SteveSanders said: "joevitus said: "The response "Patti will Patti" is more a "What do you expect?" than "isn't it wonderful!"
I'm an organizational development consultant and I've been thinking a lot about this situation through my professional lens, so forgive the dispassionate thinking that follows.
I agree that reacting in this manner is not an endorsement of what she is saying.
But on some levels, "Patti will Patti" also gives LuPone a pass, a courtesy a lot of other performers would not (and do not) receive.
Who gets a pass and whose outspokenness is celebrated or condemned tends to reflect group beliefs and culture and how power and privilege operate within an organization or community.
I imagine many people here can think of someone in an organization they've been a part of at some point in their lives who got away with things that few other people would. It's reasonable for someone to want to challenge that difference or at last want to understand why it exists.
And as far as the "what do you expect?" question, I would hope we could expect any performer as experienced and intelligent as LuPone to understand the historic and current inequities in theater, television, and movies, to appreciate that their personal and professional experiences may differ from their colleagues, and to speak in a manner that reflects these understandings.
We all have the ability to edit whatever we say in any setting to reflect the values we want people to associate with us as people and professionals.
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I'm not surt what "give her a pass" means in this context, as if any of us are in a positon to effectivey reprimand her. I mean, please. Who has been able to? Ever?
And look, there's a chain of events here. It didn't start with Patti just going off on Keisha and Audra (and Glenn, but that keeps being ignored because it doesn't fit a certain narrative). Patti made a request for sound levels to be lowered--which I am certain she would have done were the show Hell's Kitchen, The Who's Tommy or Tristan and Isolde. That's really is just Patti. And I have no doubt that if Audra made a similar request while a very loud show was playing next to the quiet comedy she was appearing in, that would likewise have been acceded to.
But Keisha made it about race, and that was--is, in my opinion--out of place. Totally fine to call Patti out for diva behavior if Keisha wanted to, but it wasn't about "Black people have to be quiet for the white people." It. Just. Wasn't.
That said, I think Patti's response in the New Yorker was stupid, thoughtless, egotistical and cruel. She shouldn't behave that way. She sounds like a loon, and she's the one who comes off badly here.
I also think she doesn't give a flying you-know-what what I or anyone else thinks about it, so going on a tirade agaist something that isn't going to chance--and isn't about race at all, but about Patti's ego in relation to literally the entire population of earth--is a colossal waste of time. And trying to make this a racial issue, and then attacking everyone who won't see it as a racial issue, and painting everyone with the same broad brushstokes of insult/condescension (I am not referring to you here, I hope that's clear), does nothing but alienate all the people here who, yes, think, as in so many instances, it would have been better if Patti had not said what she said.
Updated On: 5/30/25 at 01:24 AM
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