"Look ma I'm using buzzwords on the Internet!"Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
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"Look ma I'm using buzzwords on the Internet!"Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
"Look ma I have nothing to add to this discussion so I'll crib a banal internet meme and completely miss the irony of deriding someone else for using internet buzzwords!"Quote:
Originally Posted by Clopin
Sorry for the confusion but I was conflating two different parts of our discussion. Where you said "dencouncing is too much like proscribing content, and that's too close to burning books," I just wanted to clarify that I wasn't advocating anything that extreme, merely that there's nothing contradictory about championing a right to say something and denouncing what is said: I'm including in "what's said" to be all art, so I'm not talking about "burning books."Quote:
Originally Posted by Pompey Bum
Sorry about that, I did misunderstand your point. But even now as I understand your point I'm not sure I agree with it. There was a time when the Klu Klux Klan WERE seen as heroes to certain people in the south, and we really have no idea as to whether or not a situation like that depicted in BOAN ever happened or not, just like we usually don't know if what's depicted in historical fiction happened that way or not as we're usually quite limited in detailed accounts of such events (and it's worth pointing out that the particular part of BOAN in question isn't meant to be depicting a specific historical event like, say, Saving Private Ryan depicts D-Day).Quote:
Originally Posted by Pompey Bum
Either way, IMO what makes BOAN morally objectionable is entirely in how it tries to portray an entire race of people and likewise how it champions a group known for their violent discrimination against that race. The parallel to be made with Shrew is in the notion that all "strong-willed women" are bad, and any man who tames them is heroic and in their right to do so (if, indeed, that's the "play's" perspective).
I'm on the fence, personally. My bardolotry wants me to think the best of Shakespeare, and even my rational side says that Shakespeare had an almost superhuman ability to NOT stereotype people and make blanket declarations against them, and even when he was forced into presenting a certain perspective because of his times ("Jews are evil") he found a remarkable way to create a kind of ironic counterbalance going the other way that probably would've been missed by those at the time who lacked his humanistic depth. However, apart from the prologue, the dullness of everything "post-taming," and the exaggerated almost-to-the-point-of-parody element of the taming itself, there's not much evidence that the play is meant ironically. Whether you say that's enough evidence to declare that Shakespeare wasn't promoting the play's open misogyny is, indeed, a matter of opinion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pompey Bum
No need to get defense, I understand you now. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Pompey Bum
Woah buddy, as a Native American member of the lGBTQWERTY community I think you had better fix that ire on someone a little more privileged; your post is honestly quite 'problematic'. I find your microaggressive use of sarcasm, levelled at a member of a minority group, to be quite 'tricky'.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
what is the meaning of that?Quote:
Originally Posted by Clopin
Like you, cacian, I don't know but I strongly advise you not to get involved in this sort of exchange..
Okay, you are absolved. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
I was not arguing that the objectionable aspect of Birth of a Nation was its lack of historicity (although I'm sure it's quite limited); simply that claims to the same sort of authenticity did not pertain to both works, making the comparison you sought somewhat facile. A historian would no doubt make mincemeat out of Birth of a Nation, but a high degree of historicity is not necessary to a successful work of art. Richard III, for example, is a Tudor whitewash, but poetically it is to die for--Jonathan's eccentric disdain notwithstanding. (If you are reading this Jonathan, please explain! :)) Likewise the Battles of Harfleur and Agincourt were fought with sword and longbow not canon and ball (no breach for the dear friends to charge unto once more).Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
I've never watched Birth of a Nation, but the parts I have seen are unconscionable. Even worse, since cinema was new when it was released, throngs of relatively naive Americans--many without advanced education--were literally ushered into a dark room to receive the myth of the heroic Klansman; no doubt with deadly consequences to some. I can see its use today by history teachers in showing how Reconstruction was perceived by many in the early 20th, and how the those perceptions helped fuel violent conflict and laid the background for the Civil Rights struggle. Since I haven't seen the whole film (or even very much of it), I can't speak to its artistic value.
I apologize for my impatience last night.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
Yes, political correctness is the death of comedy. Everybody at the nightclub laughed at those jokes and then one uptight person went home and wrote a blog claiming they weren't funny.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
That's a modern myth propagated by the PC crowd, all that comedy is about speaking truth to power, punching up nonsense. That's just the only type of humor that suits their agenda. What truth to power do dead baby jokes tell? What power does a homeless person, a drug addict, or a fool have (all familiar targets in comedy)? What part of society are jokes about bodily functions aimed at? As far as Taming of the Shrew goes, that's every comedian's act ie gender conflicts and relationships.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
You see, now that's funny.Quote:
Originally Posted by Clopin
Quote:
Originally Posted by cacian
Basically a way to self identify as something unique without actually becoming a unique or interesting person. As Morpheus demonstrated earlier you can also have a lot of fun moaning about 'privilege' and being easily offended by jokes. Off topic, but here's a joke that pokes fun at a sexual minority and is, in fact, quite popular (how tricky do you find this, Morpheus, on a scale of 1-10).Quote:
LGBPTTQQIIAA+:*any combination of letters attempting to represent all the identities in the queer community, this near-exhaustive one (but not exhaustive) represents*Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Pansexual, Transgender, Transsexual, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Intergender, Asexual, Ally
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mL7n5mEmXJo
What nonsense. My "ire" (more an attempt at pointing out your blatant hypocrisy) was directed at what you said, not you or any group you're a member of.Quote:
Originally Posted by Clopin
What blatant hypocrisy? You criticised humour which is delivered without the social agenda of battling 'privilege'; or at least you suggested that toppling existing social strictures is the primary function of humour. This is a lunatic concept, and a point of view which deserves scorn.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
Well, as I said, the intention with bringing up BOAN was to go in the extreme opposite direction of a play like Taming of the Shrew, where the only common element is whether or not what's objectionable has to do with how each portray a particular group of people. In BOAN there's no ambiguity as to its position on those groups, while in TOTS there is.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pompey Bum
Actually, the outcry against the film's blatant racism was pretty immediate and DW Griffith spent much of the rest of his life having to apologize for it it. His next film, Intolerance, was in large part his effort at atonement. The racist elements of the film are actually quite self-contained within the film's second half; it's first half is more of a prototypical costume drama done with tremendous artistry. The film is a must-see for anyone interested in the art of filmmaking, but it's equally a must-see for anyone who wants to confront the history of racism in America. Roger Ebert wrote probably the best review of the film that addresses both of these elements that I've ever read: http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/gr...-a-nation-1915Quote:
Originally Posted by Pompey Bum
I apologize for my failures at reading comprehension. I often post while working so my mind is a bit scattered. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Pompey Bum
Or, as one comedian said: "Being PC is what we used to call 'not being an a--hole.'"Quote:
Originally Posted by mortalterror
Firstly, I assumed we were talking about comedy that actually IS aimed at certain groups, which would exclude bodily functions and dead baby jokes. There's certainly plenty of comedy to be found that doesn't have to do social structures. Secondly, I'm not sure what you're referring to about the homeless, drug addicts, and fools being familiar "targets" in comedy. Frequently there are homeless, addicts, and fool characters that are sources of comedy, but this is distinctly different than comedy that targeted at denouncing those groups. I doubt very few that watched Chaplin thought it good that there were homeless people, or watched Cheech and Chong and thought all stoners needed to be locked away, or read Lear and thought the fool deserved beating. The question is entirely whether or not TOTS is a play promoting the idea of torturing the will out of strong-willed women in order to keep them in their place. If you don't see the difference between that and the above examples, then I don't know what to say.Quote:
Originally Posted by mortalterror
BTW, I feel compelled to repeat that TOTS is, perhaps intentionally ironically, at its most hilarious when Katherina and Petruchio are on an even playing field. I haven't actually seen anyone here dispute that. The question is what to make out of the actual taming and the conclusion.
1. The hypocrisy was you accusing me of using an internet buzzword while using an internet meme ("look ma!") yourself.Quote:
Originally Posted by Clopin
2. As I said to Mortal in my last post, I thought it was implied in my criticism that we were merely discussing humor that IS directed at social structures. I admitted there is plenty of (valid) comedy that is not, and that's fine.
No. The post where I mentioned the relationship between comedy and privilege was descriptive ("traditionally comedy was...") not prescriptive ("comedy should be aimed at the privileged."). The primary function of humor is to cause laughter. I'd argue one of the primary causes of art is to reflect and comment on the human condition, social structures being a part of that. When humor does that, we are obligated to comment and reflect on what is being reflected and commented on. I see no reason why humor should get a pass for what it implicitly or explicitly lauds or derides just because it's humorous.Quote:
Originally Posted by Clopin
Well, as I said I think the part where Petruchio is trying to drive Kate nuts is the funniest scene in the play, if only because it is the silliest (doesn't he even shoot her dog at one point, or am I remembering that from a Monty Python sketch?) I don't take it seriously at all, and I think you'd have a better time if you let yourself laugh, too; but if those are your scruples, of course you need to adhere to them.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
On the PC issue, I am definitely with Mort and Clopin. Humor is anarchic and often seems mean, but it has also been said (and I believe) that the measure of a free society is the extent to which it tolerates an Aristophanes (or a Don Rickles or a Joan Rivers). Just to pour gasoline on the fire (:)), here is Rivers taking down a heckler who got PC on her. In my opinion, it's hilarious:
Warning: language is not office or kid safe.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GwfZRq57b9Q
I wasn't aware that 'look ma!' was a meme in the first place nor do I understand how making a joke which happens to be an Internet meme is the same thing as trying to use terms like 'privilege' to dictate who can and can not be made fun of humorously.
And regarding humour getting a free pass... A free pass to what? To making people laugh? To social respectability? To being 'acceptable'? You said it yourself, the primary function of humour is to cause laughter and this supersedes all other priorities.
Should we feel offended that the character of Homer Simpson is a caricature of a big, fat, stupid American guy? Or is this more or less acceptable due to of his being part of a privileged class? Should I take issue with the fact that Canadians are repeatedly portrayed as backwards mountain men with goofy accents and silly scarlet uniforms when they make it into popular media? Should Woody Allen's depiction of the 'neurotic Jew' as a target for comedy be considered unacceptable? How about Larry David or the character of George Costanza? When Dave Chappelle repeatedly makes jokes about African Americans what should our reaction be? I mean, they aren't a very privileged group. And consider something like South Park where nearly every joke is an off colour dig at ethnic or cultural stereotypes and no group is left unscathed; would you consider that acceptable or would it fall in line with the "I don't consider misogyny funny" point of view?
Anyway some examples of humour which makes fun of the underprivileged and still manages to be (gasp) funny.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oBSgpHQO-J4
Seinfeld - The Homeless
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Fg6J1Skptbs
Dave Chappelle - African Americans
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h0dM7oyXV5g
South Park - Asian Immigrants
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NfgHVSvxZUA
South Park - Severe mental and physical disabilities
Heh heh. Thanks Clopin (especially for the South Park) :)
You see, I've learned something today:
Watching those videos (and the Joan Rivers one) made me think that humor is fundamentally Dionysian. When you laugh, you lose control for a second or two and it feels better than great. I think the trouble with PC humor (by which I mean: "Let's all get together and laugh because we agree politically") is the same problem with most Christian humor: it's too controlled to be very funny. Real laughter is scary. It's a kind of madness (in the Dionysian sense). When you come out of it--when you gasp between laughing jags--you understand perfectly well that laughing at disabled people is mean and you're not serious; and you know that too when the madness comes on a moment later. It doesn't make it less funny--it actually just makes the madness safer.
Do disabled people and other groups that "lack privilege" loose out in that equation? Maybe. But less so if they know it's a joke; and not at all if they laugh back. When that happens, they no longer need PC guardians to look after their interests. They can laugh at the stupidity of those who laugh at them: and it feels just as good to them and just and human. Then everyone can laugh together and understand that they like laughing with and at each other, so hey, let's be friends because we want to be friends--not because someone else is making us. Because those people--they never laugh.
Edit: On the other hand, Clopin, my wife says she's going to have your b*lls for the City Diner video. :)
1. Yes, "look ma!" is a meme.Quote:
Originally Posted by Clopin
2. For the second time, the only time I used the term privilege I was being descriptive, not prescriptive. I never said anything about who can and can't be made fun of humorously; this was all just you being reactionary.
A "free pass" from any kind of moral judgment. Yes, the primary function of humor is to cause laughter, just as the primary function of film is to entertain. If Birth of a Nation entertained you, does that mean we shouldn't judge its moral content?Quote:
Originally Posted by Clopin
The last paragraph of your post and your follow-up does nothing but reveal you really don't get the point. There's a difference between a character, having a character represent a group, and promoting actions that should be taken against a group. When you can find an example of Chappelle suggesting slavery was OK because blacks should know their place, or Allen suggesting the Holocaust was OK because Jews are indeed lesser human beings, or Sienfield suggesting that homelessness is no real problem or that the homeless should be tortured or put to slavery... then you might have a relevant example.
What are you talking about? Humour where the punch line is literally "African slavery is good", or "the holocaust was OK" is incredibly rare and generally limited to very fringe communities (such as Stormfront). It's not likely to provoke laughter at any rate.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
The "punchline" at the end of Shrew is basically "torture against strong-willed women is OK because they learn their place," and it seems to be provoking laughter with you and Pompey.
I've actually never read it, but maybe I will tonight and post my thoughts then. If you read Pompey's posts though I'm not sure that is exactly what he finds comedic in the play.
But only if you shoot their dogs! :)Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
The Taming of the Shrew is one of the few Shakespearian plays that (in my opinion) really begs to be produced; it needs a handsome, vain Petruchio and a sexy Kate for the physical comedy. But read it tonight in any case. It's a pretty funny play just the way it is.Quote:
Originally Posted by Clopin
It is certainly true that some humor goes out of fashion because it is "politically incorrect" (isn't that just a dismissive phrase that means "offensive"?). Step 'N Fetch It humor used to be common, and you could argue that it made fun of white people's stereotypical misconceptions about black people, rather than making fun of black people. Nonetheless, it is jarring -- offensive enough that we no longer laugh.
I remember some John Wayne comedies in which Wayne spanked his romantic interest (Donavan's Reef and McClintock). Yuk, yuk, I suppose, but it's jarring today. The scenes are sufficiently disturbing that it's difficult to laugh.
As Mortal pointed out, the Freudian theory of humor is that laughter is the id bubbling irrepressibly up from the subconscious. Good humor is often on the borderline of good taste. We all, deep inside, want to abuse our significant others, perhaps.
In the case of TOTS, it's possible the joke is on Petrucchio -- we laugh not because Katherine is the stereotypical shrew taught how to be a woman, but because Petrucchio is (like us all, deep inside) a funny stereotype, crude, domineering, and vain. If we could be confident that this was Shakespeare's point, perhaps the abuse would be less distracting. IN any case, it's a reasonable reaction to the play to be unable to enjoy it completely because the abuse is jarring.
ON the other hand, the play spawned "Kiss Me Kate", with some great Cole Porter tunes, and a movie version that's well worth watching despite starring Kathryn Grayson. Bianca is Ann Miller, and her suitors are Tommy Rall, Bobby Van and a young Bob Fosse. "From this Moment On" is a truly great dance number, and the Cole Porter tune "BRush up Your Shakespeare" might appeal to some Litnet members.
Kiss Me Kate together with Verdi's Falstaff may well be another case were the musical is better than the original.
I have read Taming of the Shrew recently and seen it acted in my time, and in neither case was I over impressed.
I'd be interested to hear a woman's comments on it.
The Oxford World Classics edition notes that it is a play that has remained far more popular in the theatre than it is for academic study.
Humour, like sex, only works when there is an undercurrent of something dangerous (even Bertie Wooster is constantly worried his world is going to fall apart).
So Jonathan, how come you don't like Richard III?
I was waiting for someone to ask that. Dunno, I just don't. I feel protective towards early immature works. But Dicky 3 has always been a favourite with actors and audiences - the Colley Cibber version that held the stage for the C18 was not as far from the mark as Nahum Tate's notorious King Lear with a happy ending.
I tend to suspect unduly popular works, just as in opera I'm not a fan at all of Puccini's La boheme or with novels David Copperfield, which in my youth was regarded as Dickens' masterpiece.
Richard says "I am determined to prove myself a villlain" and then goes on to work that out in a play nearly as long as Hamlet and with far less variety.
There are great fans of Richard as an historical person, but I'm not one of those. I found Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time in which her usual whodunnit detective proves that Richard couldn't have murdered his nephews let a nasty taste in my mouth.
I saw it acted in an all male production here in London at the Globe. I've always found the actor who was Richard irritating (he played it for laughs) and noted that the only characters who stood up to Richard were the women. Since they were all played by men in drag they barely moved in their stiff costumes, which made their resistance to him more impressive. (Edwards IV's widow was played by Samuel Barnett who first made his name playing the gay pupil in Alan Bennett's The History Boys.)
PS Some years ago the Globe, aware that putting on all male productions was not providing work for female actors (or actresses as I knew them) did an all female production of The Taming of the Shrew. I didn't see it.
You can't say actresses anymore? O mores! (Still an all female Taming of the Shrew sounds like fun).
Richard III was the first Shakespearian play I read, way back in the mists of time. I didn't start with the idea that I was going to like Shakespeare just because he was Shakespeare, but I was hit square in the jaw by the beauty of the following, and the weirdness of its imagery, and I never looked back. So maybe it's like a first lover to me.
Lord, Lord! methought, what pain it was to drown!
What dreadful noise of waters in mine ears!
What ugly sights of death within mine eyes!
Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;
Ten thousand men that fishes gnaw'd upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
All scatter'd in the bottom of the sea:
Some lay in dead men's skulls; and, in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept,
As 'twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,
Which woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep,
And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by.
Appreciate your contributions, Ecurb and Jonathan; very interesting.
I've always considered Richard III a bit of a guilty pleasure. I recognize that it is not one of Shakespeare's more mature, complex, or deep plays, but I've always thought that the joy Shakepseare had writing such an obvious, self-admitted villain shown through in it; it's such a FUN play. I also think it was important in Shakespeare's development as it was his first attempt at depicting the dynamic between a key outsider and their society, how that outsider goes about manipulating others because of their ability to see it from the outside in. I tend to think Shakespeare, as so many artists, identified with that perspective and saw a connection between such leaders as manipulators of people and artists as manipulators of audiences, albeit to very different ends. I also always found Richard III interesting because it seems almost like he gets swallowed up in the world of the play as it progresses, as if he gets caught in and crushed under the wheels of the machine he himself set in motion.
Indeed. Poe gets all the credit, but I'm not sure there was ever a better poet of the grotesque than Shakespeare.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pompey Bum
Like most of the early silent films, it's actually pretty dull. But there are a couple of scenes, or shots where you go "ah ha" that make it somewhat memorable. That said, that scene at the end where the black union soldiers are trying to rape the white woman and the Klan rides in on white horses to save the day is pretty over the top. I remember wondering how and why one of the soldiers had climbed atop the house so as to jump and gesticulate like a chimpanzee and thinking it was pretty bad. Griffith was portraying black people as sub-human.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pompey Bum
I got that same queasy feeling watching the film 300. Afterwards, I was like "That was the most racist film I've ever seen." The Spartans are these chiseled Adonis-like super humans, and the Persians are all ghoulish misshapen evil monsters. That's supposed to be based on history. I wasn't expecting a documentary, but I wasn't prepared for that.
Taming of the Shrew didn't do that to me. I felt like everyone in the play is a fool. The women gave as good as they got, and were shown to be strong characters full of arrogance and conceit the same as the males. Also, while I agree with you that the funniest part of the play is when her husband is trying to drive Kate mad, or in this case sane, I wouldn't call what he does torture the way Morpheus puts it. I don't remember him even hitting her. He just does things like throws food away because he says it isn't good enough for her or tears up her new dress because it isn't pretty enough. Then he gives her a new dress and new food. Also, I seem to recall this labor of taming Kate taking a taxing toll on him too. I think there is even a scene where he's exhausted because while he's been keeping his wife from eating and sleeping, he has been going without rest or refreshment too. It's not torture, it's more like a battle of wills. And he's curing Kate of her shrewish behavior by becoming a mirror for it. Once they both agree to stop being selfish and temperamental they function as the model couple at the end.
I wouldn't say that it deserves scorn, since it's a common mistake. However, I think the view deserves correction when it is encountered.Quote:
Originally Posted by Clopin
I don't know about that. Some of the biggest *******s I've known have been very PC. And at the risk of committing the no true Scotsman fallacy, I can't think of any really good comedians who are politically correct.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
Maybe, some people think the play is funny because they think that the "strong willed woman" is a shrew, who like all foolish types deserve a comedic comeuppance or correction. Would you feel less offended if Kate's mean spirited behavior were punished by a woman instead of a man? Is that what this is about?Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
Nah, I'm with Pompey. The funniest part is when Petruchio is trying to drive Kate mad.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
Remember that scene in The Clouds where the son is beating the father? I guess that's not funny either now.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pompey Bum
Not gonna quote Clopin's post but his pick of comedians is on point: Simpsons, South Park, Seinfeld, Chappelle Show = some of the funniest ever, just got to add All in the Family.
Now, there's a modest proposal.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
I've seen black and white people play that same character recently. Just go watch modern films like Scary Movie. It's perennial.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecurb
And when I screened The Quiet Man for my friends, and John Wayne is dragging his disobedient wife through the town to confront his no good brother in law everybody howled. The biggest laugh of the film might actually be when the old crone hands the Duke a switch and says "Here mister, a good stick to beat the lovely lady." The reason it's funny, is because in comedies conventions are upended. The world is turned upside down, black is white, right is wrong, etc. The whole film John Wayne is being considered a wimp because he won't stand up for himself. He refuses to fist fight a man who owes him money or to beat his wife, and so she nearly leaves him because she thinks he's a coward with no backbone. Around the same time, there was a song with a similar theme called The Coward of the County.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecurb
Is it jarring though? I don't recall Petruchio beating Kate senseless, or putting cigarettes out on her.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecurb
More based on a bad comic book. It's not supposed to be history, instead a stylistic adaptation.Quote:
Originally Posted by mortalterror
It's been several decades since I saw Richard Burton tame a shrewish Elizabeth Taylor, although I've glanced at the play once or twice since. Personally, I like "Quiet Man", "McClintock", and "Donovan's Reef", despite the wife beatings. I see them as dated bits of Americana, when manly men (like John Wayne, and John Ford who directed two of the three) had to prove their manliness in order to win their feisty lovers. My friend Myles -- an actual Irishman -- despises "The Quiet Man". He thinks it portrays Ireland as twee, backwards, sexist and provincial. Perhaps distance helps us avoid being "jarred". If "Taming" were produced in modern dress, it would be more jarring.
The battle of the sexes was a staple of romantic comedy before (and after) Shakespeare's time. I think it reveals something about male fantasies, although I'm not so sure that women want to be "tamed". Men like ruling women (or, at least, fantasizing about ruling women). Personally, I prefer the Cary Grant Romcoms, where the women rule and Grant stumbles about, befuddled by a fast-talking Katherine Hepburn or Jean Arthur or Mae West. WE think of ourselves as more advanced than Americans of 70 years ago in terms of sexual equality, but those romantic comedies of the 30s were replete with feisty, witty, sexually aggressive women, and passive men like Cary Grant or Henry Fonda. In two recent movies I've seen (Ex Machina and Her) the hero's love interest is a computer. She's smart, but utterly naive (being newly born). Perhaps the modern computer lovers who like these movies would be deathly afraid of a fast-talking, experienced, tough woman like Mae West in "She Done Him Wrong" or Barbara Stanwyk in Ball of Fire or The Lady Eve (playing opposite a befuddled Gary Cooper and Henry Fonda). This trend reminds me of a Jane Austen line from Northanger Abbey:
In "A Room with a View", E.M. Forster addresses the issue. Lucy is talking to George Emerson:Quote:
The advantages of natural folly in a beautiful girl have been already set forth by the capital pen of a sister author; and to her treatment of the subject I will only add, in justice to men, that though to the larger and more trifling part of the sex, imbecility in females is a great enhancement of their personal charms, there is a portion of them too reasonable and too well informed themselves to desire anything more in woman than ignorance.
Do Katherine and Petrucchio "fight it together"? Or does one submit? I suppose the last speech might be taken ironically -- surely Katherine is too headstrong to actually believe that "Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper." Or ask, "Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth, unapt to toil and trouble in the world, but that our soft conditions, and our hearts, should well agree with our external parts?"Quote:
Lucy thought of a very good remark.
"You say Mr. Vyse wants me to listen to him, Mr. Emerson. Pardon me for suggesting that you have caught the habit."
And he took the shoddy reproof and touched it into immortality. He said:
"Yes, I have," and sank down as if suddenly weary. "I'm the same kind of brute at bottom. This desire to govern a woman--it lies very deep, and men and women must fight it together before they shall enter the garden."
I'd like to see Mae West or Barbara Stanwyk read those lines. The irony, I'm sure, would then be clear.
Would it? Funny modern examples of domestic violence or men hitting women some NSFW:Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecurb
Family Guy - Family Fight
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06c7_5pH6O0
The Way of the Gun opening with Sarah Silverman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xsaMcw69D8
Total Recall - Consider that a divorce
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYtQMhnBtTw
From Dusk Till Dawn - Welcome to Slavery
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtjCVRm2DAM
The Mud Wrestling Scene from Stripes with John Candy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-tPJYlcYvc
Not really funny, but this scene in Kingpin is played for laughs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Uqa-Vilvg0
Nearly forgot Andy Kaufman wrestling women
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uQlB99WCuk
Just remembered that slap scene from Airplane!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0GW0Vnr9Yc
Ace Ventura fight scene at the end
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZMuJw5JYvQ
So you are okay with the double standard where the woman beats and dominates the man? The Chester Mystery Play Noah where Noah's wife drinks and beats her husband is funny? Or with how in Gargantua and Pantagruel Panurge's wife cheats on him and beats him? But as soon as Ricky won't let Lucy be in his big show, he's torturing her? "Waaaaaaah!"Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecurb
I suppose you could play any archaic assumption modern audiences no longer hold ironically, but I think I prefer the historically informed approach. I saw Al Pacino butcher an adaptation of The Merchant of Venice by being too sympathetic to Shylock and emphasizing the racism, which made the play a tragedy instead of a comedy. In that case, it's best to see Shylock as an example of the stock character the Miser, who greedily hoards his money and wishes people ill. If you took his religion out of the play, that's what he'd be, a miser who plots to kill someone. Similarly, if you swap out Kate's gender, it would quickly become apparent that she's a brash loud mouth who's hard to get along with. If she were a man, there would be no white knighting necessary.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecurb
Well, if you want to claim that Taming of the Shrew is every bit as funny (and unobjectionable) as "The Way of the Gun" (which I've never seen) you won't get any argument from me. That doesn't seem like a rave endorsement, though. Also, although I have nothing against Ace Ventura, the fight scene at the end just isn't very funny.
I never thought TOTS was so politically incorrect that I couldn't enjoy it (if you noticed, I enjoyed the John Ford movies) -- but I never thought the "torture" scenes that Pompey likes were all that funny, either. My comments about sexy, experienced, fast-talking women from the movies in the '30s were meant to expand the conversation to involve changing tastes and changing male fantasies. Perhaps "taming" shrewish women was a male fantasy in Elizabethan times -- perhaps it is today, for some men. Not for me, though.
I don't think it is even about male fantasies of dominating women. I think what's going on in Taming of the Shrew is the same thing as when everyone messes with Falstaff at the end of Merry Wives of Windsor or tormenting the steward Malvolio in Twelfth Night. There's a character with an obvious social failing who is made the butt of a joke by the community. In terms of the battle of the sexes and mutual arrogance I don't see The Taming of the Shrew as being much different than Much Ado About Nothing. I think this is just typical commedia dell'arte stuff, with stock characters and situations an audience in Shakespeare's time would have understood, without overlaying it with our social justice concerns.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecurb
So we go from an unsupported calumny that men (as a group) fantasize about beating their wives to an unsupported calumny that men (as a group) fantasize about dominating women, to your own last minute opting out of the oppressor category (cute); which somehow leaves us with an equally unsupported calumny against me personally--that I enjoy (non-existant) torture scenes in The Taming of the Shrew. Badly reasoned and DEEPLY insulting. Please save your baiting for someone who's interested.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecurb
You're taking this way to personally, Pompey. I didn't mean to suggest that you fantasize about dominating women -- I simply mentioned that you thought some scenes in TOTS were funny that I didn't think were very funny. Humor is a matter of personal taste. The discussion about (possible) changing male fantasies is completely separate from the discussion of whether that particular scene is funny, or even whether you or anyone else enjoys any particular play or movie.
You are conflating two different subjects, and my posts were not "badly reasoned" although they may have been unclear. In addition, I don't dislike TOTS because it is politically incorrect, but I think it is a reasonable reaction to the play, so I was defending Morpheus' right to have that reaction. If you read my post again, I suggest the possibility that TOTS offers a theme that may have been fashionable (to use a different term than "plays to male fantasies") in 1600, just as fast-talking, aggressive women were fashionable in movies in the '30s, but not in the '50s.
In addition, I never mentioned "men beating their wives". Instead I put the word "torture" in quotes, because that same word had been used by someone else (maybe even you) earlier in the thread. It was merely descriptive of which scenes we were discussing. Finally, based on the Forster quote I provided, I am not the only person who thinks that men sometimes want to govern women. So my position is, at least, "supported" by a character in one famous novel. Yet you call it "unsupported". Are my posts (hardly calumnies) badly reasoned, Pompey, or is that a description of your last post?
Finally, I do think some men fantasize about "taming", "governing", and (as Jane Austen suggests) educating women (although I have no idea if Pompey does, nor do I think such fantasies are a requirement for liking TOTS). Maybe I'm wrong, but my notion is not "unsupported". I apologize if I seemed self congratulatory by writing "not for me". That was true, but (I'll grant) a little (just a little, Pompey) pompous.