This_person
Well-Known Member
A professor of economics named Maria Guadalupe was watching the presidential debates last year and had a thought. What if Trump were a woman and Hillary were a man? How would that change people’s perceptions of the exchanges in the debates?
With the help of Joe Salvatore, a professor who specializes in something called ethnodrama, Guadalupe set up a recreation of sections of the original debates using actors to play the roles of Trump, Clinton and the moderator. All the words the actors spoke were taken from transcripts. The candidates’ body language and delivery were studied and the actors did their best to match it moment-to-moment to video feeds from the actual debates. The only difference was that Donald Trump was now a woman renamed Brenda King while Hillary was now a man dubbed Jonathan Gordon.
Initially, both Guadalupe and Salvatore had little doubt what the experiment would reveal, i.e. Trump’s behavior would never be tolerated coming from a woman while Clinton’s competence would be even more obvious coming from a man. But as rehearsals for the performance of the reimagined debates went on, Guadalupe and Salvatore were surprised by what they were feeling about the two candidates. It turned out the woman version of Trump seemed more likable than they had imagined. Salvatore told Guadalupe during rehearsals, “I kind of want to have a beer with her!”
The two sold-out performances of Her Opponent took place on the night of Saturday, January 28, just a week after President Trump’s inauguration and the ensuing Women’s March on Washington…
Many were shocked to find that they couldn’t seem to find in Jonathan Gordon what they had admired in Hillary Clinton—or that Brenda King’s clever tactics seemed to shine in moments where they’d remembered Donald Trump flailing or lashing out. For those Clinton voters trying to make sense of the loss, it was by turns bewildering and instructive...
[video=youtube;9yC7-JsR2Fk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yC7-JsR2Fk[/video]
With the help of Joe Salvatore, a professor who specializes in something called ethnodrama, Guadalupe set up a recreation of sections of the original debates using actors to play the roles of Trump, Clinton and the moderator. All the words the actors spoke were taken from transcripts. The candidates’ body language and delivery were studied and the actors did their best to match it moment-to-moment to video feeds from the actual debates. The only difference was that Donald Trump was now a woman renamed Brenda King while Hillary was now a man dubbed Jonathan Gordon.
Initially, both Guadalupe and Salvatore had little doubt what the experiment would reveal, i.e. Trump’s behavior would never be tolerated coming from a woman while Clinton’s competence would be even more obvious coming from a man. But as rehearsals for the performance of the reimagined debates went on, Guadalupe and Salvatore were surprised by what they were feeling about the two candidates. It turned out the woman version of Trump seemed more likable than they had imagined. Salvatore told Guadalupe during rehearsals, “I kind of want to have a beer with her!”
The two sold-out performances of Her Opponent took place on the night of Saturday, January 28, just a week after President Trump’s inauguration and the ensuing Women’s March on Washington…
Many were shocked to find that they couldn’t seem to find in Jonathan Gordon what they had admired in Hillary Clinton—or that Brenda King’s clever tactics seemed to shine in moments where they’d remembered Donald Trump flailing or lashing out. For those Clinton voters trying to make sense of the loss, it was by turns bewildering and instructive...
[video=youtube;9yC7-JsR2Fk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yC7-JsR2Fk[/video]
