Word: tabooing
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Langham-Anthony Burgess Oedipus goes back beyond Sophocles to the myth from which he borrowed. Here they find the king a primitive hero who lifts one evil spell-the Sphinx's-only to bring down a worse spell by violating the ultimate taboo: incest. On the Guthrie stage, dark as the predawn of civilization, this ritual circle of plot is made to stand out like an elemental curse: by solving its riddle,* Oedipus destroys the Sphinx; by failing to solve soon enough the mystery of his own identity-whose son he is-Oedipus destroys himself...
While contemporary political subjects are taboo in the arts, sex is an acceptable theme. The National Theater's current production of Bizet's Carmen must certainly rank as one of the most erotic of versions. In one scene of the opera, Carmen does a striptease, then lolls on a bed in her underwear, grabbing at Don José. Later the couple fall into bed and, through some miraculous exercise of lung power, manage to sing their love duet while they are passionately embracing...
...find a mixed group disturbing-as many do. For this and other reasons, kibbutz young people seem to have few serious sexual difficulties. Even when older boys and girls share the same dormitories, there is little sexual activity or even dating among roommates, apparently because a kind of incest taboo develops. There is no known homosexuality on the collectives, and practically no illegitimacy. Divorce is infrequent. Kibbutzim have their share of neurotics, but no more than cities have, and for those who want it, psychiatric help is readily available...
...While reading your article on the brave new TV season [Sept. 25], it occurred 19 me that perhaps the only taboo television has not yet toppled is the one against intelligent programs...
...Your implication that TV is "toppling old taboos" is inaccurate and misleading. Until TV topples the old and ironclad taboo against showing the conservative view in a favorable light, it will remain just what it has always been: a mouthpiece for the left-wing propagandists...