Category / Film

by Edward Champion

It Might Be the Cocaine and the Casting Couch Too, But Westlake’s Too Polite

A great interview with Donald Westlake: “Westlake sees a vast gulf between writing novels and screenplays. ‘When I write a novel, I’m God. When I write a screenplay, I’m a cupbearer to the gods.’ On a movie set, ‘No one’s in charge. Moment by moment, day by day, it might be an actor, it might be the money, it might be the weather. If it rains in a novel, it’s because I want it to.'” (via Sarah Weinman)

by Edward Champion

The Bat Segundo Show #27

segundo27.jpg

Author: Ron Hogan

Condition of Bat Segundo: Frightened of the 1970s, abdicating his position to a maniac.

Subjects Discussed: David Frum’s How We Got Here, Peter Bogdonavich, how filmmakers and actors are responsible for their own legacies, Karen Black, the accidental nature of casting, whether or not the 1970s is the Great American Movie Decade, Peter Biskind, “one for them, one for me,” George Clooney, David Kipen’s The Schreiber Theory, movies as business vs. movies as art, Hal Ashby, Roger Corman, Brian De Palma, The Muppet Movie as Joseph Campbell-Candide epic and the film’s influences, what Ron did while crashing at Mark’s, the problems of post-1970 photographic film, coffee table book vs. chronicle of 1970s cinema, the influence of film critics, Shaft Goes to Africa, film against instantaneous culture, the culture of scrutiny, television shows on DVD, and a good deal of idle speculation.

by Edward Champion

Snakes on a Reshoot

Hollywood Reporter: “As film backstories go, this one is fairly serpentine. This month, New Line Cinema’s ‘Snakes on a Plane,’ which wrapped principal photography in September in Vancouver, went back before the cameras for five days of additional shooting at the Lot in Los Angeles. In this case, it wasn’t the usual reshoot, hastily assembled to fix a nagging story problem. Instead, the studio decided to create new scenes that would take the movie from PG-13 into R-rated territory.”

I think this is a first. Reshoots dictated by pre-release interest.

by Edward Champion

V for Vendetta

Despite the ridiculous presence of Dell flat-screen monitors and JVC home entertainment centers and the discomfiting fact that every living room in the future, even the fugitive apartments with cinder block bookshelves, looks like a page out of an IKEA catalog, the film adaptation of V for Vendetta is literate and gleefully subversive. Granted, it is not Alan Moore’s comic, as the color schemes alone will reveal. But it is a reimagining and an updating of the narrative. (One can still see the poster for White Heat still in the back of V’s lair.) And it more than atones for previous lackluster Alan Moore adaptations. The film takes about 30 minutes to get its groove and John Hurt’s video presence grows tedious. But this is a film that, unlike the last two Matrix films, is taut and, at times, quite visceral. The two dependable Stephens (Rea and Fry) in the supporting cast are also of great benefit. Joe Bob says check it out.

by Edward Champion

Peter Lorre: Profoundly Misunderstood?

The LRB’s Bee Wilson on Peter Lorre, one of my favorite character actors of all time: “It is tempting to speculate what might have happened to Lorre’s career if the Brownshirts who were playing with stinkbombs in 1929 had not gone on to far nastier forms of thuggery. Might he have ended his days as a pillar of the German theatrical establishment rather than gurning in comedy-horror B-movies with Vincent Price? Might his persona have gained the gravitas it always lacked? Lorre himself seems to have thought so. In his bloated later years, when he presented a rather sad and incongruous figure at the Beverley Hills Tennis Club, he was inclined to harp on his intellectual past. ‘I think he felt,’ one of his friends later said, ‘had Hitler not happened and had he gone on as Bertolt Brecht’s actor . . . he would have been himself and been appreciated for what he really was.’”

by Edward Champion

Yo, New Yorker: David Denby Has Gots to Go

The time has come for David Denby to step down as New Yorker film critic. It is utterly clear to me and fully established by this foolish review that any thoughtfulness he once possessed as a critic has dissipated with the vast nest egg he blew so childishly on the stock market. And besides, Anthony Lane is funny (and perspicacious to boot).

I have not yet seen the film V for Vendetta. So I’m only going to comment on Denby’s criticism. Of course, like Ron, I’m a huge Alan Moore fan and I harbor a few hopes that this adaptation won’t be another The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I am very much familiar with Moore’s feelings on the film (channeled as they were by that white male-lovin’ Gray Lady staffer Dave Itzkoff).

But it is a critic’s job to comment upon the aesthetic and narrative qualities of a film, not devote tedious paragraphs to ancillary history that clearly voices his prejudices (and deflates his argument). It is a critic’s job to understand that a film which features terrorist acts does not, by necessity, “celebrat[e] terrorism and destruction,” but conveys a world in which a character might be fond of terrorism and destruction as a form of revolution. Whether or not a film is shelved is also a moot point, when we consider, after all, that Casablanca was “just another studio picture.” Indeed, the film is the thing. And Denby’s attempt to despoil his opinion before even seeing the film, all because V for Vendetta is “a media monster,” is particularly egregious for a national magazine that prides itself as being high-minded and sophisticated.

This is not a question of restraining a critic who utterly despises something, a la Julavits. I only ask that any cultural chronicler cite specific reasons for her feelings. For example, I disagree with Maud’s take on DFW’s Consider the Lobster, but she does reveal one interesting facet of DFW that I had not really considered: his dependence on sloppy qualifiers. And this is infinitely valuable for anyone trying to pinpoint exactly why DFW’s latest volumes of fiction, in particular, have lacked Infinite Jest‘s whirlwind exuberance.

In fact, the astonishing thing here is that Denby is so purblind by what he expects that it is difficult to understand why he was even assigned to cover the film in the first place. A responsible critic would recuse himself. An open-minded critic would experience the piece of art he couldn’t quite parse, mull over it for a few days, and then try to figure out where it stands in a justified manner. Instead, Denby adopts a reactionary aesthetic stance (“The last time I looked, London seemed more like a prosperous pleasure garden than like the capital of a jackbooted, dehumanized future.”), all because he can’t wrap his head around an exotic locale clearly beyond his imaginative paradigm. By that assessment, we should say no to Antonioni’s white-painted streets in Blow-Up, Death playing chess with Max von Sydow in The Seventh Seal, Wong Kar-Wai’s beguiling greens in 2046, or the preternaturally capacious apartments in Woody Allen’s films. After all, the last time I looked, I didn’t say any of this! Therefore, these films must be invalidated! (Of course, I might be playing chess with the Grim Reaper next week, but only because a friend has agreed to dress up.)

Ask yourself, erudite filmgoers and devoted cineastes: is this a myopic critical approach that deserves credence?

There are two chief criticisms that Denby offers here: The first is that V for Vendetta, film and/or comic, was influenced by disparate sources. Well, what piece of art isn’t? For instance: Gene Wolfe ripped off Jack Vance, who ripped off Ernest Bramah, who…yeah, you get the picture. The point is not in how these artists were influenced by other narrative elements. It resides in how these elements are reconfigured to generate a fundamentally new voice in a contemporary work of art.

Second, Denby objects to the film’s use of Abu Ghraib-style imagery without really giving us a clear reason, other than that this represents “comic-book paranoia,” which isn’t “playful or innocent as it used to.” Beyond the rather surprising inference here that films exist solely to tow the entertainment line resides the more troubling realization that Denby is not only full of shit, but that he doesn’t know the subject he’s writing about. Clearly, Denby isn’t acquainted with Frank Miller or Dave Sim. His is a remarkably ignorant view of comics, failing to understand that comics are not unilaterally “playful or innocent.” Had Denby even bothered to glance casually at the DC Comics website, for example, he would have seen Infinite Crisis, a current effort to reconfigure the DC universe to a far less “playful or innocent” stance (read: Golden Age; like most genre naysayers, Denby, culturally equivalent to a Holocaust denier on this front, seems to act as if comics are permanently trapped in 1957).

The New Yorker has no business publishing such jejune nonsense. And if David Remnick truly believes that the New Yorker “should not smell of must,” then it seems to me that Remnick should either upgrade Denby’s critical faculties by demanding that he do a better and more thorough job or look for a Pauline Kael type who might replace him and provide a counterpart to Lane’s “funnyman” antics.

[UPDATE: Ron Hogan, via John Hodgman, uncovers an embarrassing error from Denby that evaded the New Yorker‘s army of fact checkers.]

by Edward Champion

Country Don’t Mean Dumb, Ebert

I haven’t seen Firewall and have no intention to. This is not because I am a film snob (I am) or that I am averse to seeing a popcorn thriller (with enough friends, drinks and/or heavy petting, yes). It’s simply because I saw Firewall the last time it came around — when it was called Air Force One.

However, I must question Roger Ebert’s review, which offers a remarkably unsophisticated argument that is both anti-cultural and anti-intellectual.

Ebert writes:

But there is a larger question: Need a thriller be plausible in order to be entertaining? One of the most common routines in the filmcrit biz, one I have myself performed many times, involves demolishing the credibility of a plot as if you have therefore demolished the movie. I think there’s a sliding scale involved: If the movie is manifestly impossible while you’re watching it, then that can be fatal (unless, of course, it is a movie intended to be manifestly impossible, like a James Bond thriller). If however, the movie holds water or at least doesn’t leak too quickly, I’m not very concerned about whether you can tear it to pieces after you leave the theater.

There is no larger question here. A lousy thriller might be entertaining in a base or déclassé sense if one cannot buy the character motivations, much less the reality of the world portrayed. But should we prop up such a lead balloon as high art? Should a thriller motivated by cardboard characters, formulaic conventions, derivative banter and baseless logic be given a three-star review? If one has any love for culture at all, I should say not.

Ebert has, throughout his career, positioned himself as a populist critic. Had it not been for Ebert, countless smaller films, made with thought, care and a concern for the real, might never have seen the light of day, much less garnered attention on the film festival criticuits.

But if Ebert’s purpose is to educate or inform the public about film through the clear and thoughtful voice one finds in his reviews, his Overlooked Film Festival and his handy Little Movie Glossary, then it seems to me that the critical standards he champions should apply across the board. Rewarding Hollywood for insulting its audience with yet another overhyped and jejune thriller is both a disservice to Ebert’s work as a critic and a disservice to Ebert’s readers.

Granted, as Susan Sontag has pointed out, camp can be appreciated under certain conditions. But I suspect Firewall is not that form of camp. A film without nuance or even a half-assed wisdom can’t really be qualified. The fact is that there’s no real distinction or playfulness in seeing Harrison Ford barking “I want my family back!” for the umpteenth time. It is an image as rote and repeated as an exploding car. It is worse than a trope. It is a redundancy. (By comparison, take a bottom-of-the-barrel film like Cabin Fever. It is dumb yet enjoyable camp. You have to give writer-director Eli Roth some points in Cabin Fever for sending up the silly “Let’s party!” feel of 1980s slasher movies with the backwoods deputy character or playing off of discomfort with the infamous leg shaving scene. The point is, like Cabin Fever or not, there is a clear effort on Roth’s part to attempt something distinct.)

To dignify or to give credence to a film such as Firewall or Flight Plan (a terrible movie with Jodie Foster, which I have seen) simply because it has a Major Star is to handicap a failed serious attempt without any cultural qualifier. It does not follow that the cinematic presence of Foster or Ford alone contributes exclusively to artistic quality, and yet even Ebert gives it a fair pass as he points out that Ford “needs to be in better condition than a 20-year-old triathlon champion” during Firewall‘s final scenes. This remarkable critical position rewards bonehead filmmakers who string together absurd plot holes and have the arrogance to expect audiences to be thrilled when it is clearly impossible to believe.

Ebert should know better. And so should his readers.

by Edward Champion

Wholphin, Eggers and Why I Can’t Believe

I picked up the January 2005 issue of The Believer, partly with the intention of seeing if the magazine was showing any signs of shedding its feel-good trappings (short answer: not really but not entirely worthless either) and partly because it included the first issue of Wholphin, a new quarterly “DVD Magazine of Unseen Things.” I like the idea behind Wholphin, which involves collecting a good deal of film shorts and assorted narratives that don’t really have a place outside of their initial small venues. But unfortunately, like almost anything that comes from the McSweeney’s Empire, the DVD carries the uncomfortable stamp of films that are just too safe to be innovative. In watching the material, I got the sense of holding an interesting object, but with the edges and the unique texture sanded down for non-offensive mass consumption. And in transposing the McSweeney’s watered down Barthelme voice to the film world, Wholphin offers a number of revelations which recall what Curtis White has identified as the Middle Mind. It is my sad duty to report that Wholphin is wholly disingenuous about its intent. It is neither explicitly intellectual nor explicitly for the masses. Sure, it’s a beautiful looking dinghy sailing with a directionless rudder. But unless it shakes off the Eggers yoke, it will be just another indistinct echo in the wind. A good idea that didn’t have to die.

Perhaps the problem with Wholphin (as with many McSweeney’s products) is its distressing inability to trust its readership. Indeed, the separation between the art offered and the marketing copy which accompanies it is entirely incongruous. It takes a hell of a conceit to tell an audience precisely how it should feel about something. And yet within Wholphin‘s accompanying booklet, this is exactly what goes down. “The House in the Middle” is described, “Your horror, shock, and rage at the country’s inability to help tax-paying citizens prepare for natural or man-made disaster will not be calmed by this film. But it is funny.” Note that it automatically assumes that its audience is composed entirely of good liberal thinkers who will automatically recontextualize the film within the framework of the Katrina fuckup. Note also the sanction to laugh, but whether the humor is directed at the film’s horrible depiction of how people should maintain their homes or presumably the now patented tone of the 1950s government-sponsored film, who can say? (And more anon on this tone when I get to the Spike Jonze film.)

Indeed, the interviews in the accompanying booklet make the reasons for spawning the art suspect. Scott Prendergast reveals that he made “The Delicious” because he wanted to “dress up in crazy costumes and act like a weirdo.” And indeed his film is nothing more than that: a paper-thin premise unfolding at a snail’s pace in which Prendergast, whose bemused expressions and wiry physicality aren’t entirely unlaudable, quickly wears out his welcome.

When you put the DVD into your player, you get a menu of the choices. One of three different films (two apparently by Jeroen Offerman) plays. And if, like me, you’re the kind of person who likes getting the DVD set up for viewing (due in large part to those irritating trailers you can’t skip through anymore that are put on most DVDs) while you go into the other room and grab a glass of wine (or two), you’re probably going to be as irritated as I was that a film starts playing if you’re not exactly trigger-happy with the remote. Meaning that instead of getting to experience a short film in its entirety, you walk in to your surprise and find that you’re midway through a guy singing “Stairway to Heaven” backwards. This forces you to hit the stop button and try to access the aforementioned film (“Stairway at Saint Paul”), only to find that there’s no option to go directly to the film (whose bright idea was that?) and that if you’re interested in the film, you will be subject to one of the three random films, who knows which one, playing from the beginning. If the idea here is that Wholphin is meant to be experienced without interruption, I have news for editor Brent Hoff. Understand that some of us out here don’ t need to be barraged by data at every minute and, in fact, we want to experience the art in toto.

The first offering is Miguel Arteta’s “Are You the Favorite Person of Anybody?,” a collaboration with filmmaker/Believer contributor Miranda July. (This is one of many suspicious Eggers connections that accompany the disc. It’s not so much celebrating innovation, but also keeping promoting the efforts of those “in the family.”) A man who looks suspiciously like Friend of Eggers Stephen Elliott can be seen in three quarters profile, until he turns around and we realize that it’s actually John C. Reilly. Whether this was intentional (and it’s certainly a thesis for an Auctorial Doppelganger that will likely never happen) or not remains a mystery. But the material itself, despite the presence of the always good Reilly, comes across as a tossed off and entirely insubstantial home movie. The titular question could have been used as a way to expose how shallow the process of introspection can be (apposite rhetoric for the 826 Valencia crowd, I think), but it becomes instead the basis for a vanity project that isn’t particularly penetrating. Heads talking insubstantially about insubstantial topics. The gimmick of Reilly with a clipboard. Ha ha. Perhaps the question was intended to be presented to the viewer with unintentional irony. Why else would it have been placed first on the menu? We’re all friends here, right? You’ll enjoy us without question, yes? Because we here are your favorite people in the world!

Lisa Chang and Newton Thomas Sigel’s “The Big Empty” shows more promise, both as an interesting way of producing filmed versions of McSweeney’s stories (it comes from Alison Smith’s “The Specialist,” which originally appeared in McSweeney’s #11) and as a way of profiling unusual material. Sadly, this too comes across as a vanity project, despite the fact that Selma Blair is utterly right for the part of a woman who has an arctic wasteland inside her that can only be accessed through her vagina. And if that premise sounds edgy or dangerous, let me assure you that it’s not. Or at least it doesn’t come across that way when it should. The film in general is seriously undermined by its Wes Anderson-style obsession with ostentatious perfection (books lined up meticulously in square piles with the camera dollying across as if the atmosphere is more important than the human moment), along with the distracting presence of Haskell Wexler as a bookstore customer and the uncomfortably carnal quid-pro-quo credit of “Executive Producers: George Clooney Steven Soderbergh.” This is clearly a film that values style over substance, a catastrophic emphasis given its high-concept premise. It has all the tricks that money will buy, but it is soulless even in its one modest moment of earnestness (a dorky guy asking Blair how she feels).

Another case of style killing pith is Brian Dewan‘s “The Death of the Hen,” which contextualizes a tale in the form of a filmstrip (complete with the beeps preceding the switch of the slide). Again, the stylistic idea here, presumably intended for those who remain mired by elementary school nostalgia from the late ’70’s and early ’80’s, is an interesting one. But the tale’s details are so digressive that it once again becomes difficult to get attuned to the story. At one point, a fox asks to hop into a carriage pulled by six mice. Agreement is made. And then without warning or explanation, the carriage is filled up with all manner of animals. Are we supposed to laugh at the fact that such a digressive detail is thrown into the mix? Yes, it fits into some of the inexplicable narratives featured in filmstrips. But wouldn’t it have been more interesting, indeed more audacious, if Dewan actually accepted the medium of the filmstrip on its own terms? What of a filmstrip that used the cheery tone and the formality to tell a bleak tale inside a crackhouse, an ironic metaphor on the failed drug wars of the time? Now that would be innovative!

One of the most problematic inclusions here is an episode of Talti Hayat, billed here as “the Turkish Jeffersons,” which is a specious comparison at best. For one thing, the couple of this series is not radically different in ethnicity, but are essentially an upper-class couple living “the sweet life,” surrounded by amicable maids and the goofy guy in a red sweater next door. In other words, what we’re dealing with here is a very banal and pretty run-of-the-mill sitcom, not terribly interesting, unless of course you’re one of those base humans who believes that all Asian women are bad rivers and thinks that listening to a Turkish sentence that you don’t understand is the most hilarious thing you’ve heard since the dead parrot sketch (or, failing that, a Jerky Boys routine).

What makes this exercise tasteless is the fact that the McSweeney’s people have hired various writers to provide alternative subtitle tracks. This might have been a good idea, but none of the translations hold a candle to MST3K and they are all designed to mock material which is simply too insubstantial to skewer. And even though the liner notes say, “No offense whatsoever is intended by the writers towards the actors, the Turkish people, Germans, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Christians, fans of Gilmore Girls, or any other group,” the statement is suspect when the alternative subtitle tracks contain such racist lines as “Menskshe! Where did you hide my water pipe? I left it there on the dresser” (as penned by A.G. Pasquella), essentially implying that all Turks are bonged out scatterbrains. I suspect that this represents the dark underbelly of the so-called McSweeney’s feel-good beat. On one hand, don’t offer anything with edge. But when immersed within the exercise of groping for free associative humor, you can hide behind that comfy mask of irony, claiming that a particularly uncreative and racist line isn’t really racist. and that it was all in good fun.

The two strongest segments on Wholphin are, interestingly enough, the ones by major filmmakers. David O. Russell (a Friend of Spike, who is a Friend of Eggers) offers excerpts from his documentary Soldier’s Pay. I’ve had the good fortune of seeing the film in its entirety and can recommend it. While the excerpts here to some degree reflects the “good thoughtful liberal” audience impression frequently assumed by the McSweeney’s editorship, it’s still a welcome inclusion.

But Spike Jonze’s documentary on Al Gore demonstrates not only Wholphin‘s potential but its failings. The story was this: In 2000, Spike Jonze, hot off the success of Being John Malkovich, was commissioned by the Gore for President campaign to make a documentary to be shown at the National Democratic Convention, presumably because this would help Gore’s “stiff” image problem and get him down with the kids. Jonze, relatively stunned by all this (one gets the sense that he was a bit clueless actually), decided to simply drive up to the Gore family house with his tiny video camera and shoot whatever struck his fancy.

The result is a fascinating little film. One sees Gore remaining guarded even during private family moments. The film can be viewed as a stunning revelation (in hindsight, at least) about how a politician, constantly concerned with his image even while letting his guard down bodysurfing and selecting a VHS tape for family movie night, could never really loosen up. But it’s clear from the tape that he wants to loosen up. But he can’t. It’s impossible in the age of soundbytes. And because there are invisible antennae protruding from just behind Gore’s head, always cognizant of a camera or journalist in the room or from sixty miles away, Jonez’s film, perhaps unintentionally, is the study of what life must be like to have absolutely no privacy, to kiss your wife when you know there is somebody watching. I suppose in this sense, Gore’s stiffness actually made him more real than the competition. For how can any of us really remain true and spontaneous if there will be constant cameras and stenographers recording our every move?

Wholphin, however, catastrophically ignores this salient revelation (and perhaps this revelation is what kept the film from speculation; nobody wants a candidate that appears even remotely nervous) in favor of the following text in its booklet:

This film might have wiped away, in twenty-two minutes*, Gore’s reputation as a robot. If nothing else, it might have at least calmed a few jumpy liberals into reconsidering their protest vote. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the film was shelved. (Dramatic pause.) Until now. It may seem like a sweet, simple study of a loving American family, but in our opinion, Jonze’s short film could have changed the world.

* — Nevermind that the film clocked in at sixteen minutes on my DVD player.

We’re now five years away from the damn Supreme Court decision and we’re still basking in this baffling, back-slapping “what the would could have been” liberal bullshit, in the same flag-wrapping manner that conservatives evoke September 11 to justify their latest fascist legislation. It is embarassing that such a jejune conclusion would accompany so fascinating a film. It is adolescent that such revolutionary claptrap would be uttered instead of sucking it up and facing the cold hard honesty: Al Gore wasn’t the one. So who might be the candidate for 2008? And what can we do to make the current situation better? (Not so subtle hint to those liberals clutching their blankets like Linus right now: Midterm elections are happening this year.)

Understand that for all of my criticisms of Eggers, McSweeney’s, The Believer and now Wholphin (and, for that matter, the n + 1 crowd), in my heart of hearts, I really want them to succeed. But if one wishes to remain truly independent, truly underground, and truly shake the foundations of intellectual thought, making assumptions about your audience, telling them exactly how they should think and exactly how they should feel and insisting that revolutionary zeal might have been in the air when the circumstances really can’t be proved is the kind of mentality I expect from a starry-eyed undergrad student clinging to his idealism, not the finest writers and editors of our time. It involves saying no to such bullshit as Snarkwatch, which places such restrictions on how one can think and how one should kvetch without considering that a little rant here and there isn’t entirely unhealthy. It involves actually listening to the “crazed maniacs” who denounce you and who disagree with you rather than keeping a Nixon-style Enemies List (various rumors have reported that Eggers keeps a list along these lines, but there is apparently nothing to corroborate this). And it involves considering dangerous topics, even pissing off a friend who disagrees with you on something. It involves considering all sides of the perspective, however difficult and painful. Nobody said thinking was easy.

Ask yourself this: wouldn’t the Believer, McSweeney’s and Wholphin be fantastic if they weren’t so afraid to walk on the wild side? If they took the 0bvious enthusiasm that’s there within its staffers and combined it with even the tinge of outrage?

So I publicly ask Heidi Julavits, Ed Park, Vendela Vida, Dave Eggers and Brent Hoff (and, for that matter, Ben Marcus) the following question: Why do you continue to commit hari-kari? Why can’t you be honest? Why must you steer the whims of your audience? Are you that insecure about the work in question? Why are you so terrified to express a few negative emotions from time to time? Were you all walked over as kids or something? Come on, you and I know that you’re better than these shaky presumptions and insular claptrap!

In short, why can’t I believe? Because I’d really like to.

by Edward Champion

Clerks II Trailer

It’s just possible that Kevin Smith is up to something more than just revisiting a hot property. The trailer of Clerks II can now be found, and when one considers the deliberately ugly cinematography, the moribund tone, and the terrible transition of the characters from clerks to fast food, this looks like it might be a scathing indictment of the service sector industry — perhaps a warning to thirtysomethings that they must take control of their lives before it’s too late. (via Ghost in the Machine)

by Edward Champion

The Most Dangerous Idea

There’s been a lot of ballyhoo over this list. Many major minds, most of them apparently Caucasian and male, have been consulted for their “most dangerous ideas.” Presumably the whole exercise will facilitate great intellectual discussion, limitless coffers poured into research and development, and several Slashdot threads that will carry on well into 2012.

Of course, nobody bothered to consult me. And while I am quite Caucasian and quite male, I’m not a scientist and I’ve yet to publish a book. Let’s the face the facts: I’m just some half-baked literary blogger and I still, with great guilt, heat up a frozen chimichanga from time to time.

However, let us postulate a parallel universe (those who have watched a few episodes of Sliders will understand) where Jared Diamond is working a day job and blogging like a maniac and I, on the other hand, am a nonfiction author beloved and adored by millions for meticulously researched yet highly pessimistic fat books. Let us further suggest that “The World Question Center” (a name which sounds suspiciously close to “Customer Service Center”) deigned to ask me about my “most dangerous idea.”

It really needs to be said. So here goes:

Penises in mainstream film.

Western society has reached a point where premarital sex is the norm. We have penises in locker rooms. We have them in boudoirs (or what sometimes passes for boudoirs in cramped apartments inhabited by multiple homo sapiens). In the presence of a lady, men will sooner divest themselves of their boxers rather than their black socks. What exactly does that say? Well, speaking as someone who enjoys being naked (particularly with other people) and who is quite guilty of the black socks crime (there are reasons; please don’t ask), I submit to scholars and casual anthropologists of all stripes that your typical Western male has a closet hankering to let it hang loose. For let us be clear on this: micturating in the open air is a fantastic sensation.

In other words, the penis has reached a point where it is more prominent in our everyday culture than the films which allegedly reflect this culture. And if films are intended as a verisimilitudinous medium (again don’t laugh), Hollywood endings notwithstanding, we must address the reality of the penis. It exists. It is seen. And it is not a harmful organ. Contrary to contemporary forms of homophobic paralogia, it will not corrupt a male heterosexual’s mind. (Proof positive: I have lived in San Francisco for eleven years and, while I have become slightly more perverse, I have no sexual or romantic interest in men — all this despite the fact that I am more likely to see an accidental penis in this town on any given day.) A penis will harm nobody really. Yes, it is capable of penetrating orifices or being tainted with genital warts. But if we’re talking about your garden variety one-eyed snake here, on what level is it pernicious?

Let us consider the double standard, which has frankly gone on far enough. So it’s perfectly okay for women to disrobe completely in an R-rated film, stopping just short of the full open labial shot frequently found and fawned over in hardcore porn. It is perfectly okay for the camera to dwell upon a slow-motion shot of jiggling breasts. Where however are the penises? Sure, there’s the odd Ewan McGregor or Harvey Keitel determined to get their John Thomases displayed in nearly every movie they appear in. But a real “actor” would never sully his reputation by exposing nothing more than his ass and bare chest.

If the idea here is that testicles and a cock represent a sensitive area and thus should not be displayed, then obviously the men who offer this bullshit excuse have clearly overlooked the sensitivity of the female mammary gland (in particular, the nip).

I submit to the American public that there are far more disturbing things to witness than naked people (violence, for starters) and, in particular, penises. In fact, the human body, as has been noted on more than one occasion by sundry dabblers and scriveners, is quite beautiful. And the idea that this beauty can’t sit squarely within R-rated territory like its mammary and outside labial counterparts is a crime against gender equality. And it’s really not much fun to boot.