Critical Responses and Twists
Jim Steinmeyer has argued that Selbit's introduction of the sawing illusion was a turning point in the history of magic after which gentler styles represented by the likes of John Nevil Maskelyne were in irreversible decline to be replaced by more sensationalist presentations that owed something to the shock effect of Grand Guignol theatre. In particular, Steinmeyer identifies the sawing illusion as the beginning of a fashion for magic featuring female assistants in the role of victim. He says the cliche of "pretty ladies teased and tortured by magicians" was not a cliche prior to Selbit's illusion. Male assistants were common in magic history and in the Victorian era; the cumbersome clothes imposed on women by the fashions of the time made it impractical for them to squeeze into confined spaces required by some tricks. Changing fashions in the early 20th century made Selbit's choice of a female victim a practical proposition. It was also true that an illusion designed for a lithe woman might be more compact and deceptive than one tailored to fit a man. However, more controversially, a combination of the emancipation of women and a population desensitized by war and exposed to new entertainment phenomena meant Selbit's choice struck a chord in the public imagination. In Steinmeyer's words: "beyond the practical concerns, the image of the woman in peril became a specific fashion in entertainment".
Along with other "box-and-blade" type illusions involving a female assistant, Sawing a woman... has been criticised by feminists as misogynist. Modern magicians, including female performers, have responded by placing a male performer in the role originally filled by the woman. Magician Dorothy Dietrich, who established herself as a leading magician as a teenager has been called the "First Woman to saw a man in half." This was reported early on in Weekly World News entitled First Lady of Magic, The New York Times, as well as in many other publications.
Australian magician Sue-Anne Webster performs a variation on the "thin model" sawing in which she saws husband Tim Ellis in two with a chainsaw.
Read more about this topic: Sawing A Woman In Half
Famous quotes containing the words critical and/or responses:
“Post-modernism has cut off the present from all futures. The daily media add to this by cutting off the past. Which means that critical opinion is often orphaned in the present.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)
“Research shows clearly that parents who have modeled nurturant, reassuring responses to infants’ fears and distress by soothing words and stroking gentleness have toddlers who already can stroke a crying child’s hair. Toddlers whose special adults model kindliness will even pick up a cookie dropped from a peer’s high chair and return it to the crying peer rather than eat it themselves!”
—Alice Sterling Honig (20th century)