The Sound of Silence: A Viewer’s Guide to Emma González’s March for Our Lives Speech

The outspoken, poised, and unapologetic González, although not a theatre artist, is a self-described “dramatic kid” whose capabilities as speechwriter, public speaker, and organizer have made her the unofficial face of the Never Again MSD Movement. 0:01 González arrives at the lectern and looks out at the throng of cheering protestors. Because she leaves unspoken the purpose of her prolonged silence, González [End Page E-10] guides spectators into temporary states of confusion and/or apprehension, gesturing toward (albeit in a low-stakes, nonviolent way) the Parkland students’ disorienting lockdown experience. [...]in creating a protest speech that prioritizes gesture, not language, as the articulator of individual and generational trauma, González taps into an expansive repertoire of silent activism. Anti-abortion and LGBTQ rights protestors alike have sealed their mouths with duct tape, while the Tiananmen Square “Tank Man,” kneeling NFL players, and participants of sit-ins, lie-ins, and die-ins from the civil rights era to the present day obstruct, disrupt, and agitate for change by locating the engine of protest in their (un)speaking bodies.