I'm sooooo tired of women acting like men in modern stories in name of "empowerment" or whatever. All women now have to be "in charge" and brilliant and strong, which leaves no room for romance or chivalry or any kind of decent love story.
Okay, I'm off to watch Red White & Royal Blue again -- the only movie I've seen in years that gets i…
I'm sooooo tired of women acting like men in modern stories in name of "empowerment" or whatever. All women now have to be "in charge" and brilliant and strong, which leaves no room for romance or chivalry or any kind of decent love story.
Okay, I'm off to watch Red White & Royal Blue again -- the only movie I've seen in years that gets it right.
Also Phil Spector's vaunted Wall of Sound is just bad production with a fancy label.
I was sooo disappointed by that movie. It lacks so much depth and complexity in comparison with the book. Also, I’m curious in what regards did you think they ‘got it right’ in that movie?
I don't want depth and complexity (although I found there to be just enough of it in the movie, haven't read the book and hadn't even heard of the story until the movie was released). I wanted two beautiful hot boys in love and lust, and they delivered. (I read fanfic, I should add, and am at work on a fairly substantive John/Paul full length novel, so it's adjacent, of course)
They got it right by not trying to be all political and socially conscious at the expense of the love story. They just told the story and let it be what it was. The speech Alex gives at the end was clunky and too heavy-handed, but I figured they earned a few seconds of that before going back to the story.
The way you change people's mind on an issue like that isn't by lecturing (like Boys did, for example), but just by showing that two people in love looks like any two people in love, regardless of the chromosomes involved. And then get out of the way and let the story happen without moralizing.
I read the first chapter of the book online and wasn't super impressed with the craft, but I did order it to do a comparison. I'm not looking forwrard to the additional plotlines, political stuff, honestly, that's not what I fell in love with in the movie, but we shall see! I'm certanily down for as much Alex/Henry as there is available.
Thank you for your detailed answer! Movies or books being political and or conscious are (un)fortunately very on brand for the current zeitgeist. Based on your comment, you will probably not like the book then.
Here's what I wrote about it last week on my personal substack (not my main Beatles one):
“Red, White & Royal Blue” is 🔥 and sweet and tender and funny. It’s not a work of staggering genius, and that’s why it actually is a work of staggering genius. It’s not setting out to do anything but be 🔥 and sexy and sweet and tender and funny (and btw, those things are not easy to do). It’s not setting out to be Important or Relevant or World-Changing. It’s just a beautiful story about two beautiful boys in love and that’s why it succeeds at doing what no other movie in the history of movies has managed to do -- which is to show us that love is love in any combination and falling in love looks pretty much the same regardless of the chromosomes of the people involved.
What I’m saying here is that the only way to truly make a movie about same sex love that’s actually going to make a difference is to make a movie about same sex love that doesn’t try so fucking hard to make a difference that it strips all the 🔥 and sexy and sweet and tender and funny parts out of it. I suspect the world would be a better place if artists of all kinds stopped trying so hard to make the world a better place and devoted their time to making the art that makes their souls sing.
Yeah, nobody likes contemporary real world politics interfere with their pornography. And I suppose lots of people have a need that pornography fills. And we all know it's not the graphic content that primarily determines whether a piece of media satisfies the pornographic purpose, because then we'd be excluding almost before the 20th Century that clearly is for that purpose.
But you know... GLBT folks are always going to complain of exploitation when straight pornography exploits them by sacrificing whatever serious social intelligence gets in the way of pleasure fantasies, just like a lot of women complain about how they're depicted in pornography for men.
I'm sooooo tired of women acting like men in modern stories in name of "empowerment" or whatever. All women now have to be "in charge" and brilliant and strong, which leaves no room for romance or chivalry or any kind of decent love story.
Okay, I'm off to watch Red White & Royal Blue again -- the only movie I've seen in years that gets it right.
Also Phil Spector's vaunted Wall of Sound is just bad production with a fancy label.
I was sooo disappointed by that movie. It lacks so much depth and complexity in comparison with the book. Also, I’m curious in what regards did you think they ‘got it right’ in that movie?
I don't want depth and complexity (although I found there to be just enough of it in the movie, haven't read the book and hadn't even heard of the story until the movie was released). I wanted two beautiful hot boys in love and lust, and they delivered. (I read fanfic, I should add, and am at work on a fairly substantive John/Paul full length novel, so it's adjacent, of course)
They got it right by not trying to be all political and socially conscious at the expense of the love story. They just told the story and let it be what it was. The speech Alex gives at the end was clunky and too heavy-handed, but I figured they earned a few seconds of that before going back to the story.
The way you change people's mind on an issue like that isn't by lecturing (like Boys did, for example), but just by showing that two people in love looks like any two people in love, regardless of the chromosomes involved. And then get out of the way and let the story happen without moralizing.
I read the first chapter of the book online and wasn't super impressed with the craft, but I did order it to do a comparison. I'm not looking forwrard to the additional plotlines, political stuff, honestly, that's not what I fell in love with in the movie, but we shall see! I'm certanily down for as much Alex/Henry as there is available.
Thank you for your detailed answer! Movies or books being political and or conscious are (un)fortunately very on brand for the current zeitgeist. Based on your comment, you will probably not like the book then.
Here's what I wrote about it last week on my personal substack (not my main Beatles one):
“Red, White & Royal Blue” is 🔥 and sweet and tender and funny. It’s not a work of staggering genius, and that’s why it actually is a work of staggering genius. It’s not setting out to do anything but be 🔥 and sexy and sweet and tender and funny (and btw, those things are not easy to do). It’s not setting out to be Important or Relevant or World-Changing. It’s just a beautiful story about two beautiful boys in love and that’s why it succeeds at doing what no other movie in the history of movies has managed to do -- which is to show us that love is love in any combination and falling in love looks pretty much the same regardless of the chromosomes of the people involved.
What I’m saying here is that the only way to truly make a movie about same sex love that’s actually going to make a difference is to make a movie about same sex love that doesn’t try so fucking hard to make a difference that it strips all the 🔥 and sexy and sweet and tender and funny parts out of it. I suspect the world would be a better place if artists of all kinds stopped trying so hard to make the world a better place and devoted their time to making the art that makes their souls sing.
Yeah, nobody likes contemporary real world politics interfere with their pornography. And I suppose lots of people have a need that pornography fills. And we all know it's not the graphic content that primarily determines whether a piece of media satisfies the pornographic purpose, because then we'd be excluding almost before the 20th Century that clearly is for that purpose.
But you know... GLBT folks are always going to complain of exploitation when straight pornography exploits them by sacrificing whatever serious social intelligence gets in the way of pleasure fantasies, just like a lot of women complain about how they're depicted in pornography for men.