Within this dramaturgical analysis, I will be breaking down the ways that this play uses fables/fairy tales to tell an anti-capitalist story and why this anti-capitalist story is important to us now.
Digging Deeper Into Our Anti-Capitalism
Tragically, anti-capitalism has become a trend. The idea of “no ethnical consumption under capitalism” has been co-opted by consumer culture as a way to justify their over consumption instead of being a way to end over consumption. This means anti-capitalist ideology needs to dig deeper. There are many sinister elements to capitalism when you start to dig into it. At its core, capitalism will always have someone who is reaping the benefits and someone who is being harmed for those benefits. This often results in labor being exploited, often the labor of poor young women in countries whose GDP is not comparable to the United States (countries like Vietnam, Thailand, Mexico, and Columbia just to name a few). This is exploration of labor isn’t just outside of the United States but also in the United States in the form of farm labor being exploited. In California, most of our farmworkers are undocumented immigrants from Latin American countries. This exploitation happens at the direction of large corporations. These large corporations, that directly profit from the exploitations of labor are giving the rights of human US citizens. While most logically people would not say that corporations are remotely close to humans but the Supreme Court would not agree. The Supreme Court on many occasion have given corporations the rights of Equal Protection over many citizens. Corporations had rights before women could vote, before Black people could fairly vote. The needs of corporations are always put above citizens. This has been one of the more deadly arms of capitalism. Corporate Personhood has lead to many companies being able to skirt around accountability and never take responsibility for the active harm they do.