The Artist - amazing connections to Chaplin, Keaton, et al.

[Big Silent Fan]

Both Bette Midler and Cher have always attracted the effeminate side, as did May West. It seems wrong to judge a person based on their fan base.

[sherry]

IMHO when people spread rumors about someone's sexual orientation ( whether true or not ) it's usually jealousy
That's why you will probably find that kind of rumor about most men ( including married men ) who have many fangirls.
Also indeed it seems to be one of the disadvantages of being a celebrity ( of course on the other hand we have publicity stunts when stars want to be talked about ).

As for THE ARTIST, I liked it and thought it was a nice homage to the cinema of the silent era.

[Harlett O'Dowd]

It wasn't the only mainstream silent picture to come out in recent years - there was also the Spanish "Biencannives" I liked them both. I believe also that there is a silent picture coming out about Rudolf Valentino.

And Claire. Don't forget Claire.

http://www.clairesilentmovie.com/

[Frederica]

I'm reading an interesting book right now by Mark Lynn Anderson called Twilight of the Idols. I know that i have tended to want to just concentrate on people's films, considering their private life to be both irrelevant and none of my business (not to say that i don't love a good biography as well!). But part of film history is also the social role, the meaning that films and stars had to their audiences, whatever their actual private life (as opposed to their public private life) might have been. Books on Valentino always seem to talk about his crazy female fans rioting at his funeral, after several years of making middle class white males uncomfortable with their adulation of this dark-skinned foreigner that men liked to deride as effeminate. But the book points out that the photos of the mobs also contain lots of men, and the author tries to do some investigation on what Valentino may have meant to male audiences, including gay male audiences, which are hard to research since they were so closeted. He even has an interesting reinterpretation of the Pink Powder Puff article. It's a bit overdone but it does raise an interesting point in not only history but historiography--why has it been important for later writers on the Valentino phenomenon to ignore possible male fandom? And it's clear there were some male fans: for example a sad news article quoted at the end of the chapter i finished over lunch today, reporting that a black male drag performer who was on his way to pay his respects to Valentino was beaten to death by a white policeman.

greta

Thanks for the recommendation. Gaylyn Studlar discusses Valentino's effeminate rep in This Mad Masquerade, although I don't think she broke any new ground in what she said. (She did with Barrymore, that was news to me.) It seems that any male star whose audience is mainly female will instantly become an object of male derision...and anger, which is really strange. These days we have pretty male pop stars with careers aimed directly at teenage girls who seem to garner the most fury. I don't think I've ever read anything that examines why that is such a standard reaction.

[Harlett O'Dowd]

Thanks for the recommendation. Gaylyn Studlar discusses Valentino's effeminate rep in This Mad Masquerade, although I don't think she broke any new ground in what she said. (She did with Barrymore, that was news to me.) It seems that any male star whose audience is mainly female will instantly become an object of male derision...and anger, which is really strange. These days we have pretty male pop stars with careers aimed directly at teenage girls who seem to garner the most fury. I don't think I've ever read anything that examines why that is such a standard reaction.

I don't think it's strange at all - simple jealousy and a feeling of inadequacy.

20-30 years ago, Colin Quinn did standup comedy about how he hated to take his girlfriend to see Jean-Claude Van Damme movies. He would spend the whole film desperately trying to flex the bicep of the arm next to his date so that when she held on to him in the exciting parts, he wouldn't appear to be *quite* so deficient.

The best defense is always a good offense, so when threatened, the best thing to do is to attack:

he's effeminate
he's not quite white enough - so he's not really that brave/smart
he's not quite Christian enough (includes Catholics and Mormons)
he's not quite moral enough
he's too urbane/smart
he's too country/rube-ish


you get the idea.

The interesting thing is the number of "American" actors that American men developed a kind of bromance with. They yearned to be more like their idol (Wayne, Gable, Bogart, etc.) yet weren't threatened by the fact that their women liked them too.

Perhaps the most interesting "what if" with Valentine was that at the end, he started going into Fairbanks territory (THE EAGLE, SON OF THE SHEIK.) Smart move to compensate with all the pink powder puff accusations. The what if is - had Rudy lives to make another 3-6 films of that ilk, would more American men have considered him a safe idol to worship?

[entredeuxguerres]

...These days we have pretty male pop stars with careers aimed directly at teenage girls who seem to garner the most fury. I don't think I've ever read anything that examines why that is such a standard reaction...

Yes, but those nugatory non-entities (unworthy of notice, let alone fury), aren't comparable to Rudy, who played the kinds of roles that should appeal to (most) any man; or at any rate, to me, longing to dance a tango wearing 6 in. spurs, my quirt dangling from my wrist, or plunge my espada into a bull's heart.

[Donald Binks]

Rudy, who played the kinds of roles that should appeal to (most) any man; or at any rate, to me, longing to dance a tango wearing 6 in. spurs, my quirt dangling from my wrist, or plunge my espada into a bull's heart

...and, flare one's nostrils - I've always wanted to flare my nostrils!

[Frederica]

Rudy, who played the kinds of roles that should appeal to (most) any man; or at any rate, to me, longing to dance a tango wearing 6 in. spurs, my quirt dangling from my wrist, or plunge my espada into a bull's heart

...and, flare one's nostrils - I've always wanted to flare my nostrils!

There are places you could do all these things and not cause an eyelid to bat. West Hollywood leaps to mind, also science fiction and comic conventions.

[Harlett O'Dowd]

Rudy, who played the kinds of roles that should appeal to (most) any man; or at any rate, to me, longing to dance a tango wearing 6 in. spurs, my quirt dangling from my wrist, or plunge my espada into a bull's heart

...and, flare one's nostrils - I've always wanted to flare my nostrils!

There are places you could do all these things and not cause an eyelid to bat. West Hollywood leaps to mind, also science fiction and comic conventions.

Honey, a man can't plunge his espada into anything in public. Not even in West Hollywood!

(so I've been told)

[Frederica]

...and, flare one's nostrils - I've always wanted to flare my nostrils!

There are places you could do all these things and not cause an eyelid to bat. West Hollywood leaps to mind, also science fiction and comic conventions.

Honey, a man can't plunge his espada into anything in public. Not even in West Hollywood!

(so I've been told)

Ru Paul's Drag Race? I'm pretty sure I've seen some espada-plunging there. Select portions of Van Nuys?

[Bob Birchard]

I still don't see the point. It didn't work for me, as anything other than a pretend silent movie, and not a very good one at that.

Oh, but you are soooooo wrong. THE ARTIST, while perhaps not Shakespeare, tells its story visually, in action, and what I took away from the film was just how well the film captured the best of silent film technique (except for that awful car crash subtitle--which I guess was supposed to be some sort of joke). The film also made me realize just how much of a good talking film relies on visual story telling techniques and not just dialogue.

[boblipton]

I think, Bob, that certain people looked at the movie with certain expectations: go into the theater and suddenly it would be as if silent films had never ended, as if it was still 1928. Well, that wasn't going to happen. What we did get was a modern movie that told its story, as you note, in purely visual terms. However, the techniques of telling a story in purely visual terms have changed in more than eighty years. Some techniques have advanced and some have been dropped from the film-goer's vocabulary.

That's always an issue: expectations. I see it a lot in looking at reviews of early movies by film makers who would become very accomplished. They look at Hitchcock's Pleasure Gardens or Eisenstein's Dnevnik Glumovna and they don't even see what's in front of their eyes. They see a movie by a director who will make great movies, so this must be one too.

We often have the opposite reaction in Nitrateville We hear that something is great, and when it isn't what we expected, we're puzzled at best.

Bob

[Donald Binks]

I suppose we are all different. I didn't go to see "The Artist" to witness a complete re-creation of the silent picture era, I went primarily to be entertained and to watch a picture made by a director who had decided to deprive himself of the usual requirements of modern picture making - colour and sound. What expectations should we have had other than to have been thoroughly entertained by a charming and wonderfully put together picture that told it's story eloquently without dialogue as well as beautifully evoking an era so well?

I think it is full marks to a director who these days can set himself such a challenge and come out of it so remarkably well. You could have knocked me over with a feather a decade or so back if someone had suggested that a silent picture would again win the best picture Oscar so far into the talking picture era!

I think it is refreshing that every once in a while someone embarks on such an exercise and it should be further encouraged. No-one much seemed to encourage Jacques Tati at the time he was making his near silent pictures - but these days everyone gets to the end of the queue to place him on the pedestal.

There should be more of it!

[boblipton]

Thanks for the recommendation. Gaylyn Studlar discusses Valentino's effeminate rep in This Mad Masquerade, although I don't think she broke any new ground in what she said. (She did with Barrymore, that was news to me.) It seems that any male star whose audience is mainly female will instantly become an object of male derision...and anger, which is really strange. These days we have pretty male pop stars with careers aimed directly at teenage girls who seem to garner the most fury. I don't think I've ever read anything that examines why that is such a standard reaction.

I don't think it's strange at all - simple jealousy and a feeling of inadequacy.

20-30 years ago, Colin Quinn did standup comedy about how he hated to take his girlfriend to see Jean-Claude Van Damme movies. He would spend the whole film desperately trying to flex the bicep of the arm next to his date so that when she held on to him in the exciting parts, he wouldn't appear to be *quite* so deficient.

The best defense is always a good offense, so when threatened, the best thing to do is to attack:

he's effeminate
he's not quite white enough - so he's not really that brave/smart
he's not quite Christian enough (includes Catholics and Mormons)
he's not quite moral enough
he's too urbane/smart
he's too country/rube-ish


you get the idea.

The interesting thing is the number of "American" actors that American men developed a kind of bromance with. They yearned to be more like their idol (Wayne, Gable, Bogart, etc.) yet weren't threatened by the fact that their women liked them too.

SNIP

Perhaps it's a matter of identification. An ordinary man might imagine himself as Bogey (his star persona) and believe that they were pretty much him, flawed and passionate, just like the male audience. So if women liked the star, they liked the male audience too. Same thing with Fairbanks.

For a non-standard-American type like Rudy's star personna (I've seen early movies with him and he was quite an accomplished actor. He could play Americans very well), an Argentine tango-dancer or Arabic Sheik, there would be no competition. If Rudy got the girl, it was some damned foreigner. If Bogey did, well, it could have been you. There were still plenty of fish in the sea, just as good or better.

Bob

[wich2]

>You could have knocked me over with a feather a decade or so back if someone had suggested that a silent picture would again win the best picture Oscar so far into the talking picture era!<

Donald, I don't believe it took home any of those statuettes; but Brooks' SILENT MOVIE had a nice wide release from a major studio in 1976, and I think was well received by audiences and critics.

-Craig

[Donald Binks]

Donald, I don't believe it took home any of those statuettes;

It won Best Picture!

[DavidWelling]

What I would really, really like to see is a Peppy Miller film.

[entredeuxguerres]

Donald, I don't believe it took home any of those statuettes;

It won Best Picture!

Along with a far more uncommon prize, a Golden Collar!

[wich2]

>It won Best Picture!<

>Along with a far more uncommon prize, a Golden Collar!<

Gentlemen, please peruse my post again, perhaps with a bit more care? I was speaking of Mel Brooks' SILENT MOVIE, which I am fairly sure garnered neither of those esteem-ed laurels.

Best,
-Craig

[Donald Binks]

Gentlemen, please peruse my post again, perhaps with a bit more care? I was speaking of Mel Brooks' SILENT MOVIE, which I am fairly sure garnered neither of those esteem-ed laurels.

Sorry, I misread you post!

[Frederica]

I don't think it's strange at all - simple jealousy and a feeling of inadequacy.

20-30 years ago, Colin Quinn did standup comedy about how he hated to take his girlfriend to see Jean-Claude Van Damme movies. He would spend the whole film desperately trying to flex the bicep of the arm next to his date so that when she held on to him in the exciting parts, he wouldn't appear to be *quite* so deficient.

The best defense is always a good offense, so when threatened, the best thing to do is to attack:

he's effeminate
he's not quite white enough - so he's not really that brave/smart
he's not quite Christian enough (includes Catholics and Mormons)
he's not quite moral enough
he's too urbane/smart
he's too country/rube-ish


you get the idea.

The interesting thing is the number of "American" actors that American men developed a kind of bromance with. They yearned to be more like their idol (Wayne, Gable, Bogart, etc.) yet weren't threatened by the fact that their women liked them too.

SNIP

Perhaps it's a matter of identification. An ordinary man might imagine himself as Bogey (his star persona) and believe that they were pretty much him, flawed and passionate, just like the male audience. So if women liked the star, they liked the male audience too. Same thing with Fairbanks.

For a non-standard-American type like Rudy's star personna (I've seen early movies with him and he was quite an accomplished actor. He could play Americans very well), an Argentine tango-dancer or Arabic Sheik, there would be no competition. If Rudy got the girl, it was some damned foreigner. If Bogey did, well, it could have been you. There were still plenty of fish in the sea, just as good or better.

Bob

I have been mulling this over and...really, guys, are you kidding with that? Your chances with that Vilma Banky were great, if only Valentino hadn't snapped her up first? I get all warm and fuzzy about Tom Hiddleston, but I'm not kidding myself about the depth of his feeling for me. This does not explain the levels of hostility and contempt directed at Valentino, or at those teeny-bopper boy stars.

[Harlett O'Dowd]

I have been mulling this over and...really, guys, are you kidding with that? Your chances with that Vilma Banky were great, if only Valentino hadn't snapped her up first? I get all warm and fuzzy about Tom Hiddleston, but I'm not kidding myself about the depth of his feeling for me. This does not explain the levels of hostility and contempt directed at Valentino, or at those teeny-bopper boy stars.

No, I think this is pretty much on the level. A man - specifically, a white American man - can be philosophical if the girl goes for another guy similar to himself, but is morally offended when the woman *chooses* to be with someone different - whether that someone else be a person of color, a more urbane/sophisticated person or even another woman.

Put it another way: when Bogie walks off with Bacall, the guy asks himself "what does he have that I haven't got?" and can placate himself by thinking "pretty much what I have, but more of it." When the guy asks himself what Valentino ... or early crooners like Rudy Vallee ... or Justin Bieber have, the answer can be deeply unsettling.

i.e., americans LOVE the idea that "all men are created equal." But Americans HATE to be told that, logically, all other men are JUST AS GOOD as we are.

Also, that women have the ability to choose. Dudes HATE that.

[Mitch Farish]

That's just the point I used to hear Adela Roger St. John make about Gable on talk shows all the time - that men were never threatened by he-man Gable. In Brownlow's Hollywood, she said men were threatened by the exoticism of Valentino's on-screen persona - a foreigner who is not like us. Tying all this to the present day, I remember reading a recent comment online about the androgynous Justin Bieber, where some guy said he was "growing into a fine young lady." The fear and loathing of the other whoever he may be, is very real and can lead to aspersions on manhood, patriotism, you name it.

[entredeuxguerres]

...I remember reading a recent comment online about the androgynous Justin Bieber, where some guy said he was "growing into a fine young lady."...

"Lady" seems arguable; but who'd argue with "P.O.S."?

[Harlett O'Dowd]

...I remember reading a recent comment online about the androgynous Justin Bieber, where some guy said he was "growing into a fine young lady."...

"Lady" seems arguable; but who'd argue with "P.O.S."?

Wow.

When did he piss in YOUR cornflakes?

[entredeuxguerres]

...I remember reading a recent comment online about the androgynous Justin Bieber, where some guy said he was "growing into a fine young lady."...

"Lady" seems arguable; but who'd argue with "P.O.S."?

Wow.

When did he piss in YOUR cornflakes?

When his antics rate coverage on CNN.

[Frederica]

"Lady" seems arguable; but who'd argue with "P.O.S."?

Wow.

When did he piss in YOUR cornflakes?

When his antics rate coverage on CNN.

You watch CNN?

Gotta say, guys. If this is indeed the explanation (and I'd like to think it's something less, well, trivial) it argues some serious and near-universal problems with egotism. The world does not care about you. You'll be much happier when you internalize that.

[entredeuxguerres]

...The world does not care about you. You'll be much happier when you internalize that.

You're wrong--I internalized that ages ago, but it did not make me happier. (Not entirely sure why it should have.)

I even watch--get this--MSN.

[boblipton]

<bunch of quote indicators snipped>
"Lady" seems arguable; but who'd argue with "P.O.S."?

Wow.

When did he piss in YOUR cornflakes?

When his antics rate coverage on CNN.

You watch CNN?

Gotta say, guys. If this is indeed the explanation (and I'd like to think it's something less, well, trivial) it argues some serious and near-universal problems with egotism. The world does not care about you. You'll be much happier when you internalize that.

Hey, I never said I was bothered by it or not. I was explaining the cultural phenomenon, not talking about me.

Bob

[Frederica]

Gotta say, guys. If this is indeed the explanation (and I'd like to think it's something less, well, trivial) it argues some serious and near-universal problems with egotism. The world does not care about you. You'll be much happier when you internalize that.

Hey, I never said I was bothered by it' or not. I was explaining the cultural phenomenon, not talking about me.

Bob

I was speaking in generalities, too, but let's face it--it is a thing.