Response on the Shamu performance and gender
Susan Davis’s “Spectacular Nature” provides multidirectional viewpoints which include urban planning, labor, education, entertainment and gender of the Sea World theme park. I am interested in her discussion of gender and the Shamu performance.
Davis writes, “Women have been given a heightened presence in all parts of the show, and some traditional notions of gender differences—that women are less competent and authorities than men—have been ostentatiously overthrown. But underneath these changes, the structure of the performance remains fairly constant, as do its sometimes contradictory and enigmatic ideas.” (213) Furthermore, Davis continues to figure out that “But while the Shamus show’s emphasis in stereotypically female human traits fits with and extends the logic of familiar cultural narratives, it is also an attempt to address the woman in the audience . . . As the Shamu show invokes the supposedly feminine qualities of feeling, as it takes up the stereotypically female concerns with family, care, and the nurturance, so the show has gradually over the years made more room for the female trainers” (224). By these two citations, Davis’ analysis is based on the traditional gender stereotype which men and women are definitely categorized in different job duties. However, I am thinking about that Davis’ viewpoints lack the concern of the gender differences of spectatorship.
For me, Davis’ analysis still classifies that the stereotype of men and women are in a traditional gender difference category. It seems that education, childcare and family entertainments still belong to women’s “natural” duties. Although in the Shamu performance, they gradually increase the percentages of women trainers’ performance with the Shamu. But what they evoke is less masculinity and more feminity in the Shamus performance in order to create an atmosphere of whole-family-entertainment. Therefore, the notions of gender difference of Shamu performance seems not be deconstructed but restructured.
By the way, we can watch the Shamu from the web cam. Go to Shamu.com http://www.shamu.com/, and click the “watch the Shamu cam”, then you can see the Shamu.