Speaking of feminizing the masculine...
Jul. 17th, 2003 11:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
malsperanzaBack in April when I started this LJ, I wrote something about my friend X, the hero (hero? Is that what he is?) of my own little writing project. (Yeah, the one that is never going to get anywhere, especially if I keep spending all my time here.)
Went looking for it because of this and this and of course this and this. Oh, and especially this and this.
Yah, OK, could go on like that all night. But here's what I wrote:
Hm. Now I know I have to go see that pirate movie again. Because even in a trivial summer entertainment, a really good actor like Depp can make this happen. Captain Jack Sparrow has only one goal in life, and that's to get his ship back. Without his ship he is no Captain, and if he is not a Captain, he is nothing. Just some nameless fool.
And why does he want his ship so badly? Because the other thing he really cares about is freedom. Over and over in the movie poor mad Jack gets tossed in the clink. He spends an amazing amount of time locked up, shackled, behind bars, and/or with a rope around his neck. And it's the one thing he can't bear. A desert island, even with a lovely girl and a lot of rum on hand is still a prison to him. Let saner, more normal guys get the girl. Jack is quite happy--and romantically satisfied--if he has his ship.
Which is why it is so brilliant that Depp plays him as androgynous, sexy, pretty, decorative, extravagantly costumed. Half-male, half-female, and not really all that interested in fucking other people: what he really wants is his hat. Like Dionysios, the stranger who arrives from afar, filled with spirit, mad, seductive, charming, he is essentially alone.
And the performance shows Depp's talent for Shakespeare (as did Edward Scissorhands): the Wonderful Fool. Edward was the naive innocent fool, like Candide, or Miranda. Jack Sparrow is a little sharper-edged, more like Jaques, Touchstone, even Tom o'Bedlam: Shakespeare's more dangerous Fools, dressed in their gay motley, all their pretty colors, drunk and sexy and ambiguous. Here's Jaques, inAs You Like It:
And describing the ages of man, he speaks of the soldier:
All of Shakespeare's Fools are a little mysterious; mad and clever, or perhaps only drunk. The sexual ambiguity is an essential part of Jack's character. It is the thing that makes him "all things to all people, the pure perfect object of desire[who] can transform himself into everything."
I would like to pause and acknowledge a really witty screenplay, brought to us by the same team that wrote "Shrek." Still, though, those guys also wrote "The Mask of Zorro," which should have been wonderful, but was painfully flatfooted, despite Anthony Hopkins. It show what a difference one really good actor can make, as opposed to a truly atrocious incompetent like Antonio Banderas.
Yah, motley's the only wear, for sure.
Went looking for it because of this and this and of course this and this. Oh, and especially this and this.
Yah, OK, could go on like that all night. But here's what I wrote:
So the hero who is empty of identity, and is all things to all people, the pure perfect object of desire (poor sod), can transform himself into everything--masculine man, feminine woman, masculine woman, feminine man, etc.--and keeps on doing so, over and over, until he finds himself at the end of his quest, and locates his identity in his own body. Until then, he is in a constant state of polyjuice intoxication.
I keep coming back to Dionysus (the androgynous, cross-dressing, mask-wearing, theater-loving, dangerous, beautiful Oriental god) and Pentheus, the king who dresses as a bacchante to spy on the women, and ends up spilling his own sacrificial seed and blood in consequence. Talk about hero torture. I still can't tell if my friend X is a hero or not. Probably not a successful one, and (so far) singularly free of suffering or scars.
Hm. Now I know I have to go see that pirate movie again. Because even in a trivial summer entertainment, a really good actor like Depp can make this happen. Captain Jack Sparrow has only one goal in life, and that's to get his ship back. Without his ship he is no Captain, and if he is not a Captain, he is nothing. Just some nameless fool.
Cassio: Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial. My reputation, Iago, my reputation!
And why does he want his ship so badly? Because the other thing he really cares about is freedom. Over and over in the movie poor mad Jack gets tossed in the clink. He spends an amazing amount of time locked up, shackled, behind bars, and/or with a rope around his neck. And it's the one thing he can't bear. A desert island, even with a lovely girl and a lot of rum on hand is still a prison to him. Let saner, more normal guys get the girl. Jack is quite happy--and romantically satisfied--if he has his ship.
Which is why it is so brilliant that Depp plays him as androgynous, sexy, pretty, decorative, extravagantly costumed. Half-male, half-female, and not really all that interested in fucking other people: what he really wants is his hat. Like Dionysios, the stranger who arrives from afar, filled with spirit, mad, seductive, charming, he is essentially alone.
And the performance shows Depp's talent for Shakespeare (as did Edward Scissorhands): the Wonderful Fool. Edward was the naive innocent fool, like Candide, or Miranda. Jack Sparrow is a little sharper-edged, more like Jaques, Touchstone, even Tom o'Bedlam: Shakespeare's more dangerous Fools, dressed in their gay motley, all their pretty colors, drunk and sexy and ambiguous. Here's Jaques, inAs You Like It:
... And in his brain,
Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit
After a voyage, he hath strange places crammed
With observation, the which he vents
In mangled forms...
And describing the ages of man, he speaks of the soldier:
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth.
All of Shakespeare's Fools are a little mysterious; mad and clever, or perhaps only drunk. The sexual ambiguity is an essential part of Jack's character. It is the thing that makes him "all things to all people, the pure perfect object of desire[who] can transform himself into everything."
I would like to pause and acknowledge a really witty screenplay, brought to us by the same team that wrote "Shrek." Still, though, those guys also wrote "The Mask of Zorro," which should have been wonderful, but was painfully flatfooted, despite Anthony Hopkins. It show what a difference one really good actor can make, as opposed to a truly atrocious incompetent like Antonio Banderas.
Yah, motley's the only wear, for sure.
