Female character in Madison Scouts show
There's been quite a bit of talk the past few weeks over the presence of a female character in the Scouts 2005 show, 'The Carmen Project'. Corps director Sal Salas of the Madison Scouts explains how the Carmen character came to be.
Salas called the designers and asked them to think about it first, to think about the show featuring a female character and then to call him back the next day. They got together and started storyboarding the whole program and concluded that to do 'Carmen', they needed a female Carmen. Women have been in Madison shows twice before - when a girl marched as 'Alice in Wonderland' in 1971 and when the corps utilized three girls in the American flag squad for the VFW Nationals in 1980.
Carmen plays a part in the program and she doesn't have any issues with being part of the family. "We don't label her any different", Salas explains. "When I talk about the brotherhood, I don't break it down by staff and members. It's all about being part of this brotherhood. She considers all the guys to be her big brother. We will treat her with the utmost of respect, befitting the Scouts tradition. We'll make arrangements for her to shower by herself and she'll have her own sleep area with Kelsey, one of our guard instructors. It's the way I would want to be treated as a male in an all-female organization."
The Madison Scouts are still an all-male corps. "This is not any different than 1971. Madison Scouts is not a Boy Scout Troop. We are chartered as a venture crew, which can be of mixed gender. We renew that charter every year. This - utilizing a woman in our show - is a one-year thing. There is no discussion about changing who we are." (Source: dci.org, Michael Boo)
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