Just a thought that followed from the points about treatment of women on one of the other threads.

How do various groups treat things that are going to be natural to your character, but are going to be unpleasant or unacceptable to our modern audience?

The obvious examples are going to be things like the fact that women aren't generally equal to men, but there are plenty of others.

NB - I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't present things the audience won't like, just asking how we do - obviously, a lot of these things (like the subordination of women) are going to be implicit rather than conscious beliefs for our characters, and it would be out of character for us to get sucked into a long discussion of this sort of thing.

Event coordinators or public places like museums may get real "touchy" about what they will allow on their turf. It would be wise to run any concepts by the organization to make sure that they think it is appropriate or if it seems that it stretches the bounds of *cough* "political correctness" they can take the proper precautions to make sure the public knows.

A disclaimer or an "out of character" (for lack of a better term) interpreter may be necessary for a carefully staged vignette.

If it were me, I would pick a topic, put it in a "wrapper" and then present it. What I mean by that is say you want to show what happens to law breakers in the Middle Ages, you can go through the "arrest", due process, and then the punishment for said offenders.

It's easy to stage stuff in photos, but live is something completely different.

Again, the problem is that some of the things most likely to offend are implicit attitudes, which permeate everything a persona does, rather than discrete events....

I say 'do it and be damned'. If the object is education about time and place, then social attitudes are an integral part of that history being presented. The best method I would think is to present it casualy - as casualy as the persona would. If a confrontation occurs, look at it as an oportunity to educate, and step out of character to explain to the audience at that moment.

It is a sign of the weak-mindedness of the times that we are required to tip-toe around history unpalatable to the politicaly correct minded 'elite', who try to dictate to the general populace what they should think (sorry - feel) and how they ought act. Frankly, to whitewash history is as distasteful to me as can be possibly imagined. To do so would to be untrue to my muse and myself. Frankly, I can't be bothered with what the politicaly correct "feel" on the topic. If they have that much free time on their hands, I can recommend several useful public works projects to them to occupy it.

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Information: Paperback - 280 pages (May 1998) Univ of North Carolina Pr; ISBN: 0807847100