spiritual impulse. And I was also always looking for a surrogate family. But even if you read the Gospels knowing that they were written a hundred years posthumously, you still get a sense that this person, this Jesus, was a radical. He was certainly a critic of classism, racism, and sexism in his time. Yet somehow, Christianity degenerated into a very oppressive system in this country, actually shoring up existing oppression

Aesthetics · Art · Christianity · Feminism · Literature · Racism · Sociology · Gender Studies · Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies · Philosophy · Religious studies · Religious Studies

• The actor's bodies

  David Graver•Text and Performance Quarterly•1997

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