It’s one of those days that ought to feel productive, but doesn’t at all. I got up at four to prepare my midterm review and discussion plan on medieval drama. I did both, but neither went so well. We didn’t have much to talk about with the drama, and it turned out my students all thought I would be doing the review next Thursday! Which I am okay with, but it means I will need to come up with even more material.
And this afternoon is beautiful, and I need to finish Rosalynde and get to work on saying something about As You Like It, which should be fun. But I’m struggling to do anything.
Meanwhile, I finally watched Secretary last night, which people have been telling me to see for at least a year.
I loved it. Of course I loved it. It is precisely my favorite kind of story, viz.: an unconventional couple finds love despite social frameworks that discourage the relationship. Maybe I should even just shorten that description to “an unconventional couple.” I am not romantic comedy person; nor am I someone who even seeks out stories about romance at all, but I am wholly delighted and usually moved to tears by stories about bonding (romantic or non-romantic) between people who fit nowhere else in society, or who would seem to have no appropriate counterparts.
Of course, the fact that Secretary is about fetish doesn’t hurt it in the “I will like this” scale; nor does the casting of James Spader and Maggie Gylenhaall, both of whom I like a whole lot. I tend to love mainstream or almost-mainstream fiction that acknowledges marginalized desires, although – and once again, this guarantees my liking Secretary -- I like that fiction to take a generally warm and fuzzy outlook, at least by the end. I’m a happy ending junkie, and I’m not enough of a moral relativist that I can think of all marginalized desires as equally acceptable. I wouldn’t enjoy a film reveling in Senator Foley-esque exploits, for instance. But the rose-tinted fetish world of Secretary? Awwww.
Marginalized desire and marginalized people – that’s why I chose to direct As You Like It all those years ago, come to think of it. Maybe that will help me come to grips with what to say for the presentation I have to do next Wednesday! Maybe I can sort of argue that both works use pastoral in the same way Steven Shainberg claims (on the director’s commentary, which I watched. I’ve never liked a movie so much that I wanted to watch the director’s commentary!) to use Mr. Gray’s office in Secretary: as a post-lapsarian Eden in which the socially damaged characters can build a new portfolio of experiences (and language) to replace the bankrupt or useless ones of the outside world.
And yet, there have to be some differences between that sort of exploration in a work of fiction and a play – in what way would As You Like It change the publicness of that exploration? Or maybe the difference is in didacticism? Or happiness?
I’m liking the comparison, but I’m not sure where to take it. One thing to do would be keep reading the book. Yes. That would be a good idea.
And this afternoon is beautiful, and I need to finish Rosalynde and get to work on saying something about As You Like It, which should be fun. But I’m struggling to do anything.
Meanwhile, I finally watched Secretary last night, which people have been telling me to see for at least a year.
I loved it. Of course I loved it. It is precisely my favorite kind of story, viz.: an unconventional couple finds love despite social frameworks that discourage the relationship. Maybe I should even just shorten that description to “an unconventional couple.” I am not romantic comedy person; nor am I someone who even seeks out stories about romance at all, but I am wholly delighted and usually moved to tears by stories about bonding (romantic or non-romantic) between people who fit nowhere else in society, or who would seem to have no appropriate counterparts.
Of course, the fact that Secretary is about fetish doesn’t hurt it in the “I will like this” scale; nor does the casting of James Spader and Maggie Gylenhaall, both of whom I like a whole lot. I tend to love mainstream or almost-mainstream fiction that acknowledges marginalized desires, although – and once again, this guarantees my liking Secretary -- I like that fiction to take a generally warm and fuzzy outlook, at least by the end. I’m a happy ending junkie, and I’m not enough of a moral relativist that I can think of all marginalized desires as equally acceptable. I wouldn’t enjoy a film reveling in Senator Foley-esque exploits, for instance. But the rose-tinted fetish world of Secretary? Awwww.
Marginalized desire and marginalized people – that’s why I chose to direct As You Like It all those years ago, come to think of it. Maybe that will help me come to grips with what to say for the presentation I have to do next Wednesday! Maybe I can sort of argue that both works use pastoral in the same way Steven Shainberg claims (on the director’s commentary, which I watched. I’ve never liked a movie so much that I wanted to watch the director’s commentary!) to use Mr. Gray’s office in Secretary: as a post-lapsarian Eden in which the socially damaged characters can build a new portfolio of experiences (and language) to replace the bankrupt or useless ones of the outside world.
And yet, there have to be some differences between that sort of exploration in a work of fiction and a play – in what way would As You Like It change the publicness of that exploration? Or maybe the difference is in didacticism? Or happiness?
I’m liking the comparison, but I’m not sure where to take it. One thing to do would be keep reading the book. Yes. That would be a good idea.
Labels: bodies, early modern, movies, queer, reviews, writing
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