mennonno sapiens - one giant leap for mankind: Recent Comments

Comment on Shame

Mike Mennonno — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:59:47 GMT

Agreed.

Comment on Shame

Steve — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:38:42 GMT

But what about the part where the sultry Michael Fassbender walked around with his ample junk flopping everywhere? ;)

I think the latest Jane Eyre and A Dangerous Method (both starring the sultry Michael Fassbender) would have been quite a bite more enjoyable if he had let his ample junk flop around in those too.

Comment on Shame

Will — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:07:05 GMT

EVERYTHING's more satisfying when there's a little sex thrown in for good measure! Better yet, a lot of sex.

Comment on Evermore!

Mike Mennonno — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:04:56 GMT

Agreed.

Comment on Evermore!

Will — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:58:40 GMT

I checked out the three finalists (none of the local outlets that I could find had photos of the Bonner entry -- I had to Google her personally to find her computer-generated concept pictures. It would appear that some of her imagery is activated by people approaching the transparent construction, possibly referring to the hallucinatory element of some of Poe's work. Over-all, I wasn't carried away.

Anne Hirsch's plinth is indeed a problem. I had less difficulty with the two figures. I did not immediately pick up on the Abu Ghraib association, your comment did that for me, and if you saw it, others will also, although I still think it's powerful and apt for Poe and his demons.

I like the semi-surrealist raven sculpture by Ms Rocknak best. It has a manic energy and all the objects spilling out of the exploding valise work for me in terms of Poe's life and work. If nothing else, I predict it will be the popular favorite.

Comment on Camping Out at Downton Abbey

CHRISTIAN — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:36:27 GMT

I'm so glad someone has commented on the character Thomas. Why can't writers find a way of showing a gay man of that era as being sensative,brave, kind, compassionate and of good character? I'm very disappointed by the writer. It's time a way was found to present gay men, historically, as functioning successfully even during that time. And what about women? Why isn't there a gay female at least alluded to?

Comment on Camping Out at Downton Abbey

Will — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 02:27:30 GMT

Ah, as to Grantham and Cora sharing a bed, as I recall there was a comment in one of the first series episodes that explained that. I think it was in the same in bed conversation where she pointed out that he had married her for her fortune, he said that it was before he had fallen in love for her. She said it was very recently and he (perhaps gallantly) said it was much earlier than that.

I certainly understand everything you say and it may be that we have different ideas on how to recreate the past on stage or screen. The Downton story continues -- we'll see how Thomas's story progresses.

Comment on Camping Out at Downton Abbey

Mike Mennonno — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 17:44:21 GMT

There's a third gayish scene in the first episode of series 2 (spoiler alert if you haven't started series 2 yet)...

Thomas, who, by intentionally getting wounded, has been transferred to a local hospital where he's serving as an attendant next to Lady Sybil, falls for a young Lieutenant blinded in the war who's just back from the front and convalescing. While it's unclear whether the officer understands the nature of Thomas's attachment he grows attached to Thomas as well. It's all very chaste. When they're informed the Lieutenant must move on to make room for more critically injured men from the front, both Thomas and the Lieutenant are distraught. The latter slits his wrists.

This is also familiar territory for gay characters up until only a decade or so ago. Any hint of a "happy ending" had to be snuffed out in suicide. This is why every mother, up to my generation, said to her gay son, "but won't you be unhappy?"

My issue with the depiction of the gay character(s) in Downton Abbey is that they are a complete rehash of all of the negative cliches and stereotypes, so far, without any little twists that would show insight into them, which subsequent history calls for in a contemporary work of fiction like this one. A signal to the audience that you are, at the very least, aware of the cliches and stereotypes piling up.

And if you can't muster any creative insight into the inner life of your gay characters, at least throw in a fruity aristocrat or a devil-may-care "career bachelor" for good measure. I mean when all the gay characters are conniving toxic cunts it makes you wonder if there's a message in it. Basically The Dowager Countess is Thomas's gay counterpoint, however unintentionally, and she obviously has no real sexuality at all.

It's theater-- popular culture -- and it reflects popular sensibilities. I think we have to see it as an imagining of the past from the perspective of the present (no matter how hard it might try to remain faithful to that past, it will be awash in our popular sensibilities -- I personally find it hard to believe that the Earl and his wife would share a bed every night like a middle class couple in the suburbs, but whatever).

Anyway Will, you've partly answered the question I was posing myself. On how to react to Thomas, you seem to echo the show's creator, Julian Fellowes. The idea is that social circumstances are to blame for Thomas's toxicity. Outlawing homosexuality turns homosexuals into bitter, corrupt, toxic people. And, certainly there's a lot of truth to that.

And yet.

We all know that's not the whole story, not by a long-shot. E.M. Forster's Maurice was written around the time this period-piece is set, and shows at least the possibility of an inner life among homosexuals that is far richer, and an interaction with society that is far more complex than anything we're likely to see in Downton Abbey.

I guess I was simply struck by the total absence of a counterpoint to Thomas's nearly utterly irredeemable, very pointedly gay character. I'm not saying that Downton Abbey's slew of stereotypes aren't entertaining, only that we -- or I, at least -- need to think about how and why they work on us, if they do at all.

Comment on Camping Out at Downton Abbey

Will — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 14:38:47 GMT

Mrs Crawley (brightly): What shall we call each other?

Violet, Duchess of Grantham (caustically): I suggest Lady Grantham and Mrs Crawley!

Actually there was a second "gay scene" for Thomas, when he had gotten himself assigned to be valet for visiting Turkish playboy Kemal Pamook. While helping Pamook dress, he put his hand on the Turk's cheek, provoking an outraged response which led to Pamook's blackmailing Thomas to facilitate the disastrous sexual encounter with Lady Mary.

Let me say something as a man who has a couple of decades on you, and it isn't meant to contradict any of your revulsion at the depiction of Thomas but perhaps to explain it.

I arrived in Boston to study in 1962 having left a repressed and highly conservative family to experience real life for the first time. As a student in the arts and coming to Boston which has always had a large gay community, I encountered large numbers of gay men everywhere -- performances I attended, classes I took, shopping, supervisors I had on jobs, co-workers, everywhere. Their lives in that virulently homophobic, legally criminalized, post-McCarthy era were saturated with tension, fear, the inevitable self- loathing, alcohol, tobacco and drug addiction. Characters and personalities were destroyed. I saw unhealthy lifestyles and mental conditions everywhere. Many men went toxic -- it was inevitable.

I'm not defending Thomas, but I cannot condemn him or his inclusion as he is portrayed in Downton Abbey either. Remember also the vicious betrayal of Oscar Wilde by Bosie in the same era but from the perspective of the class in which the Granthams exist. The poison was everywhere if you were gay.

Blessedly, I saw it change and Fritz and I often speak of how happy we are that the generations of gay men beginning just after ours have seen life steadily improving and can live normal, healthy lives.

Thomas may not be admirable on several levels, but neither is he exaggerated or essentially untrue. Perhaps because I have always been fascinated by history (and particularly those eras of huge upheaval and the stories of those who are destroyed and those who manage to survive and even thrive) I see an element of social history in Downton. Sometimes in passing comments, sometimes in major elements of the plot line, the easing of class distinctions and liberalizing of society under the pressures of war and the coming early feminist movements is clearly shown. Sure it's luxury soap opera, but I think it's also a snapshot of an important time in the beginning of modern history.

Comment on Camping Out at Downton Abbey

Anita — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 02:48:52 GMT

My favorite from Lady Grantham is her retort, when her daughter declared that she must speak her mind, "I don't see why, no one else does."