By Maggie Hall Over the summer of 2016, I saw Raleigh Little Theater's production of "Bat Boy" and the following talk back, and so many thoughts were going through my head I felt the need to share them.
"Bat Boy" opens with a song that has a chorus of, "Oh, hold me, Bat Boy! Touch me, Bat Boy! Help me through the night. Love me, Bat Boy! Save me, Bat Boy! Make it all turn out all right!" I'm not going to lie. I found it a little creepy. But as I watched the show, filled with fear and revenge and heartbreak and hate, I had forgotten about these lyrics until we reached the finale, which begged the audience to, "Hold your Bat Boy! Touch your Bat Boy! No more need to hide. Know your Bat Boy! Save your Bat Boy! Don't deny your beast inside." That hit me. Who the show intends "your Bat Boy" to be is not in any way concealed: it is oppressed minorities. Be that racial injustice, the LGBTQ community, or anything else, it is people who are hurt by society because of who they were when they were born. It really struck a chord in me as I realized that every awful, animalistic thing Edgar (the "bat boy") did, he did because he thought he was not loved, or not worthy of being loved. Any time he felt cared for and loved, he was a wonderful, eloquent, vibrant person. But because society insisted on hating him so much, he became convinced he deserved it. In fact, the words he says in his last breath are, "I am not a boy. I am an animal." I'll leave you with this: love your bat boys. Hold them, and save them, and love them, because they need to know that they are just as beautiful and amazing and incredible as any one else on this earth. They need you to tell them this because, chances are, someone else has told them they're not.
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