whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul

[whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul]

wth is red scare les mis

Have you ever wondered why all the nonmusical English-language Les Mis adaptations suck? Why they're so weirdly conservative? Why they all share the same dumb changes to the book like "Cops are fine but Javert is the One Bad Apple who's evil because he's obsessed with Valjean?" A lot of that can be traced back to one early influential American film adaptation of Les Mis-- Les Mis 1935, made during the height of the Red Scare, which my discord buddies and I have nicknamed "Red Scare Les Mis" or "Hays Code Les Mis."

Red Scare Les Mis was the first big-budget film adaptation of Les Mis in the English-speaking world. It was made during the height of the Red Scare in America, and also in the middle of the massive labor movements around the Great Depression. It is a very deliberate piece of conservative anti-rebellion propaganda. The film actively despises the message of the original novel and deliberately intentionally censors or destroys it whenever possible. It basically became a blueprint for the English-speaking film adaptations that came afterwards. Later adaptations are often influenced directly by Red Scare Les Mis OR by an adaptation that was influenced by it. There's a reason the only Good english-language adaptation is the stage musical, and the reason is because it was a translation of the French musical/concept album (which was more influenced by French adaptations like the French language Les Mis 1934, which are actually pretty good.) So what is so bad about Red Scare Les Mis? (that isn't obvious from the descriptions above alksdjflskdjf) The film is dedicated to painting any kind of rebellion or anti-authoritarianism as a dangerous evil conspiracy. Again, this is an America in the midst of massive labor movements and paranoia about communism-- so Red Scare Les Mis is all about how rebellion is dangerous, deranged, and evil. It doesn't help that this was also made during the time of the Hays Code, which essentially forbade portraying crime in a positive light or laws in a negative light. Enjolras in 1935 is a deranged extremist who Goes Too Far-- played by an actor who usually plays villains-- and all the students who agitate for revolution are framed as flat-out Satanic. I might be misremembering bc I don't have the strength to watch the movie all the way through in one sitting but I believe there's literally even a scene where Enjolras smiles evilly as his face is lit from below to convey that he is a horror movie villain. This in contrast to Marius, who is the leader of Les Amis in this version and a heroic peaceful protestor who doesn't want to overthrow the system and simply wants some minor prison reforms. "We are not revolutionaries," Marius assures the audience. He passes out pamphlets and that's basically the extent of his activism (because a Good Activist never breaks the law or makes people uncomfortable.) If you want a clear encapsulation of the way the film deliberately censors and destroys the point of the original work, you don't have to look any farther than the opening shot. The film opens on the famous quote from the preface to Les Mis..................but it radically changes it. See if you can spot the MAJOR ideological difference: Original preface: So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom, decrees of damnation pronounced by society, artificially creating hells amid the civilization of earth, and adding the element of human fate to divine destiny; so long as the three great problems of the century—the degradation of man through pauperism, the corruption of woman through hunger, the crippling of children through lack of light—are unsolved; so long as social asphyxia is possible in any part of the world;—in other words, and with a still wider significance, so long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, books of the nature of Les Misérables cannot fail to be of use. 1935:

The original preface says that as long as the law damns people to be imprisoned in artificial hells on earth, the story is worth being told-- the message being that no one deserves to have their humanity ripped away from them by prison. People deserve empathy regardless of whether they're guilty under "law and custom," because "law and custom" are often nakedly unjust. But 1934 opens with an altered version of the line saying that the book will be relevant as long as people are persecuted "after they have paid the penalty of the law and expiated their offenses in full." Hugo argued people deserved empathy unconditionally, regardless of whether they broke the law-- 1935 believes people only deserve empathy IF they haven't broken any laws and have served full prison sentences for any laws they have broken. In 1935's view, the 'law and custom' Hugo condemns in the preface to Les Mis are innately good and just. The "decrees of damnation pronounced by society artificially creating hells amid the civilization of earth" are fine actually. The only people who deserve empathy, in 1935's view, is people who have "already paid the full penalty." So in 1935's view book Valjean isn't worthy of empathy bc he never paid the legal penalty for stealing from Petit Gervais alkdsjfsdf, and he should've gone back to prison to serve his life sentence. AND THEN they had the gall to attribute their fake conservative quote to Victor Hugo.... Also: if you're wondering where "Javert is the one Bad Apple cop who is uniquely obsessed with Valjean and obsessively persecutes him in a way he doesn't do with any other criminal" comes from-- this film also had a huge impact on that! This film was a big influence on spreading that obnoxious dumb shallow take. IN SUMMARY: Les Mis 1935 was a deliberate piece of propaganda aiming to take a novel that championed left-wing socialist views..... and turn it into a deeply conservative right-wing story about the futility of rebellion and the importance of respecting law and order. The whole film is really encapsulated by the altered "preface" where they flat-out lie and attribute a conservative law-and-order view of the world to Victor Hugo, using a fake quote Hugo never said. It's a deliberate attempt to make an insidious worldview seem normal/justified by pretending it was supported by a famous author. It's saying a bad stupid thing then pretending some famous author said it.

But the adaptational choices it originated/popularized were imitated in later English-language adaptations. While 1935's influence is not the only reason why English Les Mis adaptations like 1998/BBC 2019/etc are often so disconnected from the novel in the same ways and weirdly conservative in the same ways, it definitely is one the reasons. (And that's why you gotta look to France or Japan if you want an actually decent nonmusical adaptation alskdfsdf.) And yeah it just sucks? It sucks that this piece of conservative propaganda that actively intentionally rejects the progressive messages of the original novel became so influential just because it was the First big English-language adaptation. But aint that just the way

[whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul]

exr memes (part 3)

📷 @medium-observation

[whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul]

kyle grantaire chaos

🎥 @medium-observation

[whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul]

titling a chapter “wherein will appear the name of enjolras’s mistress” and it just being the entirety of france is the original clickbait send post

[whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul]

kicked out of the debate for interrupting all my opponent's arguements by saying "me when i'm a dipshit idiot" and then threatening to kill them in increasingly erotic tones

[whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul]

THIS IS HOW I FIND OUT?? raymond walsh i will miss you forever i was so happy when you returned

raymond walsh leaving … wdym i won’t see his grantaire again unless he’s recasted….. you’re lying right…

[whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul]

marius pontmercy is such an interesting character because YES he has intense willpower to live life independently when offered easy ways out BUT his choice to live that way- to LEAVE a safer space and then continually REJECT his grandfathers allowance for him- is privilege.

He is born into privilege, comfort and safety and is never FORCED to leave it, he chooses to. and yes, he lives a hard life because of that choice but the existence of that choice is privilege- like the privilege most of Les Amis have. Like i understand why he leaves, he's unhappy but at the same time that choice is directly related to the fact he KNOWS what comfort feels like, versus someone who doesn't and never got the choice.

And no matter how hard marius' life gets while living alone he will always have privilege because he can leave that and go back to his grandfather, even if his morals and values would never let that happen. Many people don't get that option, and while I will never say Marius' life is easy i will forever say I do not really sympathize with him because his struggle is chosen, and to me that is very different.

anyways. feel free to reblog with thought on Pontmercy's character- i find him extremely interesting.

[whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul]

“Turning” would be a lot better if it was the people of paris singing about why they didnt join the revolution instead of “how silly these poor boys were thinking they could change anything”. It would place the burden of explanation on them instead of the students and it would also give valuable insight into the factors that come into play regarding revolution which Victor Hugo has a lot to say about this in the book. It would also show how revolution is definitely possible and that the people were very much aware of this because this took place just two years after the July revolution of 1830!

[whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul]

I know it’s contradictory to canon but I do have a soft spot for blonde Cosette just because the idea that she looks like Fantine is so important to me. She’s carrying around the face of a mother she’ll never know, Valjean looks at his daughter and he sees the woman he couldn’t save.

[whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul]

might fuck around, listen to the voices, get "permets-tu" tattooed on myself, idk

[whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul]

consider: enjoltaire as what is this feeling from wicked

[whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul]

"the average Les Misérables chapter contains 3 character deaths” factoid actualy just statistical error. The average Les Mis chapter contains 0 deaths. LM 5.1.21: The heroes, in which Hugo kills five characters in a single sentence, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

[whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul]

that point in the semester when all i want is to find family in the form of a group of student revolutionaries

[whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul]

Dudddde what if we were foils and you were beautiful and i was ugly and you have revolution in your eyes and i believe in nothing and you chastely drop your eyes at all things that were not the republic and i stare fixedly at all women and you were absolute in your ideas and i was shapeless and you pitied me and i venerated you and you scorned me and i admired you and you disdained me and i loved you. What if in the presence of you i became someone once more, what if i was charmed by your chaste, healthy, firm, upright, hard, candid nature without me being clearly aware of it and without the idea of explaining it to myself occurring, what if i had need of you, what if i were your unaccepted pylades what if bro can you hear me

[whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul]

when the period cramps start hitting so bad you have to pretend that you're on a barricade in 19th century france bleeding out from a wound dying in the hands of an unrequited lover

[whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul]

I may say my favourite Les Misérables character is Jean Valjean but know that it is really Sister Cruxifixction, the nun who slept in a coffin for twenty years and died the night JVJ and Cosette enter the convent triggering a series of events that lead to JVJ almost getting buried alive in a weird comedy of errors. Anyway I have first dibs on Sister Cruxifixction as a drag name

[whocaresaboutyourlonelysoul]

the quality is 2 pixels but red coat is enj and the other guy is grantaire. t hey kis s