#dainty man physical comedy hero

[bornforastorm]

dan was going to kiss harry on the mouth right in front of everybody

[brokenmusicboxwolfe]

I wrote this a while ago (4 months?) . Sorry it’s so long, but that’s the drawback of insomnia and no one to gush about a movie to...

Short verson? Unexpectedly I really liked an obscure old western called To the Last Man, basically because the romance at it’s center really connected with me. 

It’s interesting when a movie takes you by surprise.

I’ve been watching a a DVD set Pop fished out of a $5 bin a very long time ago. It’s one of those “20 movies crammed onto two discs, and how watchable the image and sound are doesn’t matter” kind of things. And geez, some of these look horrible. In the case of one movie there were times I couldn’t even tell which character was on screen. These are the sort of churned out discs where the just throw whatever they can get a hold of onto it, quality be damned.

 Not being a huge western fan, and having recently endured a similar set of early John Wayne films Pop had * I wasn’t looking forward to it at all. Still, it was the last of the unwatched movie DVDs so I figured I might as well play them.

Turns out they have been a facinating variety of westerns, covering at least 40 years. For instance one film was a a spaghetti western that actually involved a circus ** and a film next to it was a pilot to a 1970s tv show set in 1914 with the heroes traveling the west in a car. 

Which leads me to the biggest surprise so far, a barely movie length film from 1933 called To the Last Man. 

Now I went into it expecting very little. It was one of those movies so short it wouldn’t be considered feature length now, a western staring Randolph Scott who always seems to fade from my memory as soon as I finish a film. *** Even after it started it seemed to be a Hatfield and McCoy style family fued migrating west, with an already old fashioned silent era quirk of putting the names of the character and actor on screen when they first appeared. And then they added a Romeo and Juliet to the story…

Again I had low expectations, When they introduced the girl, daughter of the baddie family, I thought I knew exactly where it was going. Once out west the girl is a bronco busting, sometimes trouser wearing despite being the 19th century, kind of gal. I liked her, which made me dread the romance ahead.

See stories have traditionally had problems with romances involving  non-traditional women. 

In some stories the woman will be there for the fella, saving his life or something like that, but whatever affections he may have for her the love will be unrequited. Sometimes she dies, sometimes she gets a supporting character love interest, but always the hero goes off with the traditional princess type girl.

 In the stories where there is dainty, aloof beauty for the hero to moon over instead, they go a different route. Those are the stories where women are tamed. The hero often mocks and teases the woman for her non-traditional ways, even outright bullying her and accusing her of not being a “real” woman. She goes through an awkward phase of attempting to be properly feminine, to humorous effect, before eventually transforming into what a woman is “supposed’ to be for the love of her man.

I hate those, both of them. With the first,  I find myself grumbling the gal is to good for him if he cares more about a proper bit of styling and pretty face than courage or kindness. With the second, it’s even worse. Love does NOT demand that the person you love deny their nature and remake themselves to satisfy your tastes. If they have to change into something else to earn your love then you don’t love them at all. 

Anyway, I was sure how this was gonna go, especially with references in the conversation between the father and his thug pal about her wildness. This was gonna be a taming. I liked her as she was, and they were going to break her…

But I was wrong! 

The initial “meet cute” involved her swimming (naked…it was1933) and being harrassed by the thug until the hero rides up and intervened. When afterwards they chatted I was surprised. Sure it was flirty and established their attraction, but in more authentic way than I expected. When he refered to her as a lady and she assumed he was mocking her, in most movies there would be truth in her belief. But not here. To be honest I was as thrown as she was by his sincerity.

Later she talked to one of her father’s men, trying to figure out how a lady would dress because she wanted to dress that way before heading out to find the hero. I thought, “oh no, here it comes”, but again I was wrong. The conversation was sweet as the guy used his mother as an example and offered to help the girl go shopping, only to have her say she couldn’t wait that long. The hero would be camping for the night nearby, so she would have to go find him wearing her usual ratty clothes. She did NOT do the comedy attempt to fancy up!

And then we get to the campfire scene.

They may have met while she was swimming, but he has a body too. She surprises him as he shirtlessly shaves, so there is a bit of admiring the male form, complete with her saying she would think he was “soft” (for shaving so often in her rough world) if it weren’t for the fact she could see his strong arms. Even now too many movies don’t do something as simple as this: Let the man be physically admired by the woman.

During their conversation after he dresses, for all her attraction she is also self conscious of her rough around the edges appearance. When he notes her bare feet must find the mountains painful, she is defensive, expecting it to be a slight. But he quickly reassures her that no insult was meant, and it’s true. He didn’t. Not once in that scene, or in any scene, did he ever belittle her or tell her that she is somehow wrong for being herself.

When he was ready to say goodnight she announces she is staying. While she does tell him he must treat her “like a man” for the night, it’s still a woman boldly telling a man she’s spending the night with him whatever ended up happening after the fade out.

Now next morning she fixes him breakfast. In most movies this would either be the comical “non-traditional woman inept at proper womanly skills” or it would be the “non-traditional woman embraces properly womanly role because of love”. It was neither. She fixed him breakfast, an affectionate gesture to be sure,  but no fuss was made of it. She cooked it skillfuly and he didn’t seem astonished. It was just….breakfast.

Naturally as they are now head over heels for each other, this is when they find out each other’s family names, with the expected emotional turmoil. Now you would expect a few hostile scenes between them before they get over the whole feud thing, but they actually get over it quickly. By the time he buys gifts for his reunion with his family, he buys one more gift for her. And sure, when he leaves it where she can find it she at first angrily tosses it in the fire…before fishing it out. The fact is they are still in love, family war or not.  

About that gift..yes, it is a dress, but it doesn’t feel like a judgement or a nudge but a gift given with love of something she desires. He doesn’t know that when her father got out of prison he commented on her shabby dress,which she explained was her only dress after the hard life she’d had to live. He does know she was self conscious about the dress she wore when they met. It feels like a thoughtful gesture.  

The next time they are together, her family has stollen his family’s horses and she is joyfully riding the horse his brother had recently given to him. This would be a  moment for a lot of shouting and protesting that their own families were in the right. Instead we see little of the encounter except from the viewpoint of the distant thug. Considering the couple kiss and he smilingly sees her off on what had been his horse, I really don’t think there was much shouting.

Naturally the thug, who has designs on her,  tells her father abouther romance. The dress she’d hidden away is dug out as proof. She defiantly says she intends to wear the dress at her wedding to the hero, and her father lashes her. It’s off camera but we see him swinging the whip, so whoa, horrible daddy there! 

Stuff happens with the feud, which I’ve almost totally ignored**** despite it being the main plot, which culminates in the thug engineering a rock slide. The only survivor of the men folk from both clans is, of course, our hero. As he staggers to the girl’s home he seems horribly injured and dazed almost to senselessness. There is no sudden miraculous recovery for the sake of love scenes, fights or plot.  This is convincing the way 99% of all action movies ever aren’t when it comes to traumatic injuries. He needs care..

So here comes the thug. The girl quickly hides the hero in the loft and goes to work to deal with the villian. She has to feign normalicy, then react as he would expect her to react, while he makes clear she is to be considered his property and she has to figure out how to play that considering she is trying to hide her beloved. The dazed hero can hear what’s going on, tries to aim his gun, and drops it. The villian know the hero is there, so it’s time for a fight scene..l.

And the fight is between the villian and the girl!! And this is no dainty girly crap like so many movies have thrown at us. 

Mom and I used to have this thing of yelling at the screen “Hit him!!!!!” whenever heroes and villians would fight and the love interest would stand by looking helpless. I mean, I dunno about you but if someone is trying to kill someone I love they are gonna find themselves fuckin’ fughting TWO people!

And here the girl was doing some serious full body, roll on the floor punching and biting fighting. This wasn’t damsel in distress “You brute!” thumps at the chest or gingerly smashed vases on the head. She fought like she was trying to save the life of someone she loved. Which should be expected, but isn’t when watching an old western.

Alright, so the hero does finally do in the baddie by dropping down with a knife…but now that I think about it maybe SHE was the hero of the movie anyway.

Well, maybe to me she was because she was my identification character. Most of these westerns haven’t had women I could relate to at all, and here was one I related to on some very deep level. I got her. 

Now my family was nothing like hers, not only in the lack of violence (with the ones exception of a relative you can guess) but that they were hardly uneducated (say hello to the ONLY relative I even know of that didn’t graduate college…that would be me BTW) Heck, Pop was a total sweetheart.

And yet I got her. 

An unconventional woman type myself, I never learned the girly stuff. Partly that was accidental and partly it was impractical for the life we lived. I did have to be willing to be rough and tumble, with no line between guy stuff and girl stuff. When I was a kid I was also the only girl in a neighborhood of boys where being a sissy was the worst insult and you had to be ready to fight. I was the girl that swam in the river and played in the woods. And for various reasons ( would take a while to explain) I’ve spent most of my life in worn out work clothes. 

Actually that’s an aspect that makes her resonate even more: clothes. 

I don’t dress like her, but I have my own version shabby woods girl going on. As I write this I’m wearing one of my father’s old t-shirts with holes in it, jeans worn at the knees, a broken hair barrette in my hair, and steel toed men’s work boots on my feet. 

Now there are reasons for all of these. The practicalities of farm amd woods life, being poor enough I’d have to choose between new clothes or things like books, a childhood trauma that gave me a lifelong desire to dress for fight or flight, not having a social life so 99% of the time no human sees me, living in a rural area with no credit card for onlinr ordering and, in the case of the boots, just the fact they are all I can find locally that work with the ankle braces my flat feet force me to wear.

But notice what is missing from all these reasons: fashion. I almost never get to wear clothes I actually like. I’d flip through catalogs or wander stores and imagine wearing this or that. I have strong feelings about clothes I like or don’t, but no real chance to express it. I actually fantasize about that, living the sort of lifestyle where even if you are adventuring you get to pick clothes you want to wear.

Somewhere along the line people started assuming I what I wear reflects my taste, or rather lack there of. I used to ask my cousin at Christmas to please give me something pretty. She couldn’t understand it as a request, but folks just never thought of me as wanting pretty things. What would it have been like, just once, to try to be pretty. 

Actually I’d probably have been laughed at, a comedy buffoon, the hideous lady trying to look cute, the ugly step sister. Just as well life never gave me a chance to try. 

So being self conscious about my appearance is normal for me. I know how I look to people. I also know from experience that people can be cruel, and have taken my share of insults and mocking. In her position I would have thought he was making fun of me too and reacted almost exactly like her. In fact, I have. 

Here is a heroine I can relate to, and she gets the fantasy too. The fella falls in love with her, and loves her as is, not as a fix it upper. He loves her and doesn’t tease her about things where she is sensitive. He gives her a gift of something pretty just because he thinks she will like it. She gets to admire him (and his strong arms). She even gets to fight the bad guy to save him! 

Geez, of course I ended up loving the movie!

Never saw that coming, a Randolph Scott film I will actually remember! But the question is, will I finally remember his face or just his arms?

*NOT  a John Wayne fan, and these were some sort of 1930s filler less than an hour formula stuff.

**I REALLY enjoyed this one, but of course I have a thing for circuses. Woody Strode as a trapeze artist gunfighter and Victor Buono as the big bad were nice bonuses.

***That’s always puzzled me. I usually have an excellent memory for faces from movies, but I forget his instantly.

****Also forgotten, Buster Crabbe, Shirley Temple and the rest of the costars. 

[girl4music]

Hercules VS Xena: Striking differences

If you want the defining difference between Xena and Hercules… it’s actually not so much to do with feminism or gender representation. Those are the finer details, sure. But from a first-look standpoint, it’s that Xena is made for audiences that can understand and relate to its depth in production and writing of the emotional and mental kind, and Hercules is made for audiences who enjoy the writing and production of the physical kind. The action and the excitement. Of course, you get both with both shows, but you can tell one is more geared to one side than the other side. And I think the shows grew with the audience rather than the other way around. The stories got deeper and darker and much more complicated the more the audience tuned in and asked for what they wanted to see and hear of more. Therefore, I have to bring up the striking differences between both shows. If you want a show with good characters that only do good, watch Hercules. If you want a show with good characters that fluctuate, watch Xena. Redemption is a huge part of ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’. There are many episodes that deal with the themes of redemption and reconciliation that are very powerful. The main character, Xena, never quite is of one side or the other side. She’s both and she comes to reconcile with both. As does those that love her and believe in her. She comes to be in balance with light and with dark, with good and with evil, with peace and with war. And it’s not just her that does either. Many of the characters in Xena deal with these themes in very different ways. From the few episodes I’ve bothered to watch, ‘Hercules: The Legendary Journeys’ doesn’t have that. It’s because the characters are innately good that there’s no depth, no complication, and no moral standing of which to learn from. I’m not saying it’s not an entertaining show. I mean, it’s action-packed, there’s lots of fight scenes and there are interesting characters that do deal with important issues. However, it doesn’t seem convincing because it lacks the negative sides of those issues. Avoids telling the darker stories and therefore, you can’t take it seriously enough. I’m not being hater; I’m just being honest. In my personal opinion, the better show is Xena because it’s just got so much more to it. It’s a lot more mature and intelligent. It’s catered to an older audience than Hercules is. Requiring a broader and expanded consciousness so that the serious and important matters can be understood. Children can watch it, but it is more for the adults I’d say, or at least young adults. However, many of its fans did watch it as a child. Shaping their world view and philosophy as they grew into an adult, and eventually coming to understand what they were watching. I’m no different to that. That is very much my background with the show as well. As I watch it as an adult, I acknowledge, consider and understand its themes and lessons so much so more than I ever did as a child. That’s why I’m saying Xena is meant for an older audience and Hercules is meant for a younger audience.

I remember reading this interview segment in a Tumblr post awhile back where Kevin Sorbo talked about Xena and what he believed was wrong with it. Two themes were mentioned, seemingly “issues” to him. He said that the violence and the lesbianism were the aspects of the show that were “issues”. I think the word he was really looking for is “controversial”. Xena is a more complex and sophisticated show and it used violence to make the point clear that goodness, righteousness and peace is not black and white. It’s very difficult to not result to violence in dire situations. They were not encouraging violence. They were using it to teach a lesson, as well as explaining that just because you do result to violence in certain circumstances, you’re not inherently a violent person. You just did what you believed you should do in the moment and that that’s okay. The violence and the darker themes to the show made those lessons all the more powerful and inspiring. As for the lesbianism… I can see why that would have been an actual “issue”. Consider that at that time, even multi-cultural and interracial heterosexual couplings was still very new to mainstream TV. They were pushing boundaries with that alone, never mind homosexual couplings. I think the producers and writers did the best they could with it. Overall, Sorbo’s views are very one-sided and he wasn’t thinking about the bigger picture. Which is that you can’t have the positive themes without the negative themes if you are to understand the importance of them. That’s what he didn’t realize and failed to mention in that interview. The point to this post is not to compare or judge or criticize. It’s to explain to people that if they want to understand the way life works and learn how to handle it, they’re better off watching the more mature, intelligent and darker show than the one that avoids those themes altogether. Furthermore, all the really interesting characters in ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’ are the ones that are “searching”. This showcases that it’s human conditions and conflicts that make for really great TV entertainment. People love characters they can relate to for their flaws and mistakes rather than their heroism. It’s definitely a huge factor as to why Xena stands the test of time and became more successful and popular than its predecessor, Hercules. That within this action/fantasy show, there were these themes and lessons that make it far more than just “the hero that saves the innocent”. That there is strong and substantial material that goes far deeper than the surface. So much so that you actually start to enjoy the show for its comedy and lighter episodes; such as ‘A Day In The Life’ and ‘Been There, Done That’. You begin to crave them when you realize just how dramatic and intense this show can be sometimes. It really adds to its vibe. The camp is something both Xena and Hercules is well known for. The exaggeration, the subtext, the homoerotic nature of the characters etc… However, I personally think for Xena, it propelled the show, but with Hercules, it degraded it. And that’s mainly because in Hercules, there wasn’t enough balance. The scales tipped more towards the silly and the satirical. Because of this, the drama and the tenser sides to the show didn’t feel honest or serious. Whereas in Xena, it did because it was not afraid to go in-depth with the darker side to the show. It made the audience question the characters and the storylines.

Okay, so getting on to the finer details of having gender representation, I’d like to explain another reason why I believe Xena was more popular and successful than Hercules was. They always tried to make Hercules “the man”. Had to consistently point out his masculinity and physical strength and ability to catch the female eye. They wrote the character as if he had to be a certain way to be the good person or the right person. Whereas with Xena, there wasn’t any of that. Xena was a woman who had all those so-called “masculine” traits while still being female. A female that could do anything a male could do… or in some cases… better than a male could do them. She had the physical strength of ten men combined. She wasn’t written to look or be like “the man” in particular. But because the traits and skills she had were more known for a man to be capable of than a woman in those times… she was stereotyped as a more of a masculine character than a feminine one. At least to me it seemed she was viewed that way. In my personal opinion (I’m not saying they were trying to make it look this way), Xena was the one that carried more feminine energy and Gabrielle was the one that carried more masculine energy. But that’s just my personal perspective. I have my reasons to think and believe that and to interpret those characters’ energies like that.

Before you get me wrong, I’m not saying that it’s just about female representation. It’s not just about showing these fluid traits in females. It’s not all about feminism! I’ll point out that in an episode of Xena, there is a female character that hated men. That blamed men for all their problems. That was always making them at fault for everything… just because they were men. But the show producers/writers gave the very clear message that it’s not always men at all. That sometimes a woman can be just as cruel and selfish and hard. That it could go both ways and women can abuse and misuse men just as much as men can abuse and misuse women. That there’s no “more or less than” between them. It depended on the situation that the characters were in than on the individual character’s gender or type. That very much stood out for me when watching Xena. From what I’ve seen of Hercules, (which isn’t very much, I’ll admit) it seemed to be that the women were always depicted as the dainty, soft and sweet little things that were always falling all over the men and didn’t have a bad bone in their body. And that the men were always the strong, capable, physical and abusive ones. Again, don’t get me wrong! I’m very aware it can be like that. But it’s not always like that. It’s just a stereotype. A stereotype is where if you see a certain characteristic or behaviour in one or two people, you immediately assume or interpret everyone to be in that same mentally constructed category that just doesn’t exist. It’s just not a realistic picture to paint of either gender or type of person because humans are very fluid in their energies. Xena showed the times when men could be the soft, compassionate and kind type of person. It also showed when women could be the cruel, selfish and hard type of person. There was no “she’s masculine” or “he’s feminine”. They weren’t trying to give the depiction that you’re either one or the other and it has to be that way. They were saying that it was both. That females have what is considered “masculine” traits and males have what is considered “feminine” traits and none of it was wrong or inappropriate. It made the statement that whether male or female… they were still the same species. They were still human. In fact, they didn’t only show it with humans. They showed it with the Olympian gods too. With immortals. Not necessarily considered human but shown in the human image. From my perspective, at least, I would say that’s a very strong and substantial reason to watch the show; Xena, over the show; Hercules, or to judge on what show was better produced/written, even if it was the same people that created and worked on both shows. Because it seems to me that one was definitely much more thought out than the other in producing and writing. Xena has definitely shown me what it is that I look for in TV shows/movies/books/games or other forms of entertainment and art. Good producing/writing and dynamic characters that are not stereotyped. That do not belong to any particular category or labelled in any solid or permanent way. Characters that are fluid and interchangeable and versatile. Characters like Xena and Gabrielle and Callisto, that can make you see the individual person in both positive and negative ways, enough to realize that they are completely human and real. Enough to be relatable and so you can resonate with their mindsets. I don’t understand how or why there is such striking differences between these shows. Because given the fact Kevin Sorbo didn’t play Hercules and the show was at the same level of producing/writing as Xena, I probably would have loved to watch it just as much, if not more. There were some potentially great characters (both male and female) from Hercules that weren’t introduced in Xena that could have done with a better or longer arc, so you could get to know them more and could see that they weren’t produced/written in a stereotypical way. Maybe I’m wrong. Perhaps both shows have dynamic characters and give the same messages and I just haven’t done enough research or watched enough of the other show to judge accurately. But this is only my personal perspective and opinion on both shows regardless. I’m not saying it is fact because both shows are left to interpretation anyway. Take out of it what you will. I think I’ve made a satisfactory analysis to draw from to create your own. I’d very much like to read or hear yours.

"Hercules is the hero we hope is out there. Xena is the hero we hope is in all of us." - Liz Friedman, executive producer for 'Xena: Warrior Princess'.

[bornforastorm]

Oh! Then I've managed to kidnap a well known jazz artist! (dan fielding squeaking and screaming for 2 minutes 45 seconds in Night Court s05e14 "I'm OK, You're a Catatonic Schizophrenic")