#kind of anti raoul

[kittenfangirl20]

I think the main reason why I prefer The Phantom of the Opera musical over The Phantom of the Opera novel is the fact that Christine Daaé is the protagonist of the musical while Raoul is the protagonist of the novel. Christine is the character whose choices have the biggest impact on the story and you get more interactions between her and Erik in the musical. You see her being conflicted between Raoul who feels like the safer choice to her and represents her childhood and Erik who while dangerous, you can tell Christine in the musical was attracted to. While in the novel I had to be subjected to Raoul whining about why Christine didn’t fall into his arms when they met up again in the beginning and Raoul even slut shames Christine which made me pissed off at him for the rest of the book.

[shituationist]

With regards to "lonely young men" discourse, people often talk as though this is a new problem which confronts young men and often as if it's a problem that's unique to the digitalized world, that the internet plays a casual role.

That kind of attribution is wrong-headed even if digital technology has exacerbated it, but the decline in socialization among young men predates the internet reaching into everyday life. The decline starts by the 1950s. If there's a technology that's responsible, it's the suburb, which isolated individuals into nuclear families, couples, or themselves alone. The increased distance between individuals, represented easily by population density statistics, obviously created the material basis for social estrangement and isolation. That, combined with the technology of the car, which isolates the individual even further into a cell with antagonistic relations to other cells on the highways, did a number on the very possibility of socialization in our everyday lives. Even at work, the tendency of capitalists to reduce the number of people on the job to a minimum has done damage to the potential of workers to socialize on the job.

Plenty of young men have false consciousness about the causes of their isolation or estrangement from society, but they are a real problem (and it doesn't just afflict young men). When the average young person is not contributing to society in a way that makes them feel like a part of it, when the society their labor reproduces also reproduces their isolation and estrangement, what else can you expect but the rise of anti-social ideology corresponding to the anti-social material conditions?

Left-wing theorists have had all kinds of analyses of these issues, with Erich Fromm, Paul Goodman, and Raoul Vaneigem coming to my mind as theorists from the mid-20th century who tackled the subject. But even liberal sociologists have been able to see it, the book that's usually cited on this front is "Bowling Alone". Reducing the issue to resentments from men who aren't trying hard enough to get laid just recycles that resentment and fails to account for the non-sexual aspects of this isolation which are just as damaging to the individual psyche: the lack of friends, colleagues, and confidants to share their thoughts with, and the stunted social skills that many young people (and the rest of us) are dealing with as a result of a lack of socialization.

[dross-the-fish]

Have you considered racebending other characters, like Edward?

I tend to racebend pretty selectively as it does alter backstories to make certain characters a different race. With characters like Raoul DeChagny and Dorothy Gale it lets me add some interesting layers to their story. Making some versions of Erik Persian doesn't change much but it does tie him more to the Daroga. Making the musical version of Erik Persian kind of helps explain why he has the lasso and the monkey music box is in Persian robes specifically since there is no Daroga in that universe. However there are characters that I will only ever depict as white due to the context of their stories. Dracula is always going to be a white aristocrat because making the scary foreigner who wants to steal all the brides for himself and take over the UK should probably NOT be a man of color. He's already got some very uncomfortable anti-semetic/anti-romani coding going on. We don't need to add to that. I tend not to racebend Edward. Namely because of what he is, Jekyll is a repressed upper class British man who hides his true nature from his upper class white British peers and given that I tend to portray Edward as gross, violent, an addict and a sex pest, even drawing him or writing him as animalistic at times that could be read in entirely the wrong way. Edward has jumped on top of other characters and mauled them like a rottweiler and that was super fun to write but I don't think it would be a good idea to have him behave like that as a character of color in a predominately white society. Especially in the context of that being his true nature that's he's been trying to hide.

[marybeatriceofmodena]

I'm curious, do ppl hate Love Never Dies because they think Eristine is problematic and it's made canon in it, or is it due to something else? I havent watched it yet or anything but i like the vibes, lol

Heh... Love Never Dies has always been controversial at the very least? It came out at a time where Erik/Christine was still the most popular ship in the phandom - it still is, by the way. That didn't change despite a clear shift in fandom and ""problematic content"" around 2013, so a good 3 years after the musical came out. If anything, Raoul/Christine shippers have been a minority for most of the phandom's history, and both sides of the debate at some point more or less decided to agree to disagree (I mean, the homophobic slurs Raoul would get at times were starting to REALLY be in poor taste), except on the point that without the love triangle, there wouldn't be much of a story, and there are various ways of interpreting said love triangle. So, quite frankly, I don't understand why some people on either side are trying to restart discourse in the POTO fandom but I digress. And look, if you see people in the tags saying that Erik/Christine is problematic, they're probably new, and not really representative of the phandom at large. Anything having to do with Sierra Boggess is more controversial.

I really don't think the controversy stems from it making Erik and Christine bang and have a love child - I know there are some people who are against the idea of any kind of sequel, in fanfic form or otherwise, for a variety of reasons, but most of them were being responsible adults about it and didn't actively seek fanfic. As I mentioned before, a lot of folks were Erik/Christine shippers and thought that Christine was more into the Phantom than into Raoul, that's nothing new. But a lot of them also had issues with how LND dealt with it, for several reasons. It didn't come from an "anti" sentiment, it was very much them having issues with the material that was presented to them.

Raphael/phantoonsoftheopera (who is a long time fan of POTO) goes into more detail here and I think he sums up a lot of phans' thoughts back in 2010 when LND came out (whether they shipped the Phantom and Christine or not), and I think @musicalhell is another one who was also around at the time (feel free to pop in, and hope I'm not bothering you with the tag).

As for the rest, I wish I could defend ALW's choices here in the same way I'd defend Lana Wachowski for Matrix Resurrections - i.e. you're allowed to not like it but this is this creator's baby and they're allowed to do whatever they want with it, so let's all respect art for the sake of art here. But LND is very much a vanity project, as ALW has proven multiple times, that is mean-spirited to its core in various ways. For my fellow SW fans, it's the TROS to POTO'S TLJ. The cast and crew were treated in a really shitty way back in the original London production days, same with critics of the show, and there was even a case where a journalist and long time phan who provided a critical review of LND was demeaned in an article as some sort of sad housewife who was obsessed with POTO. Mind you, ALW has tried to make LND work FOR YEARS, with various productions and tours opening here and there, but it always underperforms. And mind you, the Eristine crowd is still hanging around, and POTO is doing extremely well whereever it goes to this day. If the Eristine content was good, the crowds would follow, "problématique" posts and tweets or not. They aren't there.

[roadtophantom]

Let your S(e)oul take you where you long to be (III) - Cho Seung-woo

(part three of my neverending travelogue, I thought I'll just write one but this already got long)

I think it didn't quite hit me that I was seeing Phantom even when I went in the theatre, likely because of travel adrenaline? I was still a bit dazed coming in and I didn't quite settle until the show started. But also it was so warm and tight that it's hard to get a semblance of personal space.

But it didn't take long because Charlotte Theatre is small and it kinda really wraps itself around the stage. At least that's how I felt.

Because when the overture started and the sparks came off, I was sucked right in.

But listen. Hearing the organ played in person and watching the chandelier make its steady ascent, coming from a lockdown of 3 or so years after fighting tooth and nail to be on that seat, were enough to reduce me to actual tears.

I was sobbing behind my face mask — a souvenir from the pandemic that is sadly here to stay— as reality finally hit me that I managed to live to see another Phantom show when such a possibility didn't exist then, and it's as real as the chandelier looming large before my very eyes.

Second was seeing the proscenium in its fullest glory. Unfortunately, 2delier and the stripped down World Tour revival stage cannot possibly hold a candle to the magnificence of a complete replica set. I haven't seen this setup since 10 years ago in Singapore (not counting HK coz that was an arena and it's a bit different).

I'm reviewing both performances at once because I saw them in 24 hours and it will help me make (healthy) comparisons.

But I think I want to write about the Korean production as a whole first. I've read that it took a while for the local production to mount another POTO KR because of the scale and the demands of the show and the producers want to get everything perfect.

And I think they really did, or at least one that approaches sheer excellence in acting, singing, dancing, all that.

The ballerinas are in step with each other, the cast harmonizes so beautifully even in Prima Donna which tends to go messy and overwhelming...As a full company they are undefeatable.

And I've seen some of the most heartrending performances and heard the most exquisite voices in these two shows.

During my week in Seoul, I managed to catch a movie on cable TV led by Cho Seung-woo called Inside Men and he played this prosecutor who is smart, ambitious, and hellbent for justice. He was all suits, yanked neckties, and cigarettes. A cool hero you wanna root for. And in the first movie I've seen of him (The Classic), he plays a young Romeo with such pure ideals on love and friendship, again a good guy you can't help but love and feel hurt for.

The Phantoms - Cho Seung-woo

Those are barely a scratch on the surface of the veteran actor's stellar filmography and theatre work. His versatility is undisputed, and he's played everything from Hedwig to Sweeney Todd until he finally took on the challenge as the Phantom, which is still so mindblowing to me.

There was no hint of swagger, coolness, or goodness in Cho Seung-woo's Phantom. He is basically the anti-cute Phantom. This is the sewer rat, the stone gargoyle on the roof, the cantankerous old neighbor you don't wanna deal with. He made that especially clear from the mirror scene, as he openly sneered at Raoul's attempts at Christine.

The Phantoms I've seen would try to play up being angel, ghost or even just try to present themselves as an educated gentleman forced under very unfortunate circumstances, but Cho Seung-woo's Phantom is well frankly, truly what you'd expect of a creature living in an underground lake. He isn't shy or afraid to be menacing because that's...what's on the script anyway, right?

With one caveat, he can't bear to be ugly in front of Christine who is his weakness from the very beginning.

His Music of the Night gives a sneak peek of the kind of desolation and yearning he feels for her. He also peppers his performances throughout with whispers of "Christine" (even after MOTN) which I realized is his desperate plea of help.

Cho Phantom loses his temper quite easily, he's delighted like Rumpelstiltskin dancing around the fire when he plays tricks at Carlotta, unafraid to play up his monster persona to get his way. But this evil facade falls in front of Christine. Of course he tries to put up that mean act, but eventually he is just this awkward teenage boy with a first-ever crush. He is so hyperaware of his appearance in front of her. He practically worships her.

So imagine in PONR, he groans at Christine's advances and in AIAOY reprise he is almost on his knees begging her to please take pity and accept him.

In Final Lair, he recoils after Christine kisses him in a 'Why would you do that to yourself? Why touch a cursed creature like me with your perfect being? Please don't corrupt yourself' way. And when she goes back to return the ring, he really tried to wipe his hands on his pants, fix himself because he had to at least try to be less horrible as he already is in front of his idol.

As a singer, CSW can carry the notes, but he is not the best singer, not in front of actual tenors in the cast.

Yet his nuanced acting, the level of sensitivity and hyper-awareness he has, the kind of vulnerability he exposes to Christine at Final Lair is one of a kind. You can see he dug into the psychology of the character, imagined how it was like living miserably like him and how it's like to lose everything when he lets Christine, his only source of light and happiness, go.

You feel a lot of things when he's on stage, I truly felt so sorry for him, because his Phantom was such that the world truly let him down. So many realizations you'll see of his character. I think his was the most humanistic rendition of the role I've seen so far. It's a solid performance, and I understand he likes to change the details up every show, no wonder his shows sell out so fast.

[project1939]

200 Films of 1952

Film number 196: Blackbeard the Pirate

Release date: December 24th, 1952 

Studio: RKO 

Genre: adventure 

Director: Raoul Walsh 

Producer: Edmund Grainger 

Actors: Robert Newton, Linda Darnell, William Bendix, Keith Andes, Torin Thatcher 

Plot Summary: In the late 17th century, a Lieutenant in the British Navy sets out to prove that Sir Henry Morgan, a Jamaican government official, is engaging in piracy. In the process, he winds up on the ship of the infamous Blackbeard. 

My Rating (out of five stars): **¾  

I’m not entirely sure why, but something about this film just didn’t click for me. I’m getting a little sick of seafaring/pirate movies, though, to be honest. That could certainly color my opinion! Blackbeard was played memorably, but the rest of the characters kind of fell flat. (minor spoilers) 

The Good: 

Robert Newton as Blackbeard. Yes, he sometimes chewed the scenery a bit, but he made Blackbeard a strong villain, lacking any kind of sympathetic romanticization. I much prefer that to turning him into some kind of anti-hero. 

Linda Darnell. She looked jaw droppingly gorgeous, and it’s hard to take your eyes off of her. Thank god she got to be in a better movie in 1952 than the low budget mess Island of Desire! (film number 18) 

William Bendix as Ben, Blackbeard’s sidekick. He is such a good character actor with so much screen presence. Even in a fairly small role, he stands out. 

There were certainly some interesting adventures that are pirate movie staples- I liked the treasure plot, some of the sword fighting scenes, the escape plans, etc. 

The death of Blackbeard was pretty damn unforgettable. 

The Bad: 

The romance side plot bombed, as most romance side plots in adventure movies do. The worst part was the fact that Darnell and Keith Andes had about as much chemistry as a wet match. 

I didn’t really like Keith Andes- I don’t know if it was him or the role, but he came across as pretty bland. He looked good shirtless, though! 

Darnell’s character, Edwina. She thankfully had more strength and guile than a typical damsel in distress, but barely. 

The music in these kinds of movies is usually sweeping and epic, but even within that genre the score here was too heavy-handed. It became annoyingly distracting at times. 

The adventures started bleeding together in an amorphous way that got kind of tedious after awhile.  

For a film directed by a prominent director like Raoul Walsh, it was surprisingly ho-hum visually. 

The budget, while not small, was clearly not a lavish one either. In the scenes aboard the ship, the sets were super obvious, and the models used for the long shots of the ships weren’t much better. It really compromised any feeling of being at sea.  

 Why did no one else talk like Blackbeard? He had that strong “Argh!” type of pirate accent, but no one else on his ship or in his crew did. Would his speaking really have been that different from theirs? I know, I know, this is just a pirate movie. 

[mariacallous]

In August 1958, Charles de Gaulle, who had just returned to power in France, set off on a tour of his country’s sub-Saharan African colonies. His purpose was to present them with a plan to join France in a new kind of “community.” Paris would continue to control what it called “state services,” which included defense, monetary matters, customs, as well as media and communications. A new quasi-limited autonomy, meanwhile, would more or less allow African countries to manage their domestic affairs and to carry the costs, once largely borne, by France of doing so.

De Gaulle presented the novel scheme under a veneer of magnanimity. Via a planned referendum, its African possessions would be given the liberty to accept or reject his community. This offer did not come without a warning though. There would be no debate, only an up or down vote, and any colony that rejected the proposition would face secession from France “with all its consequences.”

It was not long before the world learned what this meant in practice. When de Gaulle visited Guinea the following month, that colony’s leader, Ahmed Sékou Touré, spoke defiantly to a crowd as the French statesman looked on. “We do not and never shall renounce our legitimate right to independence,” he said. This angered De Gaulle, who canceled a planned dinner with Touré that night and disinvited him to fly together on his presidential plane to nearby Senegal the next day. Yet these were but the merest hints of the consequences to come.

After de Gaulle had returned home to Paris, he ordered the immediate withdrawal of the thousands of the French civil servants who had made the colony’s bureaucracy run and staffed its clinics and schools. And before they flew home, many of the French workers engaged in an orgy of petty destructiveness, smashing furniture, trashing official records, breaking equipment, and even shattering lightbulbs.

What happened back then in Guinea is one of most famous episodes in an inglorious history of French colonial rule and domination over large parts of West and Central Africa, but it is only a single chapter in a very long story. Guinea is a better place than most to begin a discussion of this topic because in the 1880s and 1890s, the era of rapid French imperial expansion in the region, it was the site of a fierce campaign by Paris to subdue local political rulers, seize control over gold and other natural resources, and extend France’s authority over new territories.

The most famous of these leaders was a man named Samory Touré, who ruled over a polity called the Wassoulou Empire. Its core was in the Guinea highlands, and to France’s great frustration, it sometimes fielded armies numbering as many as 35,000 soldiers. When his empire was finally subdued just before the close of the century, Touré was exiled to an island in Gabon, a faraway equatorial colony (now country), where he died.

France is of course not the only European country to have ruled over Africans, but its history is unique for its persistence, its geographic spread, and its adaptability. A struggle for independence in Algeria, then a large North African French settler colony, brought down France’s Fourth Republic and threatened a civil war in the heart of Europe in 1958, the same year as de Gaulle’s sub-Saharan tour. That is because of the fantastical claim by the rebellious French general, Raoul Salan, that Algeria was actually a physical part, or geographical extension of France. “The Mediterranean traverses France the way the Seine traverses Paris,” Salan claimed.

In the wake of events in Guinea and Algeria, when other Black African figures began to push for more autonomy than de Gaulle had envisioned, or worse, for outright independence, bad things tended to happen to them. A little remembered anti-colonialist figure from Cameroon named Félix-Roland Moumié, for example, was assassinated by French agents whose actions anticipated the dark methods of Vladimir Putin. They poisoned him with radioactive thallium in Geneva in 1960.

More than 60 years later, there is a remarkable uprising against French influence underway in the Sahel, one of the African regions where French domination has been most thorough over the decades. One after another, the leaders of three states in this semi-arid region—Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali—have spoken out against French sway in West Africa and moved to reduce or eliminate the presence of French soldiers, corporations, and diplomats in their countries. In doing so, they have blamed Paris for a host of problems, ranging from a long-running but ineffective and often disruptive French-led campaign to contain the spread of Islamic insurgencies in the Sahel, to interference in their domestic politics, to profiteering from starkly unequal economic ties.

In stiff rebuffs of France, these three landlocked countries, which rank among the poorest in the world, have sometimes welcomed a larger role for Russia, both in helping bolster their internal security and in the extraction of mineral wealth like the gold and uranium in their soils. And with Russia (as with France for so long) these two things often go together.

They have also hinted at ending cooperation with France on controlling the northward flow of African migration across the Sahara toward Europe. And they have been discussing exiting a long-standing monetary union and currency, the CFA franc, which was created by France prior to independence mostly as a way of sustaining French exports in the region. African critics of the CFA franc have long said that it perpetuates French domination, in part through its historic requirement that member countries of the union deposit their foreign reserves with the French treasury. The three states are even discussing establishing a new Sahelian currency to replace the CFA.

The military president of Niger, Abdourahmane Tchiani, has called for France to pay damages to longtime African client states like his for years of what he has likened to looting. In Burkina Faso, next door, another military leader, Ibrahim Traoré, has vowed never to allow his country to be dominated by Europeans again.

In so strongly calling into question relations with France, these three Sahelian countries have captured the imagination of millions of Africans living in other former French colonies and beyond, including in wealthier coastal states, whose official relations with France so far have not been seriously disrupted. To the clear chagrin of French President Emmanuel Macron, though, this has come to feel increasingly like a major reckoning.

Some in France have long seen this coming. In an interview in 2007, his last year in power, former French President Jacques Chirac said as much. “Don’t forget one thing, and that is that a large portion of the money that we have in our purses comes precisely from the exploitation of Africa over the centuries … So we need a little measure of good sense, I didn’t say generosity, but good sense, and justice to render to Africans, I would say, what we took from them. This is necessary if we want to avoid the most severe turmoil and difficulty, with all of the political consequences that this will bring in the near future.”

In fairness to France, with all there is to criticize, its entire legacy in sub-Saharan Africa has not been uniformly abysmal. France once oversaw the construction of large infrastructure projects in its African colonies and clients—major ports, railroads, and highways. Part of the current anger toward this former colonial power is that it has largely exited this business, ceding the realm of big projects to China.

A few of France’s former colonies, Ivory Coast in particular, are well developed by the standards of the region. Even the much-criticized CFA franc has not been thoroughly bereft of benefits, hence its staying power. The relationship with France, and through Paris, with the European Union, has long kept the CFA convertible and relatively stable, if typically overvalued—affecting the balance of trade by making these countries exports expensive and imports, notably from the Eurozone, cheaper.

Surveying Africa below the Sahara in its entirety, though, it is hard to avoid the impression that France’s former colonies generally trail their former British colony counterparts in economic development, in democratic governance, and in political stability. And this is no paean to British colonial rule or influence, which gradually dissipated after independence.

But even if one wishes to take the most benign view of colonialism and capitalism in Africa, it is hard to argue that France has done nearly enough to help foster development in its former possessions or usher them more fully into the global economy. And to some extent, this stands to reason. France, at best, is a medium-size country with a matching economy. These attributes stand in disproportionate relation to Paris’s grand and long-standing ambition of buttressing its own stature in the world by clinging to the reins of neocolonial power in the continent to the south. Africa’s galloping demographic growth makes the absurdity of this mismatch more evident by the year.

On one level, the ongoing uprising against Paris in the Sahel can be understood as a cynical ploy using populism to sustain the political power of military elites in states that have been flirting with failure for years. But there is something much more interesting going on.

There is another challenge being posed by the leaders of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger that is likely to be far more impactful over time: they are challenging other African countries—both French and English speaking—to tear down the barriers that cripplingly divide them. More than a century ago, Europe “broke” the continent by subdividing it into cookie cutter-shaped countries, many of them small and landlocked.

Deeper African unity and federation is a dream with a surprisingly long pedigree. This was the cry of African intellectuals like J.E. Casely Hayford, in the former Gold Coast, now Ghana, early in the 20th century. More famously, it was also the obsession of Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah. Less well-remembered, this was also the cause of Barthélemy Boganda, the early leader of the Central African Republic, who hoped to federate French-speaking countries in that part of the continent under a proposed United States of Latin Africa.

What remains certain today is that a start toward the greater prosperity and well-being that all Africans yearn for will only come when these divides are eradicated, and outsiders can’t do this for them. Anger towards France is only useful if it becomes a catalyst for greater agency by Africans, who build their own regional currencies, construct their own regional rail and highways, and constitute political and economic unions that exist on more than paper.

[luneemeritus]

Huskerdust, Chaggie, Stolitz, Fluttercord, omg there are so many lmao

(Erik/Christine too, this one is toxic indeed but the antis are too passionate about it, they exagerate Erik's flaws and pretend Raoul is not toxic and did nothing wrong, straight up hypocrisy)

The antis speak like if the shipp included someone abusing, manipulating someone else, throwing them against the wall and breaking their bones, but no. It's just Discord being jeaously of Fluttershy. It's just Angel and Husk not getting along AT FIRST. It's just Stolas and Blitzø not knowing how to communicate their feelings. It's just Charlie and Vaggie... well, not doing anything? I can't think of anything toxic about Chaggie. It scares me to think that people are expecting relationships to be perfect, flawless and any kind of misunderstanding makes someone evil, toxic, abusive, unforgivable. Everyone talks about empathy and forgiveness but they won't lose any opportunity to destroy someone's life because of something cringe they said/did 10 years ago.

tag y’all’s problematic ships 🫶🏻

[annachum]

Christine Daae actually does kinda remind me of Belle ( Beauty and the Beast ) in some ways. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Like :

. Highly intelligent, compassionate, free spirited, sweet, fearless and strong as hell

. Been through a lot of shit yet remains kind and compassionate

. Basically anti stalking an unwanted admirer ( Gaston and Phantom )

. Has a crazy love story with their husbands ( Prince Adam and Raoul ), who from a more well off background

. Close to their biological fathers

. Loves reading and exploring

. Seen as ' odd ' by some people due to having interests not seen as 'common ' ( Christine loves mythical related things - tarot cards, healing crystals, Norse Altars etc ) yet neither give a flying fuck of what others think of them

. Tries her best to be as respectful to others as possible, yet can and will stand up for themselves when neccessary and can be TERRIFYING when angered

. Stresses more on inner beauty than outer beauty

. Loves floral related accessories

. Willing to risk her life for her loved ones

. Passionate in what she does ( Belle is a gifted inventor like her dad, while Christine eventually becomes an international opera star )

[tornrose24]

Oh I forgot to add

Heisenberg, before he travels, wants to keep a record of where he has been with photos, but due to his EM powers, it is a bit difficult to find any cameras that will work in his presence (since he is electromagnetic he can’t be near any electronics and magnetic things other than maybe stuff in his metal factory).

He eventually builds his own camera and uses that. And he keeps a travel journal as well. He has lots of stories to tell Rose when he comes back to visit her, whenever that is, since as mentioned he wants to enjoy his freedom.

I think Heisenberg would take pictures of whatever he finds especially fascinating in addition to more scenic images. Like any kind of machinery or construction that he finds cool or impressive. But once in awhile if he finds himself up against someone wanting to mess with him (or whatever zombie type thing that’s still roaming the world) he might do a selfie with their beaten up body laying on the ground behind him, complete with a thumbs up and everything.

The travel journal amuses me because I can see that, but it’s ironic because Heisenberg reminds me of Raoul Duke (a journalist) from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. So I imagine whatever he writes will be almost as crazy (especially if he got into the same drugs but I’m very anti drug and would rather not go into that scenario). Though I’m not sure specifically where he’d want to go at the moment.... actually speaking of which, he probably would have fun in Vegas and messing with the machines when someone is trying to get a big win on purpose.

He’s the kind who loves an audience so of course he’d wait to see Rose in person and share the best stories for her. (Though some he’d be forced to save for when she’s older). Though it’d be funny if among the photos he shares/sends over to her, there’s one he accidentally included that’s of those selfies where he ended up beating up someone/thing I mentioned.

[phantomnostalgist]

Did Raoul fans exist in early Phantom fandom??

Oh, probably, they just sensibly hid under rocks or in the deep depths of caves, I mean...

Uh, yes. But not a lot of them. Phandom was definitely very much pro-Erik, or E/C inclined. I remember printing a pro-Raoul/anti-Erik letter in one issue of “Beneath the Mask”, from someone who used a pseudonym, and getting a lot of angry letters aimed at her in reply. I think that’s pretty natural - we tend to identify strongly with Erik as the outsider, the person rejected and subject to decades of hatred and discrimination, whereas Raoul is the privileged pretty boy, and how many of us drawn to Erik give a fuck about Raoul? I mean, he could forget about Christine and go on to live a perfectly happy life, really.

Someone told me there’s more R/C love these days than there was 20 years ago, and I wonder if that’s partly to do with the 2004 movie. Patrick Wilson’s Raoul is certainly the most sympathetic and attractive Raoul I recall seeing, not in the sense of physically attractive particularly, but in the portrayal, his acting (sure, he’s physically attractive too, but I don’t think that’s relevant to Erik partisans). Honestly, the 2004 movie enabled me to understand Raoul partisans in a way I hadn’t before, because Wilson is a) a wonderful actor, b) better than anyone else in the movie IMO, and c) contrasts with Butler’s Erik having stalked Christine since her early childhood in the movie, eeuuugh. If one sees the stage show having taken in the movie version, and projecting Gerik onto stage Erik, imagining he’s been living under the opera house most of his life and watching Christine from when she’s a young child (which does not happen in the novel or show!!), I can see how it’s easier to respond to Raoul as her true love, and see Gerik as a creepy child-grooming stalker. Yuck yuck yuck. Even though Raoul is clearly significantly older than her in the movie too, so how old was he when he ran into the sea to fetch her red scarf...? Yeah, no one thinks much about that... 

But uh, what was I saying? Oh yeah. I find it easier to understand why people who were introduced to Butler’s Gerik lean towards Christine/Raoul than those of us who were phans before the movie, which is one of the reasons I hate the movie. But certainly, there were people who argued in favour of Raoul, or who stressed the unhealthy and abusive aspects of Christine/Erik, back in the day too. They were just a very small minority, or people who expressed their views in a more careful or moderate manner (perhaps afraid of being yelled at, perhaps entirely reasonably as that definitely happened!) than over the last decade or so of phandom. 

I’ve also heard that some Christine/Raoul fans in recent internet years have become so militant they’ve tried to bully people off tumblr merely for pointing out that Leroux’s Raoul is kind of a whiny crybaby.

I don’t know how exactly people are bullied off tumblr, but Leroux’s Raoul is absolutely a whiny crybaby. 100%. COME FOR ME, RAOUL FANS. If that’s what you want to do. 

Actually I find it kinda refreshing that Leroux’s Raoul expresses his emotions; the fact he cries rather frequently in some ways mirrors Erik in the novel, who also expresses his emotions in a manner that doesn’t fit the “masculine ideal” of holding tears inside. In fact Raoul is quite often contrasted with his family’s patriarchal values, so we could see both Raoul and Erik as progressive in their dismissal of some of their society’s patriarchal values, yet as both still using their own emotional states and expressions to pressure and manipulate Christine - who could herself be seen as an early feminist heroine, in that she is the one who eventually makes the decisions and takes the actions to save/rescue both Erik and Raoul. But people who think Raoul is so much better than Erik should probably re-read Leroux. Raoul attempts to manipulate Christine plenty. 

So when I say Raoul is a whiny crybaby in Leroux, I don’t mean that to be quite as harsh a criticism as it may sound - I love that Leroux portrayed him that way. And we should remember he’s the same age as Christine, they’re both about 20 or 21, in an era where sexual awakening and ownership of our desires would have been pushed to happening later in life than it probably is for us now (where we start exploring more openly in our teens, at least openly in our own minds even if we keep it private or secret). 

So, uh, I forget what my point was. I think support or positive feelings or love of Raoul is a lot more “mainstream” now than it was in the 1990s, certainly. And that’s a good thing, really, as there are plenty of positive things to be said about Raoul and negative things to be said about Erik... but plenty of negative things to be said about Raoul too (and positive about Erik, obviously!). It’s good that the internet allows a wider range of opinion to be expressed. But if it’s true that Raoul fans have been bullying people off tumblr for saying Leroux’s Raoul is a crybaby, well, READ LEROUX AGAIN YOU NITWITS. And stop watching the goddamn 2004 movie.

[werewiire]

I can’t reply because they blocked me immediately after reblogging my post with their comments but. my post made its way onto the wrong side of Tumblr and made some people mad, and I have some Things to say

First of all this wasn’t necessarily even a pro-Raoul post. I never said he didn’t do anything wrong — in fact, I have several issues with his behaviour both in Leroux canon and the musical. I just wanted to point out a common fallacy in the arguments some people make, when they say Raoul was kind of an asshole AND THEREFORE Erik is clearly the only other option for Christine to choose. Hey, I even ship e/c on occasion (depending on the adaptation), so it’s not like I’m an anti-Erik “incel” or whatever.

Secondly, for some people, Erik also reminds them of a lot of entitled, immature men they’ve met in real life. “I gave you my music / made your song take wing / and now, how you’ve repaid me / denied me and betrayed me” absolutely reeks of entitlement, and is very close to home for a lot of people, myself included. She doesn’t owe anyone shit — she didn’t ask for any of it. Making an argument like that feels sort of in bad faith, since the opposite can very easily be true also.

"Raoul is a dismissive douche" and Erik threatens to blow up half of Paris if a woman didn't fuck him. Let’s be real here.

And then this argument? If Raoul didn’t believe Erik to be dangerous wouldn’t that be worse? Like, a LOT worse? You're arguing that Raoul is a dick because he doesn’t listen to her. But also that Raoul shouldn’t have listened to her. She told Raoul he would kill her, what was he supposed to do?

"The worst part is that he believed Erik was dangerous" he just hanged a man and dropped a chandelier on an innocent crowd because his crush was dating someone else and he felt entitled to her affection. I think that qualifies as at least somewhat dangerous.

Basically what I’m trying to say here is that “Raoul is an ass” doesn’t immediately mean “therefore Christine should get with Erik”. It’s a point against Raoul, not a point for Erik. You are allowed to prefer Erik without demonising Raoul. Frankly, if you think Raoul is such a douche, what’s wrong with her being with neither of them?

anyway, if you think i’ve missed anything or made a mistake with my arguments here feel free to (RESPECTFULLY) let me know. i realise i came off as quite aggressive in the original post, so this is my attempt to articulate what i meant a little better.

ppl arguing against raoul (in favour of erik/christine) will rlly be like “Raoul is bad for Christine because he put her in danger”

IN DANGER OF WHO. IN DANGER OF WHO. im begging you to use your brain for two seconds for the love of god

[danielbranney1]

Fauvism/Cubism/Futurism/Vorticism

The first modern artists were Eduard Manet, Pablo Picasso, and Kandinsky. The first is debated among historians.

The Fauvist painters were the first to break Impressionism as well as traditional older methods of perception. Features of Fauvism included using paint straight from tube, and unnaturalistic and intense colours. Paintings were primarily landscapes. Key artists of fauvism include Henri Matisse, Andre Derain, Maurice De Vlaminck, Georges Rouault, and Raoul Dufy.

Fauvism was a short lived era, a transitional period in a lot of artist's careers. Many went on to favour cubism (except Matisse, he continued pioneering and developing fauvism)

Matisse- one of the main pioneers of Fauvism. His painting Open Window Collioure was the first real fauvist style painting. It featured unnatural colours, very vibrant and mostly complimentary. There are rectangular shapes, the walls on either side frame the view from the open window. He also makes no attempt to create an illusion of depth. Promenade among olive trees (another painting of Matisses) features broken colour, colour confidence, and blocks of colour. There’s a sense of pattern, as well as the canvas seeping through.

Andre Derain- worked closely with Matisse, short broken brushstrokes directly link with some of the post-impressionists artists. Very controlled.

Cubism rejected the idea that paintings should depict a single viewpoint. Form and space are broken down into geometric shapes. The subject matter includes still life, human figure, and interior spaces. It rejected the idea that art should come from nature and traditional perspective techniques. Key artists of cubism were Picasso and Braque.

There were two phases: analytical cubism (1907-12) and synthetic cubism (1913-21). Analytical cubism was fragmented, had multiple viewpoints, geometric forms, and a restricted palette. Synthetic cubism was more vibrant and colourful. Collage was introduced; fragments of newspaper, monoprint, tiles, texture, stencilling, more interesting shapes, interlocking of geometric shapes.

Futurism embraced the machine age and all things modern. It rejected the past and embraced the future. An important aspect of Futurism was the need to show movement in paintings creating abstract and rhythmic qualities. Futuristic art brings to mind the city, noise, heat and movement. It uses urban subject matter. It rejects cubism as it was perceived to be too intellectual and static. They were interested in creating new art which created shock value. It influenced art movements such as art deco surrealism, dada, vorticism and more.

Vorticism was all about the transformation of the world by the increasing use of technology and machinery. Verging on pure abstraction, architectural shapes coming through. Kind of anti-human in terms of style, still see a representation of context like boats, shapes of buildings etc. After the war many returned to figurative painting.

Whyndham Lewis- work has a sense of pessimism inspired by war, shows a time period of destruction. All his figures are dehumanised, turned into little abstract shapes. Very prophetic and timeless.

Vorticism Homework

What is the relevance of Vorticism? Vorticism is relevant due to the industrial developments at the time coupled with the culture of violence. It provides important insight into the time period.

What major event took place while it was developing? WW1 was the major event of the time.

What makes Vorticism unique? Vorticism is unique as it’s a sort of blend between Futurism and Cubism. The style had harsh lines and featured industrial objects and a fascination with machinery. It also reflected the violence of the times and the devastation of the war.

[glassprism]

Maybe controversial but I had to ask, other that James Barbour are there any Phantom actors you dislike as a person (not just as a performer)?!

Yeah, I was not a fan of Jordan Craig as Raoul. I enjoyed him well enough in the 2016 video with Derrick Davis and Kaitlyn Davis (though not so much in the 2018 video with Quentin Oliver Lee and Eva Tavares, and even less live), but I couldn’t stand his political viewpoints.

I think I went on his Twitter once before he made it private, and in five minutes of scrolling I saw him retweeting both fans saying that they loved his performance (”Thank you so much for your kind words, I’m loving [insert city name here]!”) and anti-feminist or transphobic rhetoric (”People wanting me to use their preferred pronouns is a violation of my right to free speech!”). I was getting such bad mood whiplash that I had to exit out; between that and my violent disagreement with everything he was retweeting, my brain was on the verge of an aneurysm.

So yep, if you ever ask, “Who’s an actor whom you actually disliked as a person”, Jordan Craig is one of the first to come to mind (after Barbour of course).

[fortunebuoyed]

listen i am down to debate and even deride the morality of my muses and their actions any time, any place, but i will die on the hill that objectively, when left to his own devices, mordaunt was absolutely right. if he was a little less grandiose in his pursuit of vengeance and hadn’t gotten sucked into cromwell’s promises, the man would be an unparalleled anti-hero of his own story. boy just wants to avenge his mother who was executed in a kangaroo court and lash out at the man responsible for turning a five year old child out onto the street. 

yeah singling out raoul was a dick move, and yes, everything he did for cromwell is a fleet of yikes on trikes, but our heroes still took justice into their own hands, an act which had far reaching consequences for an innocent and enabled the kind of man who would deny a child any comfort based on the sins of his mother to obtain greater power. the only thing mordaunt ever did wrong was give in to his stupid impulsive de la fere genes.

[letterboxd]

Empathy Machine: The Value of Film.

Kambole Campbell surveys the rapid rise in films our members are watching to deepen their understanding of racism, and recommends some deeper cuts once you’ve finished with the ‘first five’: 13th, Do The Right Thing, I Am Not Your Negro, Malcolm X and Selma.

As worldwide action against police violence (as well as a normalization of state-sponsored racism and armed-citizen violence) continues in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, it can feel strange and perhaps inappropriate to be talking about film, or even considering it.

But although the act of engaging with film is far from activism, there is still value to be found. These events are cyclical, and painful, and exhausting; you shouldn’t insist that your Black friends help you understand, you should be doing the work yourself. One easy way to start: with the many creative and galvanizing works by Black filmmakers. The likes of Spike Lee, Ava DuVernay, Cheryl Dunye and so many others have already done the job, all you have to do is watch.*

And, as clichéd as it feels to invoke, the simplest reasoning comes from Roger Ebert, who said: “Movies are the most powerful empathy machine in all the arts. When I go to a great movie I can live somebody else’s life for a while. I can walk in somebody else’s shoes.”

A lot of Letterboxd members feel the same way. Just as cinephiles flocked to Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion as the coronavirus pandemic began to spread, viewings of the likes of Ava DuVernary’s documentary 13th, Spike Lee’s magnum opus Do the Right Thing and Raoul Peck’s elegiac James Baldwin essay film I Am Not Your Negro—along with more films focused on Black experience, history and protest—have spiked in viewing and review numbers in the past fortnight.

Malcolm X, Selma, Daughters of the Dust, The Hate U Give, If Beale Street Could Talk, Just Mercy, Fruitvale Station, and more are all enjoying an undeniable surge of viewership—in some cases, an increase of a thousand percent over their historical viewership numbers. And a matching rise in the number of reviews gives us insight into the feelings, or sense of catharsis, people are seeking from these films. Here, we take a survey of recent reactions to the top five—followed by suggestions for digging deeper.

Activist and scholar Angela Davis in ‘13th’.

13th (2016) Directed by Ava DuVernay

At the time of writing, 13th was the current most popular film by volume of activity on Letterboxd. (Within 24 hours of its release, Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods jumped into the top spot, with 13th now in second place.) It’s easy to see why Letterboxd members gravitated to the film—Ava DuVernay’s 2016 documentary on the loophole of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which effectively allows slavery in the modern day, is comprehensive and convincing.

Built around interviews with a number of Black academics and a thorough history of Jim Crow laws through to modern-day mass incarceration in the US, it’s an important and effective primer for anyone looking for a basic comprehension of new methods of oppression from the state. Part of the film’s power comes from, as member and film critic Josh Lewis puts it, “the way DuVernay sequences this, the way she moves us through the major events, records and timelines with passion and anger, allowing Black voices and art to naturally narrate”.

As with a number of films from the last decade that examine Black protest, there’s a juxtaposition between modern imagery and rhetoric, and systemic racism from a history that America too often insists it has left behind. It makes clear the repetition of this history of oppression for Black Americans with powerful editing, as DuVernay organizes archive footage from the past through to the present day to emphasise this point.

Spike Lee on the set of ‘Do the Right Thing’ (1989).

Do The Right Thing (1989) Directed by Spike Lee

It could be said that the recognition of this repetition is part of why these particular films have proven so popular in recent weeks. Perhaps the most significant part of the engagement with older work like Spike Lee’s (arguably best) film Do The Right Thing, is that the imagery hasn’t aged. As Ashley Clark says in a recent piece for Time on films about Black history and protest, “…it’s amazing to see those patterns repeat now, specifically in the discourse of people focusing more on the destruction of property than on lives that are lost”. Do The Right Thing’s palpable anger and unending relevance make it one of the best fictional films to watch right now, if not for understanding and empathy (“I have a lot of empathizing to do,” Letterboxd member Ted agrees), then for some kind of catharsis.

Denzel Washington as Malcolm X in Spike Lee’s 1992 biopic.

Malcolm X (1992) Directed by Spike Lee

It’s not just Do The Right Thing either—even just going off the numbers, Spike Lee is a go-to name when it comes to engaging with Black people’s history in America and in American film. He’s been engaging with these subjects of protest and anguish for the longest time, and there are few such prolific directors in the way he broaches the subject, crossing the line back and forth between fiction and non-fiction, readily blending the two together in many cases.

That status feels evident in the corresponding surges of popularity for Malcolm X, one of his most acclaimed works, and BlacKkKlansman, one of his most recent. His latest work, the excellent, galvanizing war drama Da 5 Bloods (streaming on Netflix now), acts as a reminder that institutional racism is not just a symptom of the current establishment, but something deeply embedded in American ideology. It’s a multimedia examination of the overlap of racism and imperialism, its arguments backed up by clips of Angela Davis, Kwame Ture, Muhammad Ali and of course Malcolm X.

Malcolm X is a valuable watch in that it provides a loving and complex portrait of a man often vilified by white liberals as much as white conservatives, an example of the ‘wrong’ way to protest or take action. It’s a counterpoint to the reductive and often-held perspective of the man, who is often presumed to have stood in opposition to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It’s a humanist portrait of a man constantly changing, one brought to life by, as Jaime Rebenal writes, “one of cinema’s very finest performances” from Denzel Washington (whom, I must reinforce, was truly robbed of that Oscar). A long film, but not a minute wasted.

David Oyelowo is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Ava DuVernay’s ‘Selma’ (2014).

Selma (2014) Directed by Ava DuVernay

On the flip-side of this is Ava DuVernay’s Selma, which paints an equally complicated portrait of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., focusing on the organized action that lead to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. “As sobering as it is galvanizing” writes Letterboxd member and correspondent Ella Kemp. Selma’s vision of MLK was of a complicated man, one steadfast in his commitment to peaceful resistance and protest for civil rights, but still a man as opposed to a saint.

I could talk at length about that supposed saintliness being thrown back in the faces of Black people, as well as the gossip compounded by American institutions to discredit the man’s work—DuVernay and David Oyelowo’s interpretation of MLK saves me that time.

All beautifully lensed by the—at that point—upcoming cinematographer Bradford Young (whose subsequent credits include Arrival and Solo: A Star Wars Story), and with typically gorgeous costume design from Black Panther Oscar-winner Ruth E. Carter (a long-time associate of Spike Lee), it’s a visual treat as well.

Novelist, poet, playwright, essayist and activist James Baldwin.

I Am Not Your Negro (2016) Directed by Raoul Peck

I Am Not Your Negro, Raoul Peck’s documentary-slash-adaptation of the unpublished James Baldwin memoir, provides a similar juxtaposition between America’s past racism and its present. Narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, words from Baldwin’s unfinished manuscript ‘Remember This House’ explore American anti-Blackness through a mixture of archival footage and anecdotes from Baldwin, as he recounts the lives of his civil rights leader friends Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Medgar Evers and others.

As with many other Letterboxd reviews, Daisoujou reflects on the persistence of state-sponsored racism, writing that it’s “a movie that feels like it was made yesterday, based on writings from roughly the 80s, which also feel written yesterday, in the most depressing way”. A lot of identifying with films detailing Black protest is to recognize this cycle, the seeming neverending-ness of it all; that engagement with racism is not just something occurring in the present moment but something that carries the weight of history, at all times.

A scene from Cheryl Dunye’s ‘The Watermelon Woman’ (1996).

These are all strong starting points for the beginning of an empathy with Black protest, struggle, history and art on film. But it’s just scratching the surface. The five films above mostly skew towards the recent, when there’s a long and exceptional history of Black cinema.

It’s important to consider the expansiveness of Black art, that not all of it is about our tragedies, there’s more to witness than our pain, and this deserves attention after crisis as well. K. Austin Collins’ introduction for his Vanity Fair list says it best: “Black defiance on-screen is bigger than Do the Right Thing, however. Black defiance (including but not limited to outright protest), Black anger, Black art: These are vast territories.” As Collins’ excellent two-part list states, the history of our representation and the self-determination of our on-screen legacies of course goes far beyond just the work of Spike Lee and Ava DuVernay.

You could watch Cheryl Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman for a film examining just that: how the narrow idea of ‘representation’ has failed so many, that their own histories have to be invented, and how Black people often have to deal with art’s frequent rejection of their own image.

You could watch the work of Kathleen Collins, you could watch Paris is Burning for a history of New York City ballrooms and drag culture (and here’s K. Austin Collins again with a recent re-reading of that film, in conversation with its white director). The history of Black Britishness also often gets left at the wayside—both Collins and Clark recommend Handsworth Songs and Blacks Britannica for pictures of Black thought and struggle in the context of Thatcher’s Britain (and many more in their aforementioned lists, both well worth checking out).

The protests have also, naturally, lead to conversations around representation of Black people across media, in front of and behind the camera. Such discovery is both vital and easier than ever, as the protests have inspired artists and streaming sites to make their library of work more accessible—among those, the Criterion Channel, having dropped the paywall for much of its collection focusing on Black lives.

Related content

Black Life on Film: a master list, and broken down into sub-genres, by Adam Davie (he discussed the list, a three-year labor of love, on episode 6 of The Letterboxd Show podcast).

Black Saint’s list of Films by Black Directors You Should Watch.

Queer, Black, 21st Century: a list of 21st-century films featuring queer, Black experiences, by Black filmmakers (directors and/or writers), for Pride 2020.

Letterboxd’s official top 100 narrative feature films by Black directors

*It’s important to remember amongst all this that just watching these films isn’t activism; action is also required. Educating yourself is just the first step. Ways you can help, tangibly.