Mists of Avalon
Sep. 19th, 2004 05:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rmI am watching the Mists of Avalon miniseries, and it is, as Kat promised, bad.
The casting is mostly apalling. Most of the faces are too modern, most of the acting is mediocre, and few of the actors seem physically able to inhabit their roles and that's before they get on a horse and have a sword in their hand.
The changes made from the book mostly seem unnecessary, and in the interest of sanitizing things that can't really be sanitzed, and that's annoying as well. The entire king-making thing was especially awful, visually displeasing and neither frightening or arousing (and it probably should have been at least one).
That said, the matter of Arthur's heir and the infamous threesome issue, while also utter crap in this thing (let me count the ways), still made me look up from the work I've been doing while watching and held my focus forcefully. I've often said, what a strong, precise literary memory that is for me and the various things it made me understand about writing and people and sacrifice and complexity, but to see that infamous discussion on screen, even in this tripe, moved me more than I would have thought -- not out of any great anything in this awful project, but just because that's been laid so deep under my skin for so long, and if nothing else, it got the sense that no one breathed once during that whole conversation down perfectly.
Other things that suck: okay, people... having some chickens around doesn't make your project all Middle Ages authentic. The people are still too damn clean, and straw on the ground and chickens do not make up for manicures, blindingly white teeth, and men who have no scars on their flesh.
Also -- cheesy blue light surrounding Excalibur? Was that really necessary? Man.
This is sucktacular, and not even terribly fun for all that.
The casting is mostly apalling. Most of the faces are too modern, most of the acting is mediocre, and few of the actors seem physically able to inhabit their roles and that's before they get on a horse and have a sword in their hand.
The changes made from the book mostly seem unnecessary, and in the interest of sanitizing things that can't really be sanitzed, and that's annoying as well. The entire king-making thing was especially awful, visually displeasing and neither frightening or arousing (and it probably should have been at least one).
That said, the matter of Arthur's heir and the infamous threesome issue, while also utter crap in this thing (let me count the ways), still made me look up from the work I've been doing while watching and held my focus forcefully. I've often said, what a strong, precise literary memory that is for me and the various things it made me understand about writing and people and sacrifice and complexity, but to see that infamous discussion on screen, even in this tripe, moved me more than I would have thought -- not out of any great anything in this awful project, but just because that's been laid so deep under my skin for so long, and if nothing else, it got the sense that no one breathed once during that whole conversation down perfectly.
Other things that suck: okay, people... having some chickens around doesn't make your project all Middle Ages authentic. The people are still too damn clean, and straw on the ground and chickens do not make up for manicures, blindingly white teeth, and men who have no scars on their flesh.
Also -- cheesy blue light surrounding Excalibur? Was that really necessary? Man.
This is sucktacular, and not even terribly fun for all that.
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Re: Is it really feminist at all?
Date: 2004-09-20 04:35 am (UTC)Purely because I like to hear myself talk, though, I will elaborate a little. I won't blame you if you ignore me. I probably would in your shoes. I am largely full of hot air this week... :-)
I'm not sure, especially given the novel's frequent (and remember I was 14, so perhaps I over-remember this) depictions of sex and M's attitude toward those events ("gotta get me a man as good in bed as Arthur -- why are these guys all such crappy lays"), it may not be entirely fair to dismiss G's whining.
On the other hand, a responsible feminist document SHOULD recognize that women can be strong OR weak, just like men; and it should recognize that a woman DOES deserve a satisfying sex life.
It's certain that Bradley is TRYING to write a feminist document. I suppose that effort, no matter the extent to which the publishing conditions of the time made it seem like soft porn for teen aged boys, makes MISTS indeed a feminist document, although perhaps not in the same sense. And Bradley herself historically did everything she could to present herself as a strong woman in control of her own life and choices.
It's just that the particular way I remember Bradley depicting that M wants and deserves a fulfilling sex life (do I misremember that this is one of the biggest reasons she refuses the marriage set up for her by the patriarchy?) has left a lasting (20 year) soft-porn impression that makes me wonder how effectively she succeeded in THIS book.
In reading my previous post I see that it sounds as though I accused Bradley of cynically using the trappings of feminism to sell porn to children. I'm sorry for that -- it was not my intention at all, and I'm embarrassed by it as well, because usually I am much more completely in control of my writing.
I think Bradley's feminist ideals were sincere, and I think the same thing about her project in MISTS. I also think, though, that if Piers Anthony had written this novel, women's studies courses would have DENOUNCED it rather than embracing it.
A side note: the depiction of the patriarchy and the Christians Versus Pagans issue in MISTS is one thing I found annoying (and, remember, I liked the book) -- it came at a time when the only people I encountered who used the word 'patriarchy' were angry teen-aged women bent on placing me firmly at the oppressive head of it, whose understanding of history was not just paranoid but bizarre.
I was young and confused about what feminism meant, and I am sure I was a big ass about it. These women, only slightly older, to be consistent with the ideals they claimed, ought to have tried to clarify and explain why (if it was, which it probably was) my behavior was poor. Instead, I and all other boys and men were dismissed with hostility and shrill rhetoric as "patriarchal agents."
MISTS used "patriarchy" as a straw man in the midst of that environment. And the Christians versus Pagans rivalry it depicts in doing so is profoundly unmedieval. In hindsight I think it's an interesting way to structure a fantasy novel, and it makes good sense in Bradley's FICTIONAL world.
But in using "patriarchy" in that way at that time, MISTS reinforced the shrillness of the angry teen-aged feminist and caused many people to believe that was all there was to feminism at a time when many mature, balanced, reasonable people -- Bradley perhaps herself among them -- were saying persuasive, constructive things about ways the genders could work together to achieve true equality.