How did he manipulate her?

He's somewhat condescending, but she uses it against him, distorting the interaction once she comes under the sway of radicals consumed by ideology.

Manipulative psycho

I get you blud, what a sad world we live in.

@@TheMessiah__ thank you for your reply

​@@TheMessiah__ What a sad world we live in where men keep getting away with things.

@@Aster_Risk They don't get away with anything, their life gets ruined even if they did nothing.

@@Aster_Risk Alicia gone silent !?

@Paul What a necessary comment. You must be so well-liked.

it was more dangerous in the 90s when people by and large wouldn't even listen to a victim, and the impact from its publishing is still felt today. I was taught this play in university in 2015 and was scolded for pointing out that this would NEVER happen in real life, and has never happened to any male professor up for tenure. It is a complete contrivance. at least now the norm is to hear out what a victim has to say before writing her off entirely. Interesting that Mamet only ever shows Carol in hysterics about her grades or shes lying about abuse, and the professor is always defending himself from her attacks and psychotic references to her "group". She has no agency. She is a caricature. Mamet came up with a fantasy exploring what would have happened to him if some girl accused him of assaulting her when he was a professor in the late 60s. He has said as much in interviews. Truly this play has no insight into power dynamics or even student teacher relationships. It says nothing about sexual assault besides that its most likely a misunderstanding... until a woman inevitably pushes the man to his breaking point. It only illustrates what Mamet thinks of women and the fear he felt in the early 90s as more and more women began coming out against their abusers. There's a reason he dug out his script after the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas trial.

​@@PoopHobbit, both characters are the same - they're not so much "caricatures" as the dramatic equivalent of sort of Rorshach ink blot. Mamet's point is to allow the audience to choose to see one of them as a "victim" and the other as the "aggressor"? Which one? That depends on the viewer's experiences.

@@jonathangwynne1917 I cant see my old comment for whatever reason (youtube comments are the absolute worst place to have an intellectual discussion, lol), but I would love to keep talking about this! I just don't remember what I said so idk how to reply to what you're asking! But I think I kinda know what I mightve said, like regarding Mamet as a person, so I will add this: Mamet begins with a false premise. In fact the entire experiment is false, because it is completely devoid of an actual female perspective. You can't ask the audience to choose when the author has already decided. He is a man and likely could have been accused of assault had he been a professor 20 years later than he was. This is the real reason he wrote the play, as far as I can tell. There's a really good interview with Mamet from '94 with Charlie Rose (I think?) where he talks a lot about his own perspective on the telling of the story, and where his motivations for writing the script came from. My general critique is that he doesn't have enough relevant life experience to write a believable woman to even get us to a point where we can choose who is being abusive/who is in the right. All of his successful works are about men and the experiences of the American Man. He comes from a line of hyper masculine American authors (in the tradition of Hemingway) who actively isolated themselves from society and women in particular to hone their brand/perspective. Honestly I don't think it's any deeper than Mamet being intrigued and attracted to that lifestyle, and there's nothing wrong with how he chose to live his life and build upon his world view! But you have to admit that his personal life experience MUST effect his writing in some way (he was a college professor for instance, who in the late 60s/ early 70s defended colleagues who were involved with students - he has admitted as such and has written about it). I also find it interesting that the characters and the organizations he chose to depict don't really reflect university life in the early 90s so much as they do university life in the 70s, when he was a professor. Whenever I read this play with new people they think it was published in the 60s/70s, not the 90s. So his personal experience is dripping all over this piece of literature to the point that it's often staged in the mid 20th century instead of the late. Is it incorrect to say that while his intentions may have been to offer a "neutral" perspective, with hindsight we have learned that he was not successful in being unbiased? That he was unable to offer both perspectives because he only has the life experience of the professor. I am a woman, who has been in college, who has had male professors speak to me inappropriately and approach me inappropriately - I was completely helpless. My life, my career, my education, my fucking financial stability depended on what those men thought of me. When STATISTICALLY women are worse off when they speak up about assault than the men they accuse (including in the case that inspired Mamet to write this play, Anita Hill v Clarence Thomas - her name completely tarnished while he ended up a supreme court justice) is that an equal playing field? When Mamet himself admitted that his colleagues got away with having sexual relationships with students, is what he wrote even close to an honest depiction of what happens between the people involved behind closed doors? When less than 2% of rape allegations are false, is it likely AT ALL that something like this would happen outside of some guy's fantasy? I don't think so, and I don't think most students, let alone women, would think so either. The hypothetical he's constructed for himself is moot to begin with. I'm sure he thought he was being unbiased, just like all the dudes who have told me they are afraid of this happening to them. But it hasn't happened, and it wont happen. Women are raped every day, and we are assaulted and hurt by those closest to us. Are men being falsely accused of rape every day, having their lives taken from them? No, no that's not happening and never has. Living with the fear of being falsely accused of rape is apparently much, much worse than legitimately being raped... Sorry for the paragraph, I just think Mamet is given too much credit for Oleanna, and I retroactively see it as a complete failure. Mamet did a thought experiment "what would have happened to me if I was accused of sexual assault while I was a working professor" and it is - as the kids today say - cringe. I'll stick to Glenngary Glen Ross when I want to remember how talented of a playwright he is. Maybe check out Mamet's AWFUL Weinstein play if you want more evidence showing how tone deaf he is when it comes to women's issues. Also no argument here, I'd love to hear your perspective if you have the time.

@@PoopHobbit great comment 👍

🍵

@@TheMessiah__ ☕

☕women

Men ☕

Omfg 😂😂