quote:Originally posted by Bio K9:
Well, she was a prostitute. She lived rough, on the streets, drank too much and, I would imagine, had fairly poor personal boundaries. Saying that shes somehow supposed to be representative of all
lesbians isn't quite fair to the directors.
Heelllooooo????
She ***is*** representative of all lesbians. When there are so few lesbian characters in mainstream films, the burden of representation is on the few lesbian characters that there *are*. I think queerness is too often deployed as a shorthand for moral laxity or downright evil (cf. the Baron Harkonnen). So excuse me for thinking that the presentation of Liz as a sexual predator and the extreme and singular brutality of her onscreen death were more than a little bit friggin' dodgy.
quote:Originally posted by Bio K9:
Well, she was a prostitute. She lived rough, on the streets, drank too much and, I would imagine, had fairly poor personal boundaries.
But why was *she alone* loaded with all those negative characteristics when the presumably straight(ish) other women were also prostitutes, lived rough, etc, and managed to retain some degree of moral rectitude (and that is not even getting started on your implicit assumptions about 'prostitutes' and those that 'live rough'). I am not saying that queer characters should be (exclusively) bland or 'nice', I am simply saying that they should be accorded similar standards to their fellows in a film such as that.
Otherwise, it feels to me like a blatant case of metaphorical queer-bashing.
And I do think that the woman from Brussels' apparent unstraightness was deployed to render her more easily 'disposable'. Or maybe I am just paranoid.
I really am not getting at you, Bio K9, contrary to what you will probably think, given our brief history on here. Just that the presentation of Liz was so utterly blatantly homophobic that I can't help but get all shrieky about it.
I thought Depp's accent was really good, and I liked his character. Heather Graham's *was* laughably Dick Van Dyke though, and the kiddie's accent jarred considerably. The mystique surrounding the ripper pissed me off too - it ain't cool to kill people, and he was presented as a semi-supernatural being, even when he was 'unmasked'. I understand why, and I would guess that the press kinda presented him as such at the time (knowing nowt about the history tho', and I should mention I've not read the graphic novel either), but even so... and yes, bit of a cop out, blaming the murders on the one renegade mason... |
