From Queer Cinema to Queer Theater: Some Like it Hot takes Broadway

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of seeing Some Like it Hot on Broadway. Let me begin this review by getting the technicals out of the way. If you're the gambling sort, you're going to want to put your money right here for the Tonys. While still in previews, not a single cast member missed a beat, a note, or a step. It has been some time since I have seen such a seamless live production. Some Like it Hot didn't come to play, it came to win. With 42nd Street flare and a Kinky Boots sensibility, Some Like it Hot brings us right back to the joyous, glamorous excitement of the Golden Age of Musical Theatre with a thoroughly contemporary sense of presence. This musical is a love letter to the glitzy showstopper that does not feel dated. This is particularly noteworthy as the show emulates the comedic timing of its original 50s film counterpart in parts. To not feel dated with all of these particulars is a sign of skill on the part of the writers and director.

The sets? Gorgeous. The costumes? I want to wear all of them. The quality of the singing, dancing, acting? Top shelf. If the show has a weakness, it may be that the songs are not particularly memorable, but when you're in the moment, they're a wallop of good fun and high energy to keep the momentum going. This is a musical where the songs serve the story, not the reverse.

Now that we've gone through the technicals, let's talk about the real elephant in the room: the criticisms and concerns in adapting this particular movie in 2022.

I have seen many reviews so far (here's a link to one in particular) that are very concerned with clarifying for their readers that the musical is a fresh new take on a problematic classic, and that they are doing their own thing that is different (read: better). This comes on the heels of major anti-trans activity across the world, and with the genuine concerns about producing yet another man-in-a-dress comedy (Mrs. Doubtfire being the previous questionable choice) while the queer community is actively trying to combat this particular conservative scaremongering tactic. It is understandable to be concerned, but unwarranted in this case. To say that this new musical is doing something completely different and fresh with source material that should have been kept on the shelf is unfair assessment that both undersells the quality of this particular adaptation and completely misunderstands the original film–a film which was itself radically queer in 1959.

So let's actually talk about Some Like it Hot, the Billy Wilder film. Spoiler warning from this point forward, because we're going to get into it.

Some Like it Hot has often been credited as being the nail in the coffin for the Hayes Code, a set of deeply conservative industry guidelines in place from 1934 - 1968. The Code prevented films from portraying a wide variety of presumed illicit content, such as: drug use, swearing, interracial couples, "white slavery" (but notably not Black slavery), female sexuality and homosexual content. In 1952, the Supreme Court overruled the Hayes Code and removed its legal backing; but in 1959, Some Like it Hot became a box office hit without the Hayes Code seal of approval, and the Code breathed its last dying breath. 

So what makes Some Like it Hot so special? For one, Marilyn Monroe (along with the other girls in the band) are living showgirls who drink, smoke, show off some leg and have sexual appetites. More importantly for this conversation though, Some Like it Hot tangoes with homosexuality and gender diversity with such a thin veil of propriety that it may as well be a cut scene to a train going through a tunnel. I won't go into a full analysis of the queerness of this film here (watch this space for a future blog post that will do just that), but it is important to know that Some Like it Hot is an important work in the queer cinema canon, even though (as far as we know) everyone involved in the making was straight and cis. 

But why is this? Why is this film NOT actually a standard man-in-a-dress comedy, even though it is a major landmark in that particular genre? 

The big concern with man-in-a-dress comedies is that they are very often based on the premise that, in order to win the girl, these men need to deceive women by pretending to be a woman, thus gaining their trust through deceit. In the end, they always defrock and return to their masculine lives. This is the dangerous premise that fires up anti-trans scaremongering. Mrs. Doubtfire, while a classic film starring a beloved actor, is a prime example of this premise. You could also look to films like Silence of the Lambs or Psycho, in which the trope is then "man dresses as a woman for the purpose of doing harm or enacting a patriarchal victory." These are dangerous stories that do more harm than good in 2022. 

Neither of these are the premise of Some Like it Hot. 

Rather than being a "man dresses up as a woman to get the girl" story, Some Like it Hot is a situational comedy in which two men end up in unusual circumstances to save their own skins (dressing as women to escape the mob), and come out the other end as fundamentally different people. The man-in-a-dress aspect of this premise is a catalyst towards that change (not dissimilar to the premise of Kinky Boots), rather than a tool towards victory. In the case of Joe/Josephine (played by Tony Curtis in the film and by Christian Borle in the musical), the romance with Sugar (Marilyn Monroe/Adrianna Hicks) isn't fostered or encouraged by the lie of being Josephine but hindered by it, and most of his flirting is done in a secondary male disguise as Junior, the millionaire heir to Shell Oil. Josephine is not after Sugar, and Sugar isn't fooled into loving Josephine, but Junior. By the end of the story, Joe realizes that he's been a scoundrel, and thinks Sugar deserves better than him. 

I know what you're thinking. How is that substantially different? How does that make Some Like it Hot a queer film? The answer is...it doesn't. If Some Like it Hot were just about Joe then it would belong on the shelf with the rest, even if drag-aspect isn't in itself the manipulative act. Joe isn't the star of this film, and neither is Marilyn Monroe. The star of this film is Jack Lemmon as Jerry/Daphne (played by the magnificent J. Harrison Ghee in the musical). In the film, Jerry does actually start off as a presumed-straight man ogling and attempting to seduce the women with whom he suddenly has access (an element of the character that the musical wisely omits). It is midway through the film when all of this changes. When Jerry (dressed as Daphne) himself begins to catch the interest of another man, Jerry and Daphne begin to bleed together. Through a series of deeply queer encounters with Osgood, Jerry's previous bad behaviour becomes itself a farce through the actualization of Daphne. Jerry's sexuality and his gender identity are thrown into question. This Twelfth-Night-esque escapade of gender confusion and sexuality awareness is what makes Some Like it Hot a foundational queer film, and what threw the Hayes Code under the bus. It is Jerry/Daphne and Osgood who keep this film fresh and the subject relevant. Some Like it Hot is, at its core, a comedy about change and becoming a better version of yourself.

But you didn't come here for a history lesson about Some Like it Hot, you came here for a review of the new musical, so let's come back around to adaptation, and the brilliance of this one. 

Adaptation is a difficult business. When you make an adaptation, you at once need to both be referential to the original source material and make it uniquely yours. Adaptations that stray too far away from the original source material will attract the ire of fans and will very often (though not always) miss the elements that make the original great in the first place. Adaptations that stick too close to the original either suffer from not adjusting to their new medium (a film and a book do not tell stories in the same way) or fail to stand out as significant works of art in their own right. The reason I take issue with the critique that this new Some Like it Hot musical is a completely new take on a classic is because that statement is a disservice to the skill behind this adaptation. 

I was excited when I sat down in the theater, but also quite nervous. I love Some Like it Hot, and there is very little that I would change about it. I was worried that this musical wouldn't live up to its source material. My worries were unfounded, and I walked out of the theater grinning from ear to ear, buzzing to see it again. What makes this adaptation sing is that it has masterfully balanced being the same story, but making it unique and fresh for a 2022 audience. It is truly an update that gives the story more depth. One of the greatest sins of adaptation is, in my opinion, the red pen. It is infinitely tempting to correct, edit, and change the things you don't like about a story to make it fit your vision of how the story should be. While there were a few corrections (such as dropping Jerry's hound dog approach in the first half of the story), I don't believe that the creators of this musical took a red pen to the story. Rather, I would say that they took a "Yes, And" approach. Every change that was made to the story served to give the characters more depth rather than change the characters themselves. Yes, this is the character, And here's a little bit more to make them richer for it. 

Making Daphne/Jerry and Sugar Black instead of white added depth to their circumstances and was a logical refresh to add diversity to a story about jazz musicians. More depth was added to Sugar's story by giving her a Hollywood dream, which brought some justice to Marilyn Monroe's part in the role (Marilyn notably fought back against being just a dumb blonde as Sugar). Making Junior a scriptwriter instead of a random millionaire contributed to this narrative rather than being a somewhat random aside. Every change and addition streamlined the story for the stage and made each character more three-dimensional in the process. To both streamline and add padding is no easy feat, and should be applauded. 

In an interview, Christian Borle said their version of Some Like it Hot is still the same story, to which J. Harrison Ghee followed up that it was also uniquely their version of it. Both of these sentiments are true, and that is a difficult thing to achieve. The fact that this balance has been struck makes it a masterwork of adaptation.

Moreover, J. Harrison Ghee's performance is spectacular as Jerry/Daphne. The most substantial refresh to the story is to have this character unabashedly and clearly accept their gender fluidity with a showstopper song and a cheering ovation. When the New Yorker reviewed this show, they referred to this change as "splic[ing] old-school fun with contemporary gender politics". Aside from the somewhat patronizing and obviously click-baity nature of that description (which drew the expected ire from commenters on Twitter), it also is fundamentally untrue. There is nothing uniquely contemporary about Some Like it Hot's gender politics, because Daphne's queerness is intrinsic to the source material. It wasn't created for the musical. What is contemporary and fresh in this case is that we now have the language to express said gender politics with dignity and respect. What this new Some Like it Hot has done is take an already (some might say quietly) queer work that toyed with gender in 1959 and say the quiet part out loud. This is the finest example of a “Yes, And” approach that the musical has to offer. Yes, this is exactly who Jerry/Daphne always was, And now we're going to make that explicitly clear. 

This is the Jerry/Daphne that queer viewers of the original film have always loved, now brought to life. I cannot express how grateful I am for the fun and joy in J. Harrison Ghee’s performance. Ghee’s Daphne is genuine and real without losing a single beat of comedic timing. Daphne is the breath of fresh air that we need in this horrible year where we as trans people have been put under constant surveillance​​. Some Like it Hot allows us to have fun, and we so desperately need it. 

Billy Wilder said that 1959 wasn't ready for what happens after the ending, but 2022 is. In 1959, both Jack Lemmon and Joe E. Brown portrayed Daphne and Osgood’s relationship as something fundamentally positive, both playful and sexy. In 2022, we can take what we already had in 1959 to its logical conclusion, and finally allow Daphne that security she wanted so damn badly. 

I always think about this movie in terms of its ending. It has the perfect ending, no other movie can compare. Still, I always thought that in a modernization, the only thing to change is for Osgood, instead of delivering a punchline, to just say "you're perfect". The ending of this show is different, and it's not the exact same scene-by-scene play-by-play story, but it is perfect. You really are perfect.

Rings of Power's Elephant in the Room: The Problems in Adapting Celebrimbor and Sauron's Relationship

WARNING: This blog post is going to spoil Rings of Power for you if you are not already aware of the major reveal of the Second Age. Please turn away if you do not want to be thoroughly spoiled.

    With Rings of Power dropping in less than a month, the question "what will they do with Sauron" gathers more and more energy. If their marketing team is smart, we haven't seen Sauron yet. If they're really clever, they will leave us hanging until the last possible moment to build that suspense. With the question of Sauron also comes the question of Celebrimbor, of whom we have received a lot more information. To Celebrimbor and his fate, Sauron is inexorably tied. What I hope to do here is look at the possible options for how they are going to approach Sauron and Celebrimbor's relationship. I will try to approach this with as much reserved judgement as possible, so if you're interested in my multitude of judgy opinions on both Sauron, Celebrimbor, and Rings of Power in general (both positive and negative), I direct you to my twitter.

Art by Bohemian Weasel

    According to text, Sauron came to Eregion in his fairest form, and worked his powers (powers that we can imply are those of manipulation and seduction as per the power of the Ring, and the mode in which he speaks) upon the Elves of Eregion to teach them ringcraft. Chief among these smiths is Celebrimbor, who learned the skill from Sauron directly, and was instrumental in the forging of the Rings of Power. The same Rings of Power that the show is named for. Celebrimbor is taken in by Sauron's manipulations, but upon realizing that he's been had, rebels and is murdered brutally. 

    This relationship can be interpreted in a number of ways but has been interpreted in fandom through a homoerotic lens. This is due to two factors. First, there is Tolkien's specificity that Sauron, prior to the sinking of Númenor into the sea, maintained beautiful form. Second, there is the extrapolation of seduction, first from Melkor's own seduction of Sauron, and of both Sauron and the Ring's history of manipulations that can be interpreted as a form of lust. While Tolkien did specify in The Unfinished Tales that Celebrimbor was not corrupted in heart or faith, the nature of this manipulated relationship has been interpreted and extrapolated quite thoroughly through a multitude of fanworks.

What we do have, and what needs to be adapted to screen, is the following: Sauron, in beautiful form, comes to Eregion and, through kindly manipulation, convinces Celebrimbor to unwittingly participate in Sauron's domination of Middle-earth.

    Whether or not Tolkien intended to give Sauron and Celebrimbor homoerotic subtext is irrelevant in this context. What we are talking about here is how we interpret the visual language of adaptation. The way that we as viewers interact with television in the 21st century is miles away from how we interact with literature now, much less how we interacted with literature in the mid-20th. If you put this relationship dynamic on screen, there will be homoerotic subtext whether the author or the creators of the show intend it or not. This is due in part to the rigid gender and sexuality lines that we have drawn between the First World War and today (we are far less ambiguous and far more concerned with placing people and relationships into these boxes) and is partly due to the prevalence of fan thirst on social media. This relationship as described by Tolkien will read as homoerotic to some extent, no matter what the creators decide to do. The question is: what will the showrunners do with this inevitability?

    We could say that the creators of the show aren't even considering this question, but I find that highly unlikely, if not somewhat naive. Showrunners have shown time and time again that they are aware of fandom (one only needs to look as far as the convention circuit to see this in practice) and it is well understood that often showrunners will pander to this fan interest without directly addressing it in their work. So what are the options? The way I see it, there are four possible scenarios.

art by Mallorn Blossom

1. Implied Homoerotic Subtext

    This is the most common option and the one that falls into the queerbaiting category. With this option, they would write in, direct, and edit to have the relationship be flirtatious, lean heavily on the implication, but never commit to the bit. This is classic queerbaiting, because it draws in the very statistically relevant audience (fandom) that eats gay content up. It would feed the fandom machine, but also satisfy those who would take offence for one reason or another because no canon is made and it is left to the imagination. This would also be very easy, as sticking to Tolkien's text as closely as possible will, by default, give you this option to a 21st-century audience.

2. Committing to the Bit

    In 2011, NBC greenlit Hannibal, a show based loosely on Red Dragon and the rest of the Hannibal Lecter series. Since the show's airing, both showrunner and cast have confirmed on multiple occasions that they turned the story into a twisted romance. What began as implied homoerotic subtext culminated in the clear statement that Hannibal was in love with Will Graham. This is what we can call committing to the bit. A showrunner saw homoerotic subtext and said 'we can lean into this and make it text'. This is option two for Rings of Power.

    While I find this to be the most unlikely option in this case, it is still possible. We've already seen the willingness to make bold choices with regards to casting people of colour in Middle-earth, and making sure that choice is all over their advertising.(1) Committing to the bit with Sauron and Celebrimbor would also be a bold choice which would cause a media frenzy. Controversial media generates clicks and watches, while also giving the illusion of representation. I say the illusion of representation because, much like with casting, representation only really counts as representation when there are numbers behind it. If they committed to this bit without putting other queer relationships into the story, then Sauron as the only queer character is not great. I personally love queer villains. Queer villains are usually my favourite characters, and we as queer people deserve varied stories and characters who contain multitudes, but a queer villain among a sea of heteronormativity does not representation make. This option would also not be a far stretch from canon, but rather would be a reasonable leap to make, which adaptation regularly does for the purposes of visual storytelling. It would also not infuriate homophobic viewers as strongly as, say, giving Elrond a male love interest would because it would fit well with their world view of queerness as a seduction to villainy. So again, not great.

    So far, the options are that the creators can do almost nothing to the text and bank on implication, or the creators can lean in and make this relationship canonically romantic and/or sexual. Neither of these options is actually great. Option one is lazy, tired writing, which would be called out immediately. Option two is bold, but would cause chaos while also ascribing to its own tired trope of the devious queer seducer who destroys upstanding, respectable men. If there are no other queer relationships in the show, both of these problems become even worse. Option one seems more like bait without any alternatives, and Option two then turns into a story where all of your queer characters are villains, failures and tragedies.

    That all being said, Options 1 and 2 are the most authentic to the text as read by a 21st-century reader. I say this not as a reflection of authorial intent, because authorial intent is irrelevant in regards to reader/viewer reception of text as written. Rather, these are the most authentic to the text because Sauron fits perfectly into the mould of the Queer Villain trope, as seduction is inherent to his character and is impossible to avoid in visual media, which relies far less on imagination, and has a well-defined history of using this trope. If you keep Sauron as a canonical devious seducer who brings about the fall of men and elves through this interpersonal seduction, you have options one or two no matter what.

We have looked at doing nothing and leaning in, but what about leaning out?

3. No Homo

    Leaning out and avoiding the situation entirely would be the least authentic to the text, as it would remove seduction as one of Sauron's primary tools in the Second Age (a characteristic that comes down to him in a direct line from Melkor in the First Age, who did the same to him). This would require Sauron's machismo to be emphasized over his seductive qualities, even though these are qualities that are only brought to the forefront after the fall of Númenor, when Sauron has lost his fair form into the sea and returns monstrous. Option three is the safest option, even though it is the least authentic to the text. You avoid the 'damned if you do, damned if you don't big queer elephant in the room. Instead, you undermine the integrity of the characters themselves, as both Celebrimbor and Pharazôn's fall depends on Sauron's seductive qualities to be successful. So this is also not a great option. You could also, under this category, have Sauron be a seducer and have Celebrimbor outright reject those advances, but that again undermines the text as written for the purposes of a 21st-century statement, and also draws attention to hard lines of sexuality which Tolkien did not draw, because they were not discussed as they are discussed now and were more ambiguous.

So we have: do nothing, lean in, or lean out. The fourth option is the most interesting and would solve a lot of the above problems, but would also be the riskiest in today's real-world climate.

4. Gender Trouble

Quick speculation misidentified the above actress Bridie Sisson as Sauron, 

which has lead to some interesting speculation.

    Canonically, Sauron is a skin-changer. In Beren and Luthien alone, he turns into a wolf, a serpent, a monster, a vampire bat, and his own form again. He can, by Tolkien's own words, assume many forms. We also know that Ainur in general wear skin as clothing rather than having their bodies be inherent to their identity. It is feasible that Sauron could present as a different gender to every person that he meets. This would be interesting storytelling. First, it would create a sense of paranoia, because if we know right away that Sauron could look like anyone, then he could be watching at any time. He may be in the frame right now, and you just don't know. Second, it would be an unusual but not an inaccurate interpretation of the text, as we know this is something Sauron is absolutely capable of, at the very least before he loses his fair form.(2) What this would also do is find a middle ground for the left and right. The left would have a genderfluid Sauron and the knowledge that Sauron's pronouns are he/him as per the text, regardless of what form he takes. The right could then get a female-bodied Sauron engaging in the seduction of Celebrimbor, releasing that tension of anxiety in ways they would approve of.

    But this is also not without flaws. Firstly, genderswapping a generally-presumed male character in order to avoid homoerotic tension is very obvious when it happens. Just because the character is then technically queer in the gender does not mean viewers familiar with this technique cannot see what the intention is, or why you're doing it. That weakens the action by means of intention. Second, we live in a world where trans people are subject to violence on a daily basis. Making your villain trans, especially right now, is extremely distasteful and dangerous, especially with one of the most well-known villains in literary history, and especially without any positive alternative in the text. Remember, representation is made by numbers and variety.

    As far as I see it, these are the four options they have. do nothing, lean in, lean out, or get creative. There are positives to all of these options, but none of them is a great option. The writers are stuck between a rock and a hard place, one in which no one will be satisfied no matter how they approach this issue. I hope they can come up with a fifth option that I haven't, but that is yet to be seen.

(1) this is by no means to say that, in 2022, having a cast that isn't entirely white is bold, but rather to say that, given the state of Tolkien Fandom as we have seen from the backlash, the choice was bold in the context of mainstream Tolkien media.

(2) This only becomes less accurate if we consider the idea that they are stuck more in their form the more they engage in acts of the body (as per NoME), but then we would still need to think about Sauron as a sexual being and so becoming stuck in his body.

On Deadpool, WandaVision and Breaking the Fourth Wall

Here we are, with my first proper post here in literal years, the first of many carried over from my Tumblr in some attempt towards legitimacy. This will be the most recent of those carried over from tumblr, originally written in March of 2021, so not long ago at all.  

Let's get into it. Let’s talk about breaking the fourth wall and extrapolation of meta information in fictional multiverse universes–say, the Marvel cinematic vs the xmen films vs the comics. Let’s talk specifically about the Marvel multiverse. 

As a general rule, the suspension of disbelief works better on paper than it does on video. The show Heroes was an excellent example of this problem. Remember Heroes? Like many pop culture greats, it was a critical darling until it flew itself directly into the sea. Heroes was the first notable time a TV show was made directly based on a comic book format, trying to emulate a comic book format. To keep the metaphor going, the plane took a nose dive when they tried to keep comic book pace, and to play by similar rules, i.e. the serial impermanence of death as a serious consequence. There is a reason why this didn't work. Long story short, the way that our brains consume literature and comics is different from how we consume photographic media like movies or tv. Video, like photography, convinces the brain that it’s depicting reality even when we logically know that it isn’t. Therefore, unless the rules of the video/TV world are well established as being different from our own, we apply to it our own real-world understandings of what is possible. If we see real, human people on the screen, our brains will apply real, human laws to the world. We are able to follow the fantastic more willingly when we’re imagining it (because we’re reading it) instead of seeing it with our senses. 

Breaking the fourth wall and/or being self-referential is extremely tricky on video media because you’re forcing the audience’s brain to acknowledge that this is fiction, which can cause some cognitive dissonance if the goal of your show/movie is to create second world immersion. Second world immersion is, to roughly paraphrase the man who invented the concept as well as the majory of what we consider Fantasy Standard, the understanding that a fictional (secondary) world is fully self-actualized as separate and unique from our own world, has it's own clearly defined rules of reality, and can therefore be fully inhabited as if it is itself real. (Tolkien, the man is Tolkien.) Sitcoms are good at breaking the fourth wall because, with laugh tracks, live studio audiences, and a general lack of real-world consequences, our brains understand that it isn’t real. There is no clearly defined and self-sustaining Second World to be immersed in. Generally, they’re not trying to fool us into believing that they’re real. Still, if Chandler Bing suddenly turned around and made eye contact with the camera, that would be weird. It’s not established in that particular sitcom world that they understand that they’re fictional. Fresh Prince of Bel-Air on the other hand, did that all the time. 

But we’ll get back to Sitcoms, because WandaVision. As opposed to most sitcoms, most serious dramas and adventure-thrillers are trying to create a very different vibe. In order to function, you have to be fully engaged, and have to completely believe the second world you are currently in. Otherwise, the emotional experience falls short. Tonality must be consistent, whereas sitcoms can get away with having the odd emotional moment surrounded by a laugh track. 

Marvel is very weird when it comes to second worlds and believable experiences, because Marvel films, tv, and comics all exist in the same multiverse (not to be confused with the same universe) but with wildly different tones. If you try to wrap your head around all of it as one body, it can give you a headache. Which is why I find it so interesting whenever they try to be meta. 

The Marvel Cinematic Universe as we understand it is presented as a realistic second world. Yes, it’s fun action-adventure with magic and superheroes, but it is presented in a way that intends to feel real, and rationalizes its reality. In Tolkien's terms, it defines the rules of it's reality (again, a paraphrase, sorry JRR). It explains with technobabble and sciencebabble everything that it’s doing. It wants to feel real. There are a few examples of comedy in the MCU (AntMan, Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor Ragnorok), but their silliness can for the most part be explained away. With the latter two, they take place in space with a cast of alien characters, and are painted with a flourescent paintbrush, so our brains allow that as an explanation of wackiness outside our own reality. For Ant-Man, I think it was a brilliant idea to make it a comedy because there was no way that film would have succeeded if they tried to make the audience take Ant-Man seriously on screen. 

I love Ant-Man, there's going to be a whole post about Ant-Man, I promise. But I digress. 

Importantly, even though these three films are funny and camp, they never lose their sense of realism, with emotional anchor points to keep them grounded.  When these characters are in an ensemble, they lose their high camp aesthetic and become part of the realism whole. 

Honestly, who was ever going to take this movie seriously without intentional comedy?

Even when they say in the MCU, Oh look at this I'm an action figure, I’m in comic books, it’s presented as in-world realistic. These people are famous now, and they’re real life superheroes, so obviously action figures and comic books are being produced about them. It all makes sense. Even the X-Men films, as camp as they are, do this in their own realism bubble. I would argue the X-Men films actually have an advantage because you don’t have to suspend as much disbelief to believe mutation as you do to believe in a super suit that shrinks people (I love you Small Rudd). 

Things get weird when the fourth wall is broken, and the multiverse is acknowledged, because the Marvel Cinematics have done an excellent job of creating stable, self-contained second worlds. The Deadpool films, the prime example of fourth-wall breaking in Marvel films/tv, are as good as they are at what they do because they go whole hog into breaking the fourth-wall and acknowledging how ridiculous it all is. We can break down why it works with three points:

1. Deadpool is the only person in the entire movie that acknowledges the fourth wall (I am pretty sure, it’s been a while since I’ve watched them, and when I do rewatch them I may come back and correct this). Because he alone is aware that he’s a fictional character in a wider fictional universe, it’s not weird when he references his actor being the Green Lantern or talks directly to the camera. It’s exactly what we expect from him. With Deadpool, we’re in on the joke but no one else is. And that’s funny. 

2. The tone of the Deadpool films is intentionally absurd, funny, and sometimes downright stupid. Even when it gets serious, that becomes the joke. There is no cognitive dissonance because it’s consistent. See: Sitcom Logic. If the tone is light, breaking the fourth wall doesn’t jarr quite so much. 

3. Deadpool is never in the other films, and for the most part the characters in Deadpool (beyond the odd brief cameo) aren’t in the greater universe (I say for the most part because of Colossus, but he was in one movie ages ago for like ten minutes it’s not the biggest deal, it's not in our present memory). It’s consistent, and it doesn’t become confusing because it’s contained in itself as a weird fourth-wall bubble on the side of the greater universe. Anything that happens to characters in the Deadpool films will not carry over to the more serious timeline. 

Rest in Peace Shatterstar, we are never going to see you ever again.

There is one place in which I would say that the Deadpool films miss the mark, and make a mess of things. By making that one joke where young 90s X-Men from the newest films are behind a door and quickly shut it before Deadpool sees them, a wrench is thrown in. The weirdness of the Deadpool films suddenly becomes an issue because the question is asked: Where do the Deadpool films sit in the timeline? The answer is that the Deadpool films don’t fit anywhere in the established X-Men Cinematic Timeline, and the mistake was having a group of characters from an X-Men film on screen at the same time even as a gag. In this moment, the Deadpool films are very suddenly part of the greater universe, rather than a sidecar referencing what’s going on inside. By doing this, Deadpool is not the only character breaking the fourth wall. Now the physical world is breaking the fourth wall, and our brains will try to make sense where they cannot make sense.

This one error aside, Deadpool does an excellent job of being a weird little fourth-wall meta bubble on the fringe of existence. 

But let's talk fourth-wall breaker number two, WandaVision. WandaVision gets weird in a different but also very fun way.

WandaVision works in terms of meta referencing and occasional fourth-wall breaking in a very unique way for the first 3/4ths of the show, before it crumbles back into the main Marvel Cinematic Secondary Universe. The reasons for this are as follows:

1. Genre and tone. The show sets up from the beginning that this is a sitcom world, not gritty realism world. We as viewers understand a sitcom world, we know what to expect from a sitcom world. There was no surprise, all the advertising told us what we would be starting with, and it dives right in without any presense of not being a sitcom. We can laugh along with the laugh track when something odd, silly or referential happens and accept it as truth, because a sitcom generally does not pretend to be reality. 

2. Whenever the fourth-wall breaks in a way that doesn’t make sense, it’s intentional. Wanda reacts accordingly. Something goes weird, she fixes it. When something goes weird for someone other than Wanda (Say, the Vision), the integrity of this sitcom world is called into question in an intentional way that tracks with what is actually going on in the gritty-realism world (acknowledging that we’re in a bubble within a bubble). This camp sitcom world breaks the fourth-wall within itself, not to us. Billy talking to the screen isn’t talking to us, he’s talking to the imagined viewer in-world. 

3. Most of the meta-references are either subtle enough to be Easter eggs (like the Kick-Ass reference) or exist solely as fun gaffs that have no consequences and are never acknowledged as being meta (the Halloween costumes). I say most, because there is one big meta-reference that I think was a mistake, and where it kind of starts to fall apart in my eyes. 

As much as I adore Evan Peters’ Pietro, as extremely happy as I was to see him on this show, this particular meta-reference was done in a way that breaks the second world illusion, because they pointed a big red sign at a meta reference and then tried to explain it without breaking into the multiverse. 

The thing about breaking the fourth-wall and meta-referencing is that it has to be toungue-in-cheek to be sustainable. Our brains are accepting that this reference is for us, but to make it a serious part of the story requires an answer to the question: Why? By explaining that actually, this fake Pietro was Ralph the whole time, a real person who exists in this gritty realism universe, the illusion of tongue-in-cheek is gone. Suddenly, there is a person who brings into question the entire structure of the second world. Because this second world does not have access to the multiverse (Into the Spiderverse is wholly its own thing), it doesn’t make sense that this random guy who happened to be used by Agatha to play Pietro in Wanda's fantasy world looks exactly like Pietro from elsewhere in the multiverse. The joke becomes confusing, and we start trying to find answers where there are none. 

In my opinion, there are two ways they could have solved that problem. 1. Never explain it. If you never explain it, it’s just a weird meta reference for us that also exists in Wanda’s fake-world that is in itself accessing the multiverse (see: the costumes), without touching the realism world outside the bubble. 

2. What I’m now calling the Taika Waititi method. Give a nonsense explanation told with a straight face as a brush-off. Say, Wanda asks Agatha who this guy is, and she says something along the lines of, oh I don’t know I just pulled some random Pietro out of the universe, I never met the guy I had to improvise. 

That all being said, there is an important point to Ralph!Pietro's existence, and that is to define the limits of creation. Ralph!Pietro tells us that Agatha was incapable of creating people from scratch. She couldn't just make a new Pietro, she had to find a substitute. This is in direct opposition to something that Wanda does: create people. Wanda creates Billy and Tommy out of nothing. Billy and Tommy are not just props, but develop genuine autonomy, distinct personalities, are able to manipulate the illusion while being conscious of it, and to some extent seem concious of their own irreality. This not only shows us that Wanda is much stronger than Agatha, but also sets us up wonderfully for the Young Avengers show that Marvel is most definitely working towards. Wanda created actual people, who are going to have to exist in some way whether she intended it or not. So I suppose, for the sake of the twins, we can break the second world just a little. 

WandaVision really is impressive. Pulling off multiple tones and multiple second worlds simultaneously without even explaining it away with the multiverse is hard, and they did a pretty good job all things considered. 

If anyone is interested in what the hell I’m talking about in regards to second worlds, I highly recommend Tolkien’s essay On Fairy Stories which pretty much defines how fantastic fiction works. Definitely worth a read, and I hope you enjoyed this one! 

A new start in 2021

Hello world, hello internet. It's your friendly neighborhood Mercury here, revamping their blog. 

I have opted to not delete my old posts, but rather keep them here relabeled as #oldposts. The posts before this one are from 2015 at the most recent. They're good enough to keep, but should be taken at face value as they were written before moving to a new country, before completing a master’s degree, before really getting to know the transqueer nature of my existence, and before we entered into this Brave New World that is our planet in 2021.

We are all new now, and every day that goes by we become new people again, reformed by the experiences of the last.

Second relaunch is the charm, so let's get going.

- Mercury

We Will Be Consumed When Love Explodes! A Thank You to Lena Hall

 

Image courtesy of Theaterboys

Saturday night at the Belasco Theater, sometime around 11 PM, Lena Hall tugged the earpiece from her ear and let it hang discarded around her neck.  This minuscule moment, a pause before the next verse of her solo number The Long Grift, is burned into my memory.  Reflected on her face with her ear free of reverb was the fact that Lena Hall and Yitzhak were both all-in, with nothing left to hold back.  In a freeze frame of time, it embodied the performance in its entirety, from start to finish.  In that one distinct action, Lena Hall was raw and ready to release everything she had left inside of herself.  

Ms. Hall, who has been playing Yitzhak for the last year in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, is a force to be reckoned with.  The role of Yitzhak, the husband, back-up singer, and roadie for Genderqueer Punk Rock star Hedwig Robinson, is one with minimal dialogue, but the role carries a whopping half of the show's emotional weight.  It is a role that requires a dedication to physical labor and dramatic background acting as well as the vocal chops to hit the powerhouse notes of Whitney Houston while still maintaining the heavy gravel akin to the stylings of Tom Waits.  The show belongs to Hedwig, the title character, and to John Cameron Mitchell, the original Hedwig and current actor in the role.  Hedwig is the star, but for this one night the stage did not belong to Hedwig. The night belonged entirely to Yitzhak.

I can’t recall ever having been in a room more filled with love than that theater.  The seats and standing room were filled with people who wanted to wish Lena Hall the very best, to see her final performance and to be with her in this experience.  The show was more than just a show; it was a party in her name.  Love poured out from the audience with every standing ovation after standing ovation, character and fourth wall were broken on occasion and built right back up with love as adoration with the building blocks of improvisation.  The caustic relationship between Hedwig and Yitzhak, one built on a volatile combination of jealousy, love, and violent self-doubt soared above and beyond the usual (and always moving) battle between two bare and frustrated forces.  For all the love that the audience gave unto Lena Hall, John Cameron Mitchell and Hedwig multiplied it by thousands.  There was an intimacy to the performance, with the looks given to one another, to touches and lingering hands and softer than usual quips of tongue.  Watching as well as being in the theater surrounded by trembling fans was to be in Hedwig’s oven, with love reverberating around us like the sound of Lou Reed on American Forces Radio against the walls.  Watching Lena Hall’s face as she acted her way through, fighting off tears and tearing her throat out with powerful vocals was an experience in empathetic transcendence.  This was a show, above all, not just about watching the details but also about feeling them in our bones.  

Hedwig and the Angry Inch is an experience to be had more than once.  As of Lena Hall’s last show, I have seen the show three times.  That would be less than some, and more than others.   I wasn’t lucky enough to catch the train before John Cameron Mitchell put the wig back on his head, and I never saw how Lena played off of the other actors.  I came to this show fresh, wet behind the ears in relation to this particular piece of musical theater history and not knowing exactly what to expect, aside from what the general populace had told me.  The moment in time was, for me, one of personal upheaval, and I needed something to carry me through.  There had been too much death in my life recently, too much striving half-heartedly for out of focus goals.  I was tired, grasping at straws.  Most importantly I think, I needed a distraction.  John Cameron Mitchell as Hedwig is himself a transcendent, but there was something different about Yitzhak.  I was more than moved, I was shaken.  I recognized myself in Yitzhak, and I attribute that entirely to Lena Hall’s performance.  Lena Hall and Yitzhak helped me come to terms with my own gender fluidity in a way that I had not yet done before, through her mannerisms and her dedication to presenting both masculine and feminine elements of the character.  What’s more, I empathized deeply with Yitzhak’s plight of playing second fiddle, with the frustration and adoration both simultaneously exuded by Lena’s performance.  I understood Yitzhak’s loving anger and sadness intimately, with his desire to be loving at odds with his need for self-actualization.  Lena Hall’s performance as Yitzhak touched something inside of me and, most importantly, shook me awake.  I was inspired again, to write, to draw, to create, and to reflect on the creation of others.  Hedwig and the Angry Inch was what I needed in that moment, and Yitzhak stood firmly relatable like an island in a storm.  

For this wave of passion and inspiration, I want to thank Ms. Lena Hall for her art.  

I don’t believe any of this would have been possible without her sheer talent for embodying another human being.  So often in musical theater, an actor has to be chosen who is perhaps a better singer than an actor, or the reverse, for a more dramatic role.  Lena Hall was able to not only play the part, but to become it with a raw passion and untempered vocal fury.  Off stage and on; she engulfed herself in the role, playing the part as if she were wearing a second skin, even when she didn’t have to.  Her performance as Yitzhak read like an act of love in itself.  I spent hours watching YouTube videos and tracking her Yitzogram hashtag because I needed something with which to relate.  She tackled the role of Yitzhak, with its minimal dialogue and maximum emotional impact, with a dedication often reserved for Oscar contenders or singers destined to join the 27 club.  I cannot speak to having been moved by Hedwig and the Angry Inch at a young age like so many others, but I can speak to it now, in my adulthood, and to being moved by Lena Hall.  

Thank you, Lena Hall, for the inspiration, and for the unrelenting passion of your work.  Thank you for shining like the brightest star.  Your dedication to your craft and your winning personality have guaranteed another long-term fan.  Thank you, for everything.

And all the strange rock and rollers

You know you're doing all right

So hold on to each other

You gotta hold on tonight

And you're shining

Like the brightest stars

A transmission

              On the midnight radio

I'm not crazy - in an institution: Punk at the Met and an air of unease

I entered into the Punk: Chaos to Couture exhibit at the met with mild reservations but general excitement. The Met has a spectacular track record for good fashion exhibits, and this tribute to 1970's Anti-Establishment counter culture is well positioned in contrast to Impressionism, Fashion, and Moderism exhibit.  The two fashion-centric exhibits sit next door to one another, representing two very distinct, different styles from different times with one strong common bond: the desire to reject the previous generation and innovate.  The general excitement I had for the Met's Punk exhibit outweighed my reservations, given the museum's history with fashion exhibits, yet the reservation remained.  I was unsure how an exhibit about a culturally subversive and anti-establishment fashion culture could possibly function well within, well, the establishment itself.  

As I walked through the exhibit I stewed in my thoughts and feelings on the subject.  I was uncomfortable, and I couldn't put my finger on why.  The clothes were gorgeous, and the couture garments displayed exemplified the influence that Punk culture had on high fashion.  From the unbeatable king of alternative beauty Alexander McQueen to the founding queen of punk fashion herself Vivienne Westwood, most of the works showed a true understanding and love for the Punk concept, the deconstructive and reconstructive nature of it all.  (I say most purposefully; not all of the high-end designers represented truly understood the style they were attempting to imitate.)  It wasn't until I came to the end of the exhibit, face to face with the gift shop that accompanies every exhibit that it really hit me.  

What is so uncomfortable about this whole concept isn't that punk couture is being displayed as art (which it is), or that the punk subculture was being exhibited as art-historically relevant (as it should be).  What made me uncomfortable was that this whole grand curated plan goes against everything Punk Rock stood for in a way seemed to sanitize and commercialize it.  Now, commercializing Punk Rock isn't a new thing, and neither is sanitizing it, but it seemed crisper in this environment, clearer in its wrongness than it ever had to be before.  

The exhibit begins with a display of clothing that is not, as the rest of the exhibit will be, high-fashion couture.  The earliest examples presented are more representative of street clothes.  Torn, punched, blended clothing and torn tee-shirts rest on on mannequins with synthetic Halloween wigs atop their plastic heads.  It begins with a display of what the inside of Vivienne Westwood's original shop looked like, with torn tee-shirts in abundance.  The display of Vivienne Westwood's shop was ingenious as a way to engage to viewer in understanding the grunge and gritty origins of punk fashion, through the first designer to decide this was something she wanted to do and became a name for it.  The shop as historical context distracts, though, for the issue of torn see-shirts and studded leather jackets in tatters on mannequins.  This casual street clothes fashion style was meant to be a rejection of the norm, to be a cheap way of self-expression through pure unadulterated anarchy.  It was a movement for the youth with no money and no patience for the establishment.  To see the fruits of this frustrated labor exemplified as something on display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art alongside Versace and Dolce & Gabanna was unsettling.  To see the Met selling pristine tee-shirts with images and slogans on them in reference to the punk movement seemed, in that moment, almost criminal.  

I imagine that a genuine punk ripe from 1970s disillusionment would find themselves disgusted by the whole idea of this exhibit, and that in itself made me uncomfortable.  It felt to me not as an example of couture work inspired by a subculture and only couture work inspired by said subculture, but an appropriation of a subculture into the sterile environment of high art.  It wanted to represent a historical fashion movement but only managed to present the movement as an untouchable high-art concept. 

This is, by no means, a call to boycott the exhibit.  Most of the exhibit is wonderful, and the couture works inspired by the movement are high fashion art at it's finest.  I would simply advice to approach it with a bit of skepticism, and to not purchase a shirt from their store.  That is, unless you intend on re-appropriating  the wild commercialism of it it in your own way, in true Punk style. Then have at it, fuck shit up.

I am Tough, but I'm No Cookie: Praising Lana Winters

Author's Note: I set to write about the superb character that is Lana Winters in American Horror Story before the season was over.  What is so spectacular about American Horror Story is that each season is self-contained, without the risk of spinning wildly out of control.  I could have waited, yet I didn't   Now that the season is over, I’ve gone back and added to this, but my opinion has not changed.

Here are a few praises hailing Lana Winters, played by Sarah Paulson.

 gif by snowwhitebemberg on Tumblr

I am a far cry from Ryan Murphy’s biggest fan.  I gave up on Glee after a long struggle with his sloppy writing and contradictory characterization, and I have barely held on to The New Normal for the sake of a cast that I’m fond of, in spite of it's frankly masturbatory nature.  That said, I have held on tightly to American Horror Story.  It seems that, in spite of Ryan Murphy, this show has succeeded in being quality television.  Some would argue that it’s not, based on a few key flaws, but I’m not here to defend American Horror Story so much as praise one of the new seasons main characters, Lana Winters.

I would go as far as to say that Lana Winters is one of the best characters on TV today.

This is in part thanks to Sarah Paulson’s incredible acting, relaying the story of a strong woman going through hell and remaining, throughout it, sane.  Appropriately traumatized to the point that she cannot physically allow the baby she will loathe to be aborted, because she can’t open her legs far enough, can’t keep from being loud, and can’t stop imagining all the death she’s seen.  Traumatized, but sane.  With Sarah Paulson’s skill, we really feel the truth behind her emotions.  This makes her relatable in ways that the writing of her story would not be able to do on it’s own, with a less sufficient actress at the helm.

What is truly spectacular about Lana Winters, beyond the pure chops of Sarah Paulson, is that she is not a stereotype.

Last season, we were presented with a cast of characters all cut out of a very unified mold: the residents of a rich Los Angeles neighborhood. While they were (mostly) all different, individually interesting characters, they all had elements of that tricky little writing tool that Ryan Murphy tends to fall into: namely, character typing. We have the bigoted older southern belle, the psychopathic romantic interest, the misunderstood teenager and the sexually diverse gay couple who don’t avoid stereotypes so much as slide comfortably into them.  His characters are often a sloppy cut-and-paste job from TVTropes.  We can safely say that season 1, with it's aimless focus and squeaky wheels, was a test run for ideas and artistic license.  We see many of these tropes again in season 2 ( see the Nazi Doctor Arden for your bigoted older gentleman, or Axe Murderer Grace for your psychopathic love interest—one that subsequently gets turned on its head quite interestingly), but one character really seems to pull away from the mold: that of our Heroine, Lana Winters.

When we were first presented with a strong, gay, female reporter, I was wary for a few reasons.  My first concern was for her longevity.  American Horror Story has proven that the writers have no qualms against being cruel for the sake of a deeply disturbing and theme-appropriate story.  While this is a daring and wonderful quality for a television show, given how driven today’s media is to please the fans, it sets the viewer up not to have hope.  It seemed inevitable that she would be sullied in some way, or sacrificed to the gears of plot for the sake of Kit and Sister Jude, the show’s headliners.  A second concern I had, and a much more major one at that, was how Ryan Murphy would handle her.  Despite being a gay man himself, his track record for writing gay characters who don’t rely on their sexuality as a defining characteristics is rather poor.  Kurt Hummel, originally a uniquely individual character, has become a series of statements on gay rights without much concern for any other aspect of his life.  He is gay, and that is why he exists.  Oddly enough, that was the first critique of Kurt given to me long ago that made me begin to see the light and release my tight grip on the show.  The same can be said about the Zachary Quinto’s character in the first season of American Horror Story, whose plot is entirely based on his relationship, and of course is also the case with the entire working premise of The New Normal.  More often than not, Ryan Murphy’s gay characters are defined by their homosexuality.  

On top of all of this Lana is also a woman, and I don’t trust Ryan Murphy’s shows to pass the Bechdel test on a regular basis.  There are numerous articles about how poorly Ryan Murphy writes female characters, so I won’t go into that so much here.  What I will talk about is lesbians.  While the negative treatment of gay women by gay men is a massive stereotype in its own, Ryan Murphy feeds into stereotypes very often.  His own character, Bryan Collins of The New Normal, is essentially a a representation of Ryan Murphy himself, and a very campy, occasionally over the top one at that.  Bryan can really be used as a reflection of how Ryan Murphy sees himself, and it doesn't bode well for his opinion of lesbians;  Bryan's opinion of lesbians feeds directly into the stereotype.  This leads me to believe that Lana, being a lesbian, would not be treated or depicted fairly, but rather through the stereotypical lens of a gay man. 

So I worried about Lana.  I worried that she would die, or that she would be relegated to a love interest, or a butch stereotype, or rely solely on her sexuality as a plot device. I am happy to say that I couldn't be more wrong.

Lana Winters has shown herself to be multidimensional.  She is strong and independent, occasionally cold and callous, but not without a heart or soul.  She has moments of weakness, moments where she is terribly wrong, and moments when she is right on target.  She was even, in the penultimate episode, shown to be terribly flawed, emphasized by her own state of repentance in the finale (which isn't solely repentance, keeping her from being a glorified saint—there is personal gain in that as well).  She isn't the perfect strong hero that she could have been.  When it came to beginning her career anew, she chose the safety of not outing herself in her book and not risking being sent back to Briarcliff by digging once again into the state of the place.  She chose an escape through applause, her goal from the very beginning (Now That’s What I Call Continuity).  It shows the depth of a character that she can do something that so many fans have been enraged by, and not actually be wrong by doing it.  It is a purely human reaction, one that she falls into before she takes Kit’s words as fuel to the flame and becomes who she wanted to be once again.

I know that a great deal of this post was about how much I dislike Ryan Murphy, but that’s important.  Ryan Murphy’s flaws as a writer emphasize how Lana shines through his usual pitfalls into being a product of true inspiration.  Lana has proved to be her own character, and with every trope thrown her way she has slipped by with a giant fuck you.

gif by elmumin on Tumblr