Hysteria (2011, R)

I heard about this movie a while back and was intrigued, but the deal wasn’t clinched until I realized it starred Hugh Dancy (Will from Hannibal.)  It’s not everything I hoped it would be, but it’s still a charming, entertaining historical rom-com – if it has a major fault, it’s that the somewhat formulaic plot doesn’t quite live up to its truth-is-stranger-than-fiction premise.

Our story takes us to Victorian England, land of the repressed, and London is suffering from an epidemic of “hysteria,” the vague diagnosis for any number of female complaints.  Its symptoms range from anxiety to melancholy to irascibility to insomnia, and the general idea is that the lady parts of the afflicted women are making them act crazy (ie, not the good, placid Victorian women they’re supposed to be.)  Mortimer Granville, a young doctor who’s been bounced from half the hospitals in London for his radical ideas like germ theory, finds his way to the private practice of a doctor who specializes in hysteria.  He’s found that by applying “pelvic massages” (yeah,) he can “induce” hysterical “paroxysms” (yep,) and provide his patients some temporary relief/release.  Mortimer joins the practice with dedication, but his heavy caseload soon results in carpal tunnel (that’s right.)  Fortunately, an inventor friend of his has been working on an electric feather duster, and Mortimer thinks he can adapt it for medical use (mmm hmmm.)

So, yeah, the vibrator was invented in Victorian England as a time-(and hand-)saving tool to treat hysteria.  That’s 100% true, although the movie itself is a pretty fictionalized account of the whole business.  Mortimer is of course young and handsome but super uptight, and the doctor he works for of course has two beautiful daughters:  one is a demure “angel of the house” while the other is a fiery suffragist who angers her wealthy father by “wasting” her time serving the poor.  Wanna guess which one Mortimer initially falls for and which one he ends up with?  Sure, all of that is fairly predictable, but it’s still a romantic comedy about the invention of the vibrator in Victorian England, and how is that not made of win?

What there is to like about this movie is pretty great.  It shamelessly mocks the small-minded view that this “treatment” is purely medical, the male doctors assuming by rote that women don’t really have sexual feelings, and certainly not without the aid of their husbands.  It shows the damage done by the whole idea of hysteria as a medical condition, the thought that a woman was at the mercy of her uterus.  It has fun with cutting-edge Victorian technology (Mortimer’s inventor buddy has just installed a telephone,) and it loves to force all the squeamish Victorians to face up to the idea of sex.

Hugh Dancy does a great job with Mortimer – his devotion to medical reform, his enthusiasm for his new work, and his journey to greater understanding of women and their inner lives.  Felicity Jones (Catherine Moreland from Northanger Abbey, more recently of The Theory of Everything) plays the docile daughter while Maggie Gyllenhaal is the irrepressible one, and film also features Jonathan Pryce, Rupert Everett, Ashley Jensen (Maggie from Extras,) and Anna Chancellor.

Warnings

Sexual content – no intercourse, but tons of manual and mechanical “pelvic massages” (all the pertinent “parts” are hidden by a curtain) – and thematic elements.

Favorite Characters: Oberyn Martell (Game of Thrones)

I liked Oberyn well enough when he first showed up on Game of Thrones last year, but he really stood out to me on my pre-season-5 rewatch.  He’s a little bit Inigo Montoya, a little bit Captain Jack Harkness, and pretty much all awesome.  While his role isn’t huge, his impact is.

Oberyn is our first look at Dorne, the southernmost of the Seven Kingdoms.  It’s distinct from the rest of Westeros in many ways – it largely governs itself, having its own royal family, and its climate, customs, and culture are all different.  In general, it keeps to itself, and Oberyn’s arrival in King’s Landing aptly demonstrates why:  he doesn’t care for other Westerosi any more than they care for Dornishmen.

Not that Oberyn takes any offense to heart.  The second son of House Martell, and a prince, Oberyn approaches most things with a shrewd, sardonic eye.  He has a cheeky rejoinder for everything, he has no patience for the pomp and ceremony of King’s Landing, and he makes no apologies for anything he does.  He knows that he’s regarded rather as a joke of a prince, more concerned with good wine and good company than any matters of state, but he doesn’t care.

It’s true that he places a premium on good wine and good company.  When he first comes to King’s Landing, he skips the official welcome and heads straight for the local brothel, where he and his paramour Ellaria have their pick of the prostitutes.  Both of them are very bi and very disinterested in monogamy, but not in an unfaithful way.  Rather, they cherry-pick a handful of paid companions, male and female, at each visit to join them in a big ol’ love pile.  The way they do it, it doesn’t lessen their love and attraction for one another.  Oberyn in particular is inclusively sexual, proclaiming that he doesn’t “choose sides” when it comes to love.  The combo of bisexuality and non-monogamy is a bit typical Hollywood – of course the bi couple are into five-ways – but I like the way Oberyn presents his orientation as a complete non-issue.

Smart-mouth remarks and copious lovemaking aren’t all we get from Oberyn, however.  He does nothing by degrees, throwing himself just as ardently into more serious matters.  Westerosi vs. Dornish ethnocentric jeers aside, there’s a much larger reason Dorne doesn’t get along well with the rest of the Seven Kingdoms – when the last dynasty was overthrown, Oberyn’s sister, the queen by marriage, was brutally murdered, along with her children.  Much of Oberyn’s life has been preoccupied with a desire for vengeance, to hurt anyone who had a hand in hurting his family, and he doesn’t keep mum about his ambitions.  In service of this goal, he’s become an incredible warrior, and he fights with a self-assured fearlessness spurred on by his loss.

At the same time, while he’s greatly concerned with vengeance, he’s not indiscriminate about it.  He never lets Cersei forget that her only daughter is currently living in Dorne as part of a politically-motivated betrothal, but his hunger for Lannister blood doesn’t extend to the child.  His words to Cersei, “We don’t hurt little girls in Dorne,” aren’t a threat but an accusation, a condemnation of the atrocity committed against his sister’s children.  He won’t harm the innocent, and even with his strong hatred of the Lannisters, he grows to regard Tyrion more fairly, according to his merits.  Really, I think Oberyn is just all heart, not in an empathetic way but a passionate one.  He approaches the bedroom, the battlefield, and his private missions with everything he is – not always rationally, but always unreservedly.

Last Three Educational Shorts: Buster Keaton

Here are the last of the sixteen shorts Buster Keaton made for Educational.  They’re a mixed bag (Three on a Limb is especially unfortunate,) but as with most things Buster, there’s still some good to be had. 

One Run Elmer (1935)

Buster thinks his luck is turning around when someone starts building opposite the gas station he runs in the middle of nowhere, but it turns out to be a rival gas station.  This one’s pretty fun – I like Buster’s ramshackle station, the game of dueling prices he plays with his foe, and the many humorous ways all his plans backfire on him.  The title refers to a baseball game that factors into the short later, and there are some really nice gags in this sequence, many of which were inspired by hijinks Buster and his buddies pulled during the celebrity ball games from his Hollywood days.

The E-Flat Man (1935)

Buster and his girl get more than they bargained for when they try to elope; by accident, they’ve sped off in the car of a wanted gangster, and they become convinced that the girl’s parents have sent the cops after them.  It’s a nice, amusing little film that has some funny chase stuff and puts the mistaken-identity angle to good use.

Three on a Limb (1936)

This is my least favorite in the whole Educational bunch.  Buster plays a scoutmaster who falls for a pretty drive-in waitress, but he has his work cut out for him when he finds out that both of the girl’s parents have already picked out a different man for her.  It has quite a bit of the more cringey comedy that sort of looks down on Buster – even his scout uniform makes him seem like a schmuck, looking so much less mature than his romantic rivals.  The only bit I really like involves a wary Buster trying to figure out where to sit down in a living room where a territorial dog has claimed all the seats.

Unfortunate Relationship Tropes: I Die Without You

New feature today – I’m pretty sure the title speaks for itself.  Now, before you say, “What about the Sunday Who Review?”, fear not.  While any unfortunate relationship trope has many fictional examples (or they wouldn’t be tropes,) it’s my plan to focus on a single work for each entry, and in the past few years, new Who has been rife with this particular device.  (Spoilers for series 5-8.)

The basics are simple:  a character, bereft of their beloved, would rather die than live without them.  It’s as old as the hills, with a certain pair of star-crossed lovers as its codependent poster children.  I pretty much always dislike this trope when I see it.  I mean, okay – I don’t experience romantic attraction, so I’ve never felt that type of heartbreak, but any relationship that trumps a person’s entire life is icky to me.  You can’t just live for one person.  It’s too small, too sad.

This is distinct from someone dying (or seriously risking their life) to save their lover.  I’m not wholly on board with that device either, but at least it has a positive aim, rescuing someone.  It’s why I don’t count Clara stepping into the Doctor’s time stream at the end of series 7 as an example of this trope.  First, it’s not exactly clear what’s being Clara and Eleven, but more importantly, she’s driven by a desire to help and protect the Doctor.  Plus, Clara’s serving the greater good; when the Doctor isn’t around the save the day, things fall apart, universe-wise.  (Not that I don’t hate the “I was born to save the Doctor” line – ugh.)  Generally speaking, RTD-era character sacrifices align with this as well, even with Rose and Nine/Ten and all their drama.

By and large, though, the Moffat era prefers more pointless, allegedly-romantic “I die without you” moments.  Yes, it’s a time-travel show with paradoxes and alternate timelines, so not many stay dead for long, and Amy has an awful lot of Rory deaths to deal with.  But it happens again and again.  There’s “Amy’s Choice,” where Rory is killed in one reality, and Amy decides it must be the dream and kills herself, the Doctor, and her unborn child to wake in the other reality.  She admits she doesn’t know she’s right but doesn’t care, saying, “If this is real life, I don’t want it.”  Later, when Rory gets filled in, it’s treated as romantic, the ultimate proof that she “chooses” him and is in it for the long haul.  And that’s just the start.  She gives herself up to the siren in “The Curse of the Black Spot” and she twice dies for Rory in “The Angels Take Manhattan,” once jumping off a building with him (he’s trying to thwart the Angels, while she doesn’t want to risk him not coming back from it) and later turning her back on an Angel to be displaced to the same time as Rory.  “The Girl Who Waited” is borderline – older Amy gives up her chance to live so that young Amy can be with Rory – but it’s all wrapped up in her realization that they can’t both be with Rory and her heartache at seeing the loving way he looks at young Amy.

As for Clara, she gets a pass in “The Name of the Doctor,” but she hasn’t fared so well since.  To say she unravels when Danny dies puts it mildly.  Over the course of three consecutive episodes, she 1) tries to force the Doctor to change the past by destroying TARDIS keys in a volcano, presumably dooming them both to dying there, 2) vows that she’ll find her way to Danny in the Nethersphere, ignoring his protests that she can only get there by dying, 3) doesn’t seem to care when the Doctor warns that Cyber-Danny will kill her if she turns on his emotional inhibitor, and 4) doesn’t want to leave a dream world in which Danny is still alive, despite knowing it means the alien creature eating her brain will finish the job.  I mean, seriously?  I know she’s hurting, and I feel for her, but come on!  Can we say enough is enough on this trope?  Please, Who?

Relationship Spotlight: Emily Fitch & Naomi Campbell (Skins (U.K.))

Like most aspects of Skins, the show doesn’t always get Naomi and Emily right.  Their relationship gets tangled up in much of the messiness that permeates series 4, rife with overwrought drama and out-of-left-field plot twists.  However, when they work, they really work – at their best, their plot is easily the most successful part of series 3, and Naomi’s centric episode in that season is probably in my top five for the show’s entire run.  Here’s Emily and Naomi (relationship-specific spoilers, especially for series 3.)

On the representation front, there are a few things that I really like about this relationship.  First, while it deals with apprehension and uncertainty of two girls beginning their first same-sex relationship, it doesn’t beat around the bush or use queer sexuality as a bombshell.  A number of shows play coy, especially with girls, for an awfully long time:  teasing and suggesting without defining.  Granted, Skins has one up on many U.S. series in that it has short seasons and can’t really afford to string things out, but I still appreciate that the show is upfront that this is a will-they-won’t-they plot.  And at the same time, it doesn’t go for the shocking surprise-kiss! twist.  Rather, the storyline is laid in dialogue before it explores the physical side.

Technically, there was a kick-off kiss, but we don’t see it.  On the girls’ first day of college, we hear Emily’s twin sister Katie warning others off Naomi on the grounds that she kissed Emily at a party.  This positions outspoken, politically-minded Naomi, with her cropped hair and atypical style, as the pursuer while quiet, clean-cut Emily, forever in her sister’s shadow, is inexperienced, intimidated, and possibly curious.  It’s a perfectly acceptable plot, one we’ve seen before.  Quickly, though, the narrative realigns itself with the reveal that Emily was the one who kissed Naomi, and even when she comes clean to Katie, she pretends she did it because she was high.  But with Naomi, Emily makes it clear how she feels, and we suddenly see that Naomi is the one who doesn’t know how she feels.  (Yes, it’s still a plot with one girl pursuing and the other reticent and “confused,” but it also subverts expectations a fair amount.)

And that’s the real story we get.  Naomi isn’t a straitlaced blushing violet and Emily isn’t some symbol of an alluring but forbidden other world.  Instead, Emily is a confident but closeted girl overwhelmed by a crush, and Naomi is a solitary, guarded girl who doesn’t know what to do with the feelings she can only deny for so long.  (It really helps that we get perspectives from both girls.)  Their hesitant courtship unfolds slowly, with lots false starts and retreats, but it always stays equally rooted in physical and emotional attraction.  Emily initially weathers the storm of Naomi’s insistent downplaying; as they take their first tentative steps toward romance – kissing, touching – she doesn’t protest when Naomi blames it on drugs or booze or casual experimentation.  She has it so bad for Naomi that she’s content with whatever she can get.

She doesn’t stay content for long, and that’s the beauty of this plot.  When the morning light falls on their first time together, it gets too real for Naomi, and she tries to bail once again.  This time, though, Emily doesn’t take it quietly.  The wallflower twin, the doormat twin, is done with being tossed aside.  She demands to be acknowledged and challenges Naomi to face up to her feelings, pleading, “Be brave and want me back!”  This terrifies Naomi, not Emily’s words but the truth behind them, the truth within her.  It’s a terrific journey, and in a stunningly uneven season of Skins, these characters and their hard-won romance is a knockout.

Social Parallels on In the Flesh: Miscellaneous

After discussing what are, to me, the biggest metaphors In the Flesh plays with – zombieism as both queerness and mental illness – I decided to do a catch-all post for my remaining thoughts on this subject.  These details echo various types of social prejudice and prove just how much gold there is to be mine here.  It’s the thought-provoking televisual gift that keeps on giving!

The way the treatment centers maintain a medical model of PDS resonates with all disabilities, not just mental illness.  People with PDS are told that there’s something wrong with them, that they’re incomplete because they’re not living.  While health care professionals approach treating PDS with the best of intentions, this attitude doesn’t do anyone any good.  Seeing themselves as fractured shouldn’t be a trade-off for getting the treatment they have a right to.  Some, like the ULA, find strength in rejecting the idea of themselves as broken.  Amy gets angry when Kieren jokingly calls her a zombie, but she tells him the politically-correct “Partially Deceased Syndrome sufferer,” the name the living give them, is even worse; instead she proudly self-identifies as undead.  This exploration of labels applies to many marginalized communities (such as “Native American” vs. “Indian” vs. “Ojibwe,”) but it feels particularly relevant to disability.  Many people with disabilities dislike well-meaning PC-isms like “handicapped,” “visually-challenged,” or “hearing-impaired.”  These terms soften the reference to the disability, but they ultimately treat it, not as a fact of someone’s life and a facet of their identity, but as something that lessens them.  “Sufferer” is especially associated with disability; how often do we hear that someone “suffers from” cerebral palsy or bipolar disorder or Down syndrome?

It’s interesting how stereotypes about people with PDS – that they’re mindless monsters forever on the cusp of a killing spree – influence the actions of those who have it.  Extremist groups feed into the perception, staging rabid attacks and fueling the bigotry of the fear-mongering masses, but for most people with PDS, every day is an exercise in sublimation.  The full range of human emotion is acceptable to the living, but if an undead person shows a hint of anger, the villagers ready their pitchforks.  Any time Kieren raises his voice against the litany of prejudice he faces, he’s viewed as another of those “dangerous rotters” who strikes fear into the hearts of all.  If he defends himself, he’s “out of control” and likely to find a gun in his face.  Here, I’m reminded of anyone fighting an uphill battle to keep from being viewed through stereotypical eyes.  The extremist angle resonates with anti-Muslim sentiment, and I think of the “angry black man” stereotypes that follow many black men.  While everyone gets angry at times, not everyone earns the identity of “angry” simply by losing their temper.  Much like Kieren, there are people who actively try not to stand up for themselves, for fear that they’ll feed into racist viewpoints.

Lastly, the “PDS Giveback Scheme,” which strips the undead of citizenship and forces them into menial unpaid labor, has shades of xenophobia to me.  Because they’re an unwanted population, no one cares if their rights are violated.  These “interlopers” on the living are shut out of the usual employment options and offered only the undesirable dregs.  Without citizenship, they’re severely restricted – they can’t use public transit or cross international borders – which makes them easy to exploit.  Despite the government’s promises that they’ll be returned the fold if they jump through enough hoops, they’re only empty words to elicit compliance.  Obviously, many immigrants acquire new citizenship, but there’s a similarly arduous process of dues-paying and hoop-jumping, and the benefits, if they finally come, are rarely all they professed to be.

Bat Boy (2001)

Sometimes, when I hear about yet another musical-based-on-a-movie or jukebox musical in the works, when I have to squint to find an original score and story in the best musical nominees at the Tony’s, I give thanks that there’s a show like Bat Boy in the world.  One could argue that it’s not strictly a 100% original tale, since it was inspired by an outlandish tabloid figure, but it’s still an excellent example of the sheer variety and inventiveness that can be found in musical theatre, despite evidence to the contrary in recent years.

The short version:  a feral creature, half-human and half-bat, is discovered in a cave near a small West Virginia town (I say “half-bat,” but really, it’s just the ears, the teeth, and the pallor that comes from living in a cave.)  When he’s brought to the home of the local veterinarian, the vet’s wife takes pity on him and insists that he stay with the family.  She gives him a name, Edgar, and teaches him speech and human culture.  Though he takes to all of it swimmingly, the townsfolk don’t take so well to him – especially when he and the vet’s daughter Shelley start to fall for each other.  There’s bigotry, forbidden love, identity crises, blood lust, and demands for the acknowledgement of half-human/half-bat dignity, all wrapped in an outrageously humorous package.

I like that the crazy premise is pretty much played entirely straight – yes, it’s a hugely funny show, but much of the humor comes from committing to the insanity of the piece.  Despite ridiculous details, like Edgar’s plummy British accent after he learns to speak from watching Masterpiece, or Shelly’s desire to be “inside” Edgar’s heart in a less-metaphorical-than-usual way, none of it is a joke to the characters.  To them, it’s all deadly serious, and sometimes, the show is as well.  Cheeky lyrics aside, Edgar’s songs convey a real sense of disenfranchisement and an anguish at not understanding who he is or how he came to be.  Most often, though, that solemnity in the face of the absurd makes everything even more comedic.  Right from the opening number, the ensemble intones the goofy “Hold Me, Bat Boy” as if it’s “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd.”

Laurence O’Keefe’s score is full of catchy, eclectic tunes, ranging from jaunty patter ditties to modern Broadway pop-rock to soaring eleven o’clock numbers.  I’m especially fond of the terrific Act I closer “Comfort and Joy,” Edgar’s melodic plea to “Let Me Walk Among You,” and the earbuggy “Children, Children.”  The score, and the show at large, plays slyly with the Broadway canon, throwing in allusions and homages throughout.  I always appreciate when shows that are really fresh and different are still clearly written with affection for musical theatre and all that came before.

Oh, and this is a musical that commemorates Fellini, Machiavelli, and the Three Stooges in a single number.  Where else are you gonna find that?

Warnings

Language, B-movie-style violence, thematic elements, and sexual content (including an implied sex scene.)