Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

This one's for my people...

Our Lady of The Two Towers

14:35 / 02.03.02

Previously on Barbelith...

Originally posted by Bio K9:
quote: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.

Originally posted by Cholister:
quote: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.

OK, I can see Cholister's point here, and I know we've discussed the whole 'alternative lifestyle/lax sexuality= evil' thing before, mainly about DS9. But if we worry too much that film x is a bad film because it puts down a particular group of people are we not then guilty of emphasising the differences between that group and 'the mainstream', whatever that is?
I guess what I'm trying to say is, in 'From Hell', were the killings against lesbians, against women or against people? Were the directors trying to make her the archetype lesbian to enact a punishment for her living beyond men's rules? Shit, I'm getting out of my depth here. I think I've lost the point I was trying to make. I think it was, should we view a character as representative of whatever group they may be part of or is it not better to see them as people? After all, why do people find 'Thelma and Louise' empowering, they die at the end...

14:54 / 02.03.02

first of all, i'm puzzled as to why so many people find 'thelma and louise' so empowering. surely, everything they do, everything that happens, is guided by men? they are pushed in all directions and the end - where they drive over the edge of a cliff - is the only vaguely 'fuck you' option open to them. extremely depressing, in my book.

i always think gay characters/directors have a hell of a task. they cannot be representative for a whole community, they should only be rep of themselves, i think. however, i would like to know if long liz was a dyke. i think it's stuck in the film for several reasons. her killing is pretty damn blatantly homophobic, i would agree. and having her g/f there as a convenient swap for marie kelly is....well, too convenient. the fact that liz tries to shag anything going is pretty insulting.

i do believe in the masonic conspiracy theory, so i don't believe the whitechapel murders were misogynist; they were political.

15:15 / 02.03.02

Personally I think Thelma and Louise was interesting not because it was a film in which defiance was successful, but because there was a consistent refusal to assimilate - to take their punishment - and also because the relationship between the two women allows both of them to change and evolve to a much greater extent than their relationships with men were allowing...

05:35 / 03.03.02

I guess what I'm trying to say is, in 'From Hell', were the killings against lesbians, against women or against people?

Id like to think that the killings in From Hell were about killing people that threatened the royal family. The fact that they were women is certainly important, as is the fact that they were both homeless and prostitutes. I do think the Queen would have had the blackmailers killed if they had been men but I'll readily admit that the killings would have been handled in a different manner (a la John Druitt) and the societys reaction to the killings would have been far different.

The Marie Kelly (Julia?) murder was, arguably, the most vicious of the five in real life but not in the movie. Is that because the Marie Kelly murder/ mutilation would have been too graphic for an R rating? Quite possibly. Its also possible that the Hughes brothers put more import on the actual murder of Liz Stride because the other killings had events surrounding them, "The Juwes are the Men who will not be blamed for nothing" in the case of Catherine Eddowes and who was really kiled? in the case of Marie Kelly.

My personal opinion is that the Hughes brothers mutilated the source material from beginning to end. The film is complete shit and I don't wish to speak of it ever again. Everytime I get to talking about From Hell my memories of the book* (which is flawless except for Abberlines disappearing head at the end the the story**) get mixed in with my memories of the movie (which I just gave my opinion on) and I somehow end up defending the latter. Personally, Id prefer if this thread continued on with this:

Should we view a character as representative of whatever group they may be part of or is it better to see them as individuals?

as the general question, rather than any one movie being used as the axis for debate. And maybe this should be moved to the Head Shop.

*In the book Liz isn't the only one that engages in lesbian activities. One more example of the Hughes brothers butchery of the origional work.

**This has been corrected for the collected version, so nevermind.

[ 03-03-2002: Message edited by: Bio K9 ]

The Natural Way

10:51 / 04.03.02

Were the directors trying to make her the archetype lesbian to enact a punishment for her living beyond men's rules?

What? Consciously? Unlikely.

Otherwise: perhaps.

10:58 / 04.03.02

I guess what I'm trying to say is, in 'From Hell', were the killings against lesbians, against women or against people?

Having not seen the film, nor having any intention of doing so, I couldn't say. In the book, though, the crimes are primarily against women, with the royal conspiracy stuff being a convenient excuse for Gull. Does the film explore any of the gender issues that are central to the book?

Our Lady of The Two Towers

12:50 / 04.03.02

The question I completely failed to ask, arising from Cholister's post was; Should we be making 'whatever-centred movies' which tend ('Boys Don't Cry' being an obvious example) to get hidden in the whatever film ghetto, or mainstream films which have whatevers in who then might not be nice people.
I was trying, not very well, to get my question away from From Hell because I haven't seen it and I'm aware that the characters in that were seen as very stereotypical.

[ 04-03-2002: Message edited by: Loz' Sweet Exile ]

14:29 / 04.03.02

quote:Originally posted by shortfatdyke:
i do believe in the masonic conspiracy theory, so i don't believe the whitechapel murders were misogynist; they were political.

Off topic: you *so* need to read the graphic novel.

On topic: any act of fiction creates monolithic characters, because they create tiny worlds. If you're the only lesbian in the fiction, and something terrible happens to you, then (in the world of the fiction) terrible things happen to all lesbians.
I'm not sure you can draw out what happens in the tiny world to the big world ("reality") unless it
a. seems to happen in a lot of different (related) tiny worlds, and
b. there's a close correspondence between the tiny world and the big world - like referencing recent headlines or commenting on current issues.

And that's really up for interpretation.

I'll also say that there's something about the camera that's simulataneously erotic and violent; you'll see that throughout film history, there's a tendency to bring "marginal" figures into focus, then banish them. I personally think it's built into the hardware. (CLOSE UP on expectant eyes, CUT to gleaming knife....)