Comments on Here Comes Corrie

Having been a Student at a West Bank Palestinian university, I have seen first hand the tactics used by the occupation forces to keep the people down. Rolling over a girl standing infront of the house is one more tactic used. Of course occupation forces have done the same with people INSIDE the houses. Occupation is ugly business, it's not for the faint of heart. People will die under occupations. I have not seen the play, I lived it.

I had to talk my friend out of putting a little toy bulldozer at the death shrine in the TESC library building the year this happend. Also her mother would not shut the hell up at graduation very annoying.

Brendan, thanks for the Corrie Wikipedia entry.
I never heard the song by Billy Bragg (it's listed as mp3 at the bottom of the page). His words have been 'manipulating' me for the last 20 years.

#2: Um....Rachel Corrie's mother "would not shut the hell up" at graduation? Is that who you mean? And...you found that very annoying?

Yeah, grieving parents. What a pain in the ass. Yadda yadda yadda. Is she still talking?

Wow. Classy.

If the parents are grieving, what are they doing yapping away at a college graduation?

But I agree with Brendan. This was something Corrie was quite apparently passionate about, one of those things that sets a person apart from the rest of the herd. Touching on her ordinariness, her banality certainly could be/should be incorporated, but the show should reach to the heart of what she died for. She didn't die for Pat Benatar and pumpkin patches. I can only imagine she'd want to throw this issue into the spotlight, and not hide it in the shadows.

My feeling, also having read but not seen the play, is that the play itself is not equipped to make a cohesive political statement about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and I think any attempt to stage it as one is doomed to fail. The play is strongest as a portrait of a young woman trying to find a way to cope with an unjust world, as we all have to learn to do as we become adults. I think that's what Rickman and Viner are getting at. Corrie was an idealist and arguably naive, but what she definitely was not at age 23 was an expert or a scholar. If somebody wanted to make an anti-Israeli play, there are much more convincing voices than hers.

"On the night of Corrie's death, nine Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip, among them a four-year-old girl and a man aged 90. A total of 220 people have died in Rafah since the beginning of the intifada. Palestinians know the death of one American receives more attention than the killing of hundreds of Muslims."

My personal favorite quote about the dead girl.

I think Lenin called them "useful idiots."

It's not surprising the show was cancelled in New York and Toronto. It would never had seen the light of day if it were a more blatant 'commentary on Israel or Palestine.'

NBC is getting grief over a similiarly themed Law & Order.

#4 I suppose she could have been grieving but honestly I like the rest of the people there tuned out to her after 20 minutes. Seemed like she was just ranting to me.

i have to admit my heart skipped a beat when i saw the headline...i was hoping the Rep was doing the musical version of 'Carrie'...

i imagine a balanced portrayal of Corrie would end up looking somewhat like Werner Herzog's "Grizzly Man:" A person with an obsession and huge brass balls commits their life to something, which, however foolhardy, earns them notoriety and gives their life meaning. Whether or not their lives were lived to the fullest or foolishly wasted is left to the viewer to decide.

it would be nice for some people to acknowledge that it is possible to make a play or a movie without expressly endorsing the actions of the protagonist.

I thought it was a good episode of Law & Order: CI

Had Rachel Corrie not gone to Evergreen I wouldn't remember her name (I went there). It is sad that Rachel died for what she believed, but Israelis and Palestinians have been killing each other since before. My sympathy is equally shared with the innocent Palestinians who are killed by Israeli tanks as I am with innocent Israeli's who are killed by suicide bombers. It's hard for me to find a "good guy" in this war.

Are they still holding the Rachel Corrie Memorial Pancake Breakfast?

Codes, I was there for my sister's graduation, and sure, she was not a polished public speaker, but your idea of her speech has to be limited to a small number of assholes.

The audience was typically full of the fourteen hippies that tend to live with each Evergreen grad, for sure, but Rachel's mom (no matter how stupid you think not ceding your ground when a bulldozer begins to crush your toes is) spoke from the heart in a way that moved everybody, socialist vegans and their meat-eating family members alike. If you were bored or annoyed, you were absolutely in the minority.

Anyway, you're a dick.