I decided to go see the play Hooded, or Being Black for Dummies with the Paterno Fellows a couple of months ago. Initially, the title piqued my interest because it reminded me of the book series which taught people how to do various things. But, I thought does this title insinuates that there is a certain way to being black? Does our society perpetuate a certain stereotype to being an African American? After all it is just a type of race, rather than a personality or a defining characteristic. All of these questions added to my experience of this play as it took many of these questions into consideration and used them to focus on key ideas throughout the show.
Onto the actual experience of the play, as soon as I got into the auditorium there was an eerie feeling about the place. There was a simple wooden stage that was fairly close to the audience seats, as well as a red “applause” sign above our heads. This sign reminded me of old television shows with live audiences or humorous hollywood shows. I thought, how could this sign be here if this play is supposed to deal with real life issues about race and other social matters? Moreover, as soon as the play started, an African American policeman came out from the side door and directly spoke to the audience. He was harsh and domineering as he stated that the play is unimportant, and that everyone should ignore what it talks about and stay on their phones instead. He went on to say that everyone should keep their phone ringers on and if anyone has to take a call during the play, they should be more inclined to do so. These statements were very shocking to hear and displayed the irony of the atmosphere of our current society. Anytime there is some issue or event that is somewhat important, many people ignore it and choose to focus on technology instead. Or, they believe that they can help by staying behind phone screens and “supporting” by giving likes to these current issues.
The beginning of the play was very shocking as one of the main characters was shown lying on the floor with a sweatshirt hood over his head, and this position was called “Trayvoning” after the black teenager who was shot by police in 2012. The choice to make this the opening scene of the play was a very powerful one as it set up the theme of humorizing and overlooking black struggles, as well as normalizing the discrimination of African Americans in our society. Many other scenes in the play showed this kind of irony and humor as one of the main characters created a book called “Being Black for Dummies” which was a guidebook that featured stereotypical rules to being black.
I really enjoyed this play because it challenged common perceptions and highlighted the ingrained racism within society and people alike. The themes were very heavy, put the play did a good job of incorporating an enjoyable storyline and characters. I would definitely like to go see this play again, and I hope that many more people see it in the future.