A couple of links

[selenak]

So, I couldn't resist, went to the cinema and watched Casino Royale again. Accidental tv watchings aside, I don't think I ever did that with a Bond movie. After coming home feeling as enthralled as the first time, I stumbled across the following article, in which we learn that Daniel Craig a) watches Dr. Who and b) wants Bond to have a gay sex scene in the next movie. It probably says something about my own fannish priorities that I find both equally endearing. Anyway, go Craig!

***

No matter whether or not you've seen either or both Pirates of the Carribean movies, this post is a very well written treatise on a widespread fannish phenomenon within an ongoing and open canon - to react to developments with the characters one doesn't like by declaring them either a sellout on the writers/creators part, or ooc and badly written. Which of course sometimes might be the case, but fabu makes a great argument here about how easily it is to fall back on this argument instead of applying the same standard one does to fanfic, where readers often accept a multitude of mutually exclusive developments starting from the same point in canon. Substitute another fandom for PotC, and it still works. I'm not excepting myself here (see also: Alias and finale issues). Great post.

****

And lastly, one more reason to love the internet and your fellow fans: they provide so quickly for your fannish needs. Already there is a fabulous Dexter vid out there, made by chasarumba, called "Making Lemonade" and to be found here. Captures the black humour of the series, and the disturbingly fascinating and fascinatingly disturbingness of Dexter, all American boy and serial killer. Six Feet Under fans, if you haven't had a chance to watch Dexter yet, watch the vid for Michael C. Hall's sake, hm?

Comments

[bimo.livejournal.com]

No matter whether or not you've seen either or both Pirates of the Caribbean movies, this post is a very well written treatise on a widespread fannish phenomenon within an ongoing and open canon - to react to developments with the characters one doesn't like by declaring them either a sellout on the writers/creators part, or ooc and badly written.

Interesting essay, good observation of fannish tendencies, clearly worth pondering on. Lots of thanks for the link!

Not sure, though, whether I now should feel like a kid caught with its hands in the cookie jar, or not ;-)

In my opinion, PotC is one of those few cases in which the source of all trouble doesn't lie in the individual choices the writers made for their characters (dark!unlikeable!Jack, pragmatist!Elizabeth, hardened!cynical!Norrington), but rather in their sometimes more than unfortunate execution.

I really enjoyed the movie during my first viewing (well, apart from Cannibal island *sigh*), and still love considerable portions of it, but that doesn't mean I'm willing to twist my brain around those bits for which there wasn't the slightest logical, psychological or dramaturgical necessity/explanation.

Just take the 'hamster wheel' fight for example. Sure looks great, and is quite entertaining. But Norrington's sudden turn on Will, just because Jack says so? Makes the man appear like an easily manipulated moron, when all of Norrington's other actions (both CotBP and DMC) seem point into just the opposite direction.

And inconsistencies like that are just plain annoying, especially if you *are* trying to keep your own version of the characters close to canon ;-)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

My take on the hamster wheel scene was that a) Norrington was so pissed off at both Jack and Will that it really didn't matter much to him and b) we were supposed to agree with Elizabeth that all three boys were being (right then, not always) posturing idiots (that shot from literary her pov of the wheel making the point rather explicitly), which left her to do the sensible thing, i.e. looking for the chest. Also, I found it interesting that the big fight scene of the film (at least in terms of sword fighting) was used as comic relief while one if the things it was intercut with was a surprisingly sinister use of the usual comic relief characters, the slapstick duo, realising that they're alone with a seemingly weaponless Elizabeth (that did come across as a brief rape threat, I don't think there is any other interpretation).

Mind you, I have my own examples of otherwise well developed characters suddenly (and usually briefly) doing something bizarrely ooc for comic relief, my favourite (not!) always being Vir's last line in Sic Transit Vir re: Lyndisty, "which relationship doesn't have its ups and downs", which is really a punchline and not something Vir, he who is all for Cartagia being assassinated after the G'Kar torture, would say considering what he just learned about Lyndisty....

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

we learn that Daniel Craig a) watches Dr. Who and b) wants Bond to have a gay sex scene in the next movie. It probably says something about my own fannish priorities that I find both equally endearing.

Oh, hooray for him! He's totally right on both, of course, but particularly point B. It's no longer a taboo, and it defies both realism and modern depictions of sexuality that a secret agent who trades partly in seduction professionally has never seduced a man. There's also a slight bravery in taking an icon of cheerful old-fashioned chauvinism (whether one likes Bond or not, it's hard to deny he's the poster boy for casual womanizing and slightly fetishized male heterosexuality) in a more sexually ambuiguous and less socially-sanctioned direction, and that's precisely why it should be done. (And it's also why it stands a good chance of happening; if they're standing behind a modern reboot, doing away with the cliches and going back to harder-edged, less fantasy-based, basics, that's one of them. And Craig may now have the status to ask for it.) I'm also very fond of depictions of sexuality that don't put much credence in heavily-labeled identities and acknowledge implicit flexibility; one of the things that won me over to Jack Harkness as a character was his sexuality, not in terms of appeal or appetite, but in terms of how un-selfconscious and naturally fluid it was. Bond as a cultural phenomenon was dedicatedly sexually progressive in the 1960s, and I'd have much more respect for it if it were just as sexually progressive today.

I was quite charmed by Judi Dench mentioning in an interview what she thought of Daniel Craig's genitalia, then rather unapologetically observing that she probably shouldn't be so uncouth, so both she and Daniel Craig seem entirely happy to give promotional interviews containing matter-of-fact-yet-mildly-provocative-and-sex-positive comments, which is a flavor I enjoy, and would be glad to see reflected in media more often. I'm glad they kept her; I suspect she's much better suited to this approach than the glossy Brosnan movies, which boil down to essentially so much chuckling over "Bond, you charming old dinosaur, how long can you last before that humorless political correctness emasculates you?", with different movies wighing in with different answers. I haven't seen Casino Royale yet, but I get the impression they're using her talents somewhat better. (Disillusion me gently, if you must.) :)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

No need to disillusion you, gently or otherwise, they use her fabulously in the movie. (Also, she gets most of the best lines.) Not only is she a convincing tough as nails secret service boss but she sparks off Craig in a way she never did with Brosnan. I must repeat my fanfic rec of this story (http://intimations.org/fanfic/jamesbond/Queen%20of%20Spades.html).

There's also a slight bravery in taking an icon of cheerful old-fashioned chauvinism (whether one likes Bond or not, it's hard to deny he's the poster boy for casual womanizing and slightly fetishized male heterosexuality) in a more sexually ambuiguous and less socially-sanctioned direction, and that's precisely why it should be done.

Absolutely. It would keep the reboot fresh and innovative (and they can't repeat in the next movie what they did in Casino Royale, the Bond-grows (or falls)-into-"James Bond" thing), and would help emphasizing the attempt at (for the spy genre) emotional realism.

*crosses fingers*

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

I read that story when communicator recced it a few days ago; it was fantastic, and Bond/M is my new OTP. :) I love the anti-romance of it, that hard edge, the sense of a power game being played in both directions, the uncertainty of who's the winner (along with the feeling that the old rules have been inverted, and that the reader's been blindsided by a pro just the way Bond has), that the seduction going on is not at all a sexual one, the twists and self-awareness of the gender roles.

No need to disillusion you, gently or otherwise, they use her fabulously in the movie. (Also, she gets most of the best lines.) Not only is she a convincing tough as nails secret service boss but she sparks off Craig in a way she never did with Brosnan.

Oh, wonderful. She's always seemed like a cameo role in the past, and occasionally a slightly embarrassing one - strident feminist boss to provide a straw man of modern sensibilities for us to be glad Bond has survived in all his unreformed glory for at least one more movie being prime among them. While she was always good, it seemed a shame to have, you know Oscar Winner Dame Judi "More Amazing Than Any of You" Dench, and give her thirty seconds of screentime. And she's such an amazing cast against type, that when she nails it, you know you've got performance gold. Cast pretty much any middle-aged man, and you've got a convincing stereotype, no matter how well he does, because it's been done, and you've also got to be careful you don't make him too much like your lead. Cast a tiny, soft-spoken woman in her 70s who makes you believe she's running the secret service, and you've got both an unbeatable patina of realism and an opportunity to ratchet up the atmosphere of people hardened by a life in espionage. (And given how many "quirky but feminine women of a certain age" they've got her playing these days, it's just nice to think that someone would cast her as something that actually felt harder and more dangerous.)

I could imagine her sparking off of Craig; they're both very solid actors capable of some real intensity, and I wasn't entirely kidding about the glamour of the un-pretty. When runway-ready Brosnan's your spotlight character and the mood is all about shiny gadgets and suave lines, the glamour's largely about the surface gloss, and it would be slightly mocking the serious older woman to ask her to really go up against the lead, where the rules are set up to work against her. When Craig's the spotlight character and the mood is about cutting away the romantic cliches in favor of something with more bite, the sense of what's glamorous, what's glorified by the authorial voice, changes significantly, and you can show an older woman as an amazingly rounded and successful character within the established rules. The intensity at which the characters can engage each other picks up dramatically, and you get to see all sorts of angles of the characters and points of friction between them that you really can't show if you're just showing their glossiest sides. Also, it's just an extremely hot phrase. Mmm, Craig and Dench sparking off each other.

would help emphasizing the attempt at (for the spy genre) emotional realism.

Absolutely. And, you know, when your story is all about the glorification of danger, and making it feel dangerous and suspenseful, you need to take story-telling risks to go with it, or else you've got camp - and without patting yourself on the back for it, or you look like you're really not up to the challenge you've set yourself.

[honorh.livejournal.com]

Damn, that's a good story! Fascinating interplay of gender and power, with the additional layer of knowing M was once what James Bond is making himself into. Gotta love a woman who can beat him at his own game of seduction!

[selenak.livejournal.com]

M is awesome, and so is the story, not denying her age and physicality but making it a part of her power. And yes, love the way the gender issues and reversal of expectations are done. On a meta level, what's fascinating is that male agents who seduce people from the opposition are traditionally seen as cool - and the Bond movies have a lot to do with that - whereas female agents doing the same thing usually work for the KGB and are bad girls. Here, it's acknowledged as a part of what both Bond and M are, and that is explored.

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

One thing this immediately brought to mind is that unfortunate scene in "The Big Sleep" where (explicitly in the book, implicitly in the movie), Marlowe-Bogart poses as an art-loving pansy, or whatever unfortunate word Chandler uses, to get information out of a bookseller. (I think it's followed directly by the one where he tells a woman he is similarly asking for information to take her glasses off, apparently because an attractive woman with glasses is in some way wasted or offensive).

My point being -- it's perfectly okay for a manly hero to play queer for laughs, winking at the audience to let him know he doesn't really mean it, but as for following that through to the logical implications. . . also reminds me that I've always been slightly disappointed that Alias didn't do more genderplay with various aliases/costumes -- you know the designers would have had fun getting Syd or Nadia up like a boy, had the situation so required. (Reserves comments re: Vaughn in a dress).

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

Exactly; had the Brosnan movies done it, I think it would have been done for laughs. I suspect the Craig movies would do it bluntly for the logical consequences, if they were to do it. I would love an action hero that did. Particularly if, as the rumors seem to be running, it were not in the line of duty, but as part of his actual personal life - I'm all over the genuinely bisexual/omnisexual action heroes.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

If the Leiter rumours were true, that would certainly be revolutionary, because Leiter is a recurring character and part of the Bond myth, as a friend, so yeah, personal life.

In any event: as long as it's not presented as a gag, I'm all for it.

Incidentally: M in Casino Royale has a young male secretary in place of Miss Moneypenny, and if you think about it, a male Moneypenny makes as much sense as a female M, and maybe that secretary will inherit the Moneypenny tradition of flirting, too?

[andraste]

I stumbled across the following article, in which we learn that Daniel Craig a) watches Dr. Who and b) wants Bond to have a gay sex scene in the next movie. It probably says something about my own fannish priorities that I find both equally endearing. Anyway, go Craig!

I think it should be a sex scene involving Doctor Who, just to make things perfect *g*. (Maybe David Tennant could be in it or somethng ...)

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

Eccleston needs a job. I think he'd make a good Bond girl; he's perfect for the new glamour-of-the-hard-and-unpretty look-and-feel.

Mind you, the mind boggles as to how they're going to come up with parallels of Pussy Galore and Honey Ryder. Rod Long? Thurston Wood? Whatever; all is forgiven once they break out the gold bodypaint.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

LOL. Well, Eccleston can be the Bond Girl With A Tragic Past (aka Diana Rigg as Tracy), and Tennant (who looked rather fetchingly in black leather when he cameod as Barty Crouch Jr. in Goblet of Fire) can be the Bond Girl Just For Fun.

Gold Bodypaint: having seen much of Daniel Craig's body in Casino Royale, I insist they put it on him during his undercover mission in the Evil Villain's Club Of GlitterDancers.

[yahtzee63.livejournal.com]

You guys do know that Eccleston's joining "Heroes" in January, yes?

::is excited::

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Good for him, though since I, alas, cannot watch Heroes, I won't be able to see his performance.

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

I don't know about "Alas". . .

/snarky

Seriously, the show is so popular here I wouldn't be surprised if it shows up overseas sooner or later.

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

And John Barrowman frankly needs a role that lets him have more sex and be more violent stretches his talents a bit more than his current one. He could be the Deceptively Attractive Bond Girl Who Means Trouble, and maybe ends up actually being Blofeld.

There's never a bad excuse for gold body paint. I could come up with half a dozen. Maybe they could try them all.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

So, you're saying JB would be Jo Grant turning into The Master? *g*

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

That sounds just about perfect to me. :)

[honorh.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah--cast him as the sultry nightclub singer (you've *got* to let the man sing) with the shady agenda. And you know JB would love it!

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

Also, he should wear his glasses, because not enough people in movies are sexy with glasses.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I like the sultry nightclub singer idea, muchly. He can sing the title song for the next Bond movie as well!

[andraste]

Eccleston needs a job.

I hearby demand that Eccleston appear as a character called Rod Long in the next film, coated with gold bodypaint and snogging James Bond.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

*has vision of David Tennant in something resembling his Barty Crouch Junior outfit in HP4*

My, yes.

[andraste]

Incidentally, you may be amused to hear that according to book continuity there's a Time Lord who works for MI-6 in the Whoniverse. The author has confirmed that this is indeed meant to be James Bond *g*.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

This makes all kinds of sense.*g*

[ruuger]

Daniel Craig a) watches Dr. Who and b) wants Bond to have a gay sex scene in the next movie.

There were rumours already a few months ago that in the next film there might be some mild Bond/Leiter (reportedly they want to cash in on Craig's gay following) and that both Craig and Jeffrey Wright have been keen on the idea. According to the rumours, Leiter would be one of the 'smaller' Bond-girls, so to speak - there would be a central female love-interest, but Bond would also have some hanky-panky with Leiter.

As a Bond/Leiter shipper of almost fifteen years, I heartily approve :)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

No objection here, either. Friends-with-benefits makes sense for those two.

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

Yay, bisexual action heroes! I'm entirely in favor.

[yahtzee63.livejournal.com]

I think that it is too easy to write off disliked elements of canon as OOC (or, on the flip side, to embrace something in canon that pleases us even if it does come out of nowhere), but OTOH, it's not only unquestionable that fans apply different standards to fanfic than to canon, but also entirely appropriate. Fanfic is by its nature "what if?", whereas canon is, in dramatic terms, fact. Also, I think fans feel very differently about the amount of "filling in the blanks" of necessity/character growth/etc. that we do as fanfic readers (where it is all part of a collaborative expression/exploration of the fannish source reader and writer both love) than we do when asked to do the same as viewers -- where we have no part in the process and are, to some sense in the fannish community, "bound" by what happens onscreen.

ITA that people are quick to yell "character assassination" anytime a character does something remotely off their usual track, and that people should be a little more ready to fanwank canon to their liking -- what's fandom for, after all? But I don't think we're automatically being hypocritical when we react differently to large characterization changes or plot twists in canon than we do in fic.

[violaswamp.livejournal.com]

I think you've got a good argument for OOC-ness when it comes to the Alias finale, particularly with regards to Irina, and probably Sloane as well. We might not have been told much about their game plans in S1-S4, but we were told enough that Irina wanting to blow up the world is completely random and out of nowhere.

Obviously it's easy to automatically dismiss developments one doesn't like as character-assassination--or, as Yahtzee pointed out, embrace happy shippy developments that one likes as canon even though they're totally out of nowhere. That's a general point no one can really argue with. The argument can only happen, I think, when you've got a specific example of a canon. Then you can argue whether that particular canon's creators strayed from their original vision.

The comparison to how we accept various possibilities in fanfic is interesting, because it implies that canon (or later canon, to be more precise) is on the level of fanfic. Which I'm fine with accepting, but many fans wouldn't be. If we should be as accepting of seemingly OOC quirks in PotC2 as we would be in the PotC fanfic world, then it makes sense that we should accept PotC2 as being no more authoritative than a well-written fanfic sequel to the first PotC. PotC2 then becomes just another possibility of what could happen after PotC1. PotC1 becomes the only real, authoritative canon. If PotC2 wants to be authoritative, then it has to meet a higher standard than fanfic.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that it proves he watches Doctor Who; he'd be aware of The Kiss anyway, because he co-starred with Eccleston in Our Friends in the North. (I liked the idea that they both went on to take up iconic recastable roles, and keep trying to think of equivalents for Gina McKee and Mark Strong.)

But I hope Craig did watch it, the Eccleston season at least.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

*mutters* IlikedtheTennantseasonjustatadbetter *mutters*

Explain about Gina McKee and Mark Strong?

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

There were four leads in Our Friends in the North: Eccleston, Craig, McKee and Strong (not to mention a very strong supporting cast including my adored Trevor Cooper and Danny Webb). I thought it would be nice if all four went on to be "The New [Iconic Role]", one way or another.

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

I have no idea who Gina McKee is, but. . .would she make a good Wonder Woman? *g*

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

By now I'm looking for mid-forties roles for her... Can Wonder Woman be approaching middle age?