My Illustrative Life

I spoke of The Legend of Billie Jean before, but I didn’t (couldn’t) do it (her) justice. I can’t believe Pat Benatar anecdotally refers to it as “the worst movie of all time” when she performs the theme at her concerts. Gosh darn this movie is inspiring!

Billie Jean Davy is seventeen and lives with her mother and her brother in a trailer park in Texas. When a massive jerk steals her brother’s bike she asks the police to bring it back, and is told that Hubie (the jerk) was “probably just trying to get your attention” because she’s “a pretty girl”. When she arrives home, the bike is trashed - and her brother is too, after trying to get it back.

Billie Jean takes Hubie a bill for the scooter’s repair, and his father tells her to come on upstairs for the money (he doesn’t keep that much in the till) after disparaging his son. She goes, and he gives her fifty dollars and expresses his intent to rape her. When she flees, Binx (her brother) accidentally shoots the bastard with the “unloaded” gun that’s kept in the till.. and Billie Jean and co are on the run.

The policeman Billie Jean originally went to is the one assigned the shooting case and realises, as soon as he sees her picture, that it’s his fool fault that it went so far. The story continues with Billie Jean (and Binx, and their two friends) on the run as outlaws, refusing to give themselves up until they’re paid the six hundred and eight dollars that they’re owed for the scooter’s repair. Hubie’s father refuses to pay, because he is an enormous jackass, so the whole thing goes on for ages, with Billie Jean becoming more and more clearly aligned with the ideas of justice and taking a stand. She also naturally blossoms as a leader and a carer and I love this movie please excuse how dry I am making it sound.

Anyway, at one of the peaks of her journey Billie Jean is introduced (by a kid she clearly finds mondo foxy (above)) to the story of Joan of Arc. She watches the black and white film to the end, and when it’s done she expresses her decision to make a video - answer the media’s accusations. She stops running, and starts to fight. When the video equipment is set up, Billie Jean emerges from the bathroom having gone from this:

To this:

Let’s lay aside for a moment that fact that BJ2 here reminds me fiercely of Amber from the Tribe, who is the only fourteen year old I might call “a personal hero”. The music for this scene is an instrumental section of the Benatar theme, and it’s perfect. Stirring, badass, a little on-edge; Billie Jean’s clearly a bit shy about her new hair, but the kind of shy that means I look amazing, I feel so good, so good it makes me vulnerable. The cutting of hair is so symbolic even apart from the Jeanne d’Arc ref (and it’s one of my favourite tropes, actually, as I quite strongly indicated in this post at BSB). It can mean so many different things.

The extreme removal of (head) hair has a pretty strong tradition of meaning “brutal”. The type of brutality varies with context, of course, but very very rarely is it a gentle thing of joy and wonder.

For a western man, shearing/brutality usually mean “this is an act of power”. Skinheads have a semiotic reputation of violence (violence that they hypothetically commit). Draft-based fiction usually has a ‘we all get our heads shaved’ scene; male soldiers in real life have buzz cuts. That Taxi Driver/Heat Guy shaving is an act directly prior to an assassination.

For western women, on the whole the connotations are quite different - there are many stories of post WW2 women who were thought to have ‘dallied’ with enemy soldiers or betrayed their country in other ways being forcibly shaved and paraded through the streets or beaten. Girls sent to nunneries had their hair cut, numerous stories for or about girls feature the removal of somebody’s hair to their great dismay: the section of A Pack of Lies set in India, Berenice Bobs Her Hair, Little Women, and a book I read in the infants that I can’t recall the name of (it also featured a pair of green P.E. shorts stuffed up a drainpipe, if that helps?), off the top of my head.

One pro-power female example is the flappers’ bobs; “I can be independent if I want to, you can’t make me your Rapunzel”. Just as relevant. Oh, and George from the Famous Five.

Sudden removal of long locks essentially means one of two things, in western storytelling: “I have the power” or “I have not any power”. On Billie Jean, it means both and that is why I adore it so. She’s an outlaw through another’s fault and direct maliciousness and she really has NO power over the situation - she’s a girl, she’s underage, she’s poor; he’s a man, he’s an adult, he’s a businessman. But she’s not going to just sit back and let it happen. FAIR IS FAIR, after all, and that’s the sort of factual statement that is power unchallengable. Just ask Sirius Black, the only sane man in Azkaban.

There’s more to Billie Jean’s makeover than the hair, of course, but you can watch the movie and dissect or absorb that for yourself. It’s worth it, Guide’s honour. There’s no DVD as yet (veoh has it..) but I got myself a VHS copy from Amazon Marketplace. Not expensive. You HAVE to see how the Joan parallels play out, too.

The reason I rate this Makeover Movie so highly is the depth of emotion and resonance with the rest of the film the physical “make-over” has (waaaatch iiiiit). The Legend of Billie Jean is the kind of movie that causes me an amount of physical pain to imagine how hard I would have clung to it had I seen it as an a teenager. A ferocious and noble inner life matched with a faultless, no matter how eighties, outer style? My wagon is hitched, for life.

The Pat Benatar song with scenes from the film is below - and watching it now I notice how extremely Billie Jean’s body language changes with her haircut. From the determined but swamped good girl, to the fierce as all heck, much much looser Warrior for Right! The scene at the very end is her watching Joan of Arc.

Three days left of February and I still haven’t found the time to read this:

My SPOILERS! challenge started to well! The first and even the second posts were finished before Feb. even started.. and Tank Girl (numbuh three) followed.. actually, now I check, that one was on January thirty-first. Darn! It started SO well!

Oh well. It’s still coming! I WILL find a way to squeeze it in.

To compound my folly though, I hereby declare the start of another SPOILERS! Month-challenge!! Hurrah!

This time it’s films. And this time, I’m giving you warning - homework, if you will. I’m going to tell you what I’m going to write about, so that you can watch them first if you feel like it; you’ll know if you agree with me or not when you read what I write.

There’s even a theme! As I mentioned on twitter: Greatest Makeover Movies. As I also mentioned on twitter, every girls-are-pink site ever has also done this list, of course. But you know what? Mine will be better!! Because I read their reasons, and they were a load of old conkers, I tell you whut.

I know it runs against the Davina/Oscars method of reveal, but here’s my list:

• The Legend of Billie Jean
• Gigi
• Clueless
• Desperately Seeking Susan
• Oldboy

I’m telling you that now (and in no particular order) because it’s not the which that matters to me, but the why. And if you’re thinking “that’s not a makeover movie!” then you may be correct, in the general sense! But you are wrong QUITE WRONG in the “to me” sense. And this is my domain, cowboooyyy. So: watch these movies, if you please, and then come back here and see if we agree or if I can posit something you hadn’t considered. Or don’t watch them, and then come back here and see if I make them sound intriguing! It’s a big ole challenge!

I recommend doing Billie Jean first, because that’s the only one without an English DVD release. If you’re Spanish, then lucky you! You can own it on a shiny disc and love it forever! If you aren’t, then veoh has it. Or you can do what I did, which was fall for it so hard that I amazon marketplace’d a vhs copy (with what may be the greatest cover ever, I WANT THAT POSTER).

The rest are all available on DVD. Clueless, Gigi and Susan should all be pretty cheap; Oldboy is probably more expensive. But it’s worth it.

Go on. Tell me what I’ve left out.

I don’t always illustrate my face subject to the thoughts I had when I dressed for the day. Sometimes I do, but sometimes I just add what I think would look fitting based on the taken photograph, or to add a balancing agent to the mix (for example, if I look bodaciously Disney-buxom, I’ll probably add a manface). Sometimes I add a completely new element, to see how it changes the story of the clothing and my body language.

Today my creative process went like this:

“Haha, this outfit looks way sixties! A thinking socialite, like the ones from the movies, who took the Sound of Music straight to heart. Such things were nowhere near my mind when I put this stuff on! How interesting! I think I shall add a snooty model head, to complete the ensemble.”

“Hmmm. A lot of my thighs are visible here. How can I make a thigh look interesting? Well, much as I dislike him, Batman has made forearms look interesting.. how can I improve on that.. fins.. fins.. mermaids?.. fishpeople.. Gillman!”

“I can’t be doing with drawing ANOTHER set of thigh scales. The Creature’s only my second favourite type of classic movie-monster, anyway; I’ll show that Kate Beckinsdale what for. What a twit.”

Badly taken pictures, because I worry I will get robbed if I photograph on the street.

(To check my map; if you think I’m gonna indicate that I don’t know my way around in public, I laugh at you.)

More coming, if the Cathedral are cool with my sharing snaps from within. I couldn’t find a sign saying “don’t!”, but I don’t wanna assume.

Learning by Doing is excellent; today at work I learnt about twenty things about website fiddling and coding by being thrown in at the deep end, finished a marketing video and started reading Tank Girl: Armadillo. I’m only.. let me check.. seven pages of preface/story in (I spent all my breaks doing extra learnin’! I have all these ideas I need to be able to include!) but I have laughed and YEUHH’d and thought “Hmm, I might wear that”. I won’t say more! Let’s keep the spoilers for the SPOILERS post!

Gonna have a quiet evening of horror illustration, working on a logo for my beloved, and having another strike at Rachel’s tattoo. And watching Martial Law.

Unrelated tangent: I decided to start buying summery-appropriate clothes. So I have something to wear when it isn’t chilly chilly.. I’m just so picky. So far I have my eye on a Jane Marple (of course) skirt and Gogol Bordello ‘track shorts’, and I cut the arms off my too-big and previously unflattering Misfits pumpkin tee.. Anyone got any suggestions?? I like layers and structure! So not summer-ideal!

Trying out this new, extra comments format since people’ve mentioned they’ve had trouble with the built-in form.. :O

First day of British Waterways volunteer Appreciating, yesterday. It was good! I feel useful, I think I am useful, the people are really welcoming, and I get to draw and be creative. OH OH and, I am working where Chucklevision used to be filmed.

TO ME, TO YOU!

Wearing yesterday:

This is actually a picture I took today, though, since I didn’t get home til it was dark. Hence the underskirt secret during picture taking:

Oo la la! Pyjama troosers!

I asked, and I get to wear my DMs in the future. Marvelous.

I just recently ate this:

It was delicious. As well as being an excellent shade of green, pistachios are an excellent flavour!

Having written yesterday about “what I have bought this month”, naturally today I went out and made four more purchases. You’re ruining it for me, I hear you cry! My predictions are all thrown off! Well, that will teach you to make assumptions based in consumerism. But I know, I know, it’s all my fault.. So to make up for it, I’m going to have a go at saying I will do this in a blog entry and then actually doing “this”. It’s not that I’ve given up on all the posts I’ve said I’m going to do - these things just take time! And sometimes, equipment.

Anyhow. Coming up in February (or maybe a bit before), four separate reviews of four separate books.

First, because it’s smallest, this single-issue floppy. I picked it up after finding neither of the trades I wanted in the comic shop that’s technically local to me, but ridiculously tricky to get to, and then having seen both Jubes and Gambit and No-Girl on the cover. Then when I flicked through, Quentin Quire! I think that kid is just adorable, his angstpain is just so all consuming and his anger so impotent — despite his great psychic abilities. And he’s so SURE that he’s RIGHT! Grant Morrison, your work is often groovy.

After I left the comic shop (and after I completely failed to find anything I was after for research in HMV) I wound up in Waterstones, where I found three separate comics - or comics-derivative - books. I feel guilty! Comics should be bought from speciality stores! Or they’ll DIE! But I didn’t seen any of these things in that shop! So to make up for it, here’s a plug..

Anyway. Onwards.

Tank Girl. Always a plus, no? Yeah, even the movie. If you don’t appreciate it, maybe you’re looking at it funny? This is a text-only book, a novel. I bought it for novelty value, honestly - can Tank Girl work without images?? We’ll find out!

Jennifer’s Body: this isn’t a novelisation of the movie, apparently. It’s four short stories about how boys in the school perceive Jennifer. I haven’t seen the movie yet but the commentary on Jezebel was fascinating and I’m planning on a dvd watch; I’m generally interested in less than franchise-y peripheral add-ons to fiction and, yeah, I want to see how the (male) writer adheres to or strays from the feminist slant of the film’s plot. STAY TUNED.

The Complete Nemesis the Warlock vol. 2. I want to read more classic 2000AD in general, more Pat Mills in particular, and a black-and-white phonebook post-apocalyptic epic is just what I need on a rainy day. Plus, my beloved said it was good one time, and he usually has pretty good taste.

SO. Let’s see, huh? I’m excited! I hope you are too! And please, don’t think you’ll be bored if you’re here for fashiony stuff. Don’t expect a review from me that ignores character design.

Guys. Guys.

CHECK OUT MY JACKET, you guys!

I took my sister to check out Bath Uni yesterday and we had some hours to kill before our return train left, so: we shopped. Window, mostly, but then I saw this.

And then I saw the “33% off” tag. And then I went like this: *0*!!

Reader, I bought it.

I like this jacket because:

1. velvet!
2. it is a size up from the one I wear ‘correctly’ - so the shoulderpads actually go wider than my true shoulders!
3. the size-up thing also means there is extra liquid drape, which means that I as a “short hourglass” am not rectangulised
4. VELVET
5. it is a bit purple!
6. I have always wanted to try something double-breasted.

I also really enjoy the cropped sleeves (I am a dangler of long sleeves) and the fact that it’s faulty. For one thing, I feel it will/would look uh-may-zing patched. And for another, when I buy highstreet stuff new I do feel a bit “everyone else will have it too!”. The fact that I need to fix it means it will become definitively my own; without me, it would be a pile of rags. We help each other.

I’ve needed a jacket.. all my life, really. I usually (used to!) just go straight from coat to no-coat.

I bought these shoes for my uncle’s wedding, and then forgot to pack them when we went down to the south coast for it. Usually I keep them on the shelf, to look at. I am not a heels-wearer, but I can admire a pair of glitter platforms NO problem. Occasionally I take them out to wear whilst I watch something glam-themed.

I’ve mentioned a few times the thought processes that go into my “work wardrobe”; I want to feel like myself but appropriate. For me, this has meant diving from the [1960s professional lady] board. There’s a character archetype that the neat, softened-geometric shapes and clear colours that thick work-grade fabric evokes. When we (I) watch professionally-set stories set in the 60s, we (I) know that:

1. she’s smart
2. she’s good at her job
3. she can handle the people she encounters in the line of duty with grace and skill
4. she’s underestimated

It’s clear why these are aspirational traits, no? The last, in particular, is important, because I do not feel quite comfortable being an “office worker”. This is no slight to those who are - I simply am myself and not them!

Of course it’s no secret that Ms Joan Holloway is the bees knees right now, and it’s certainly true that she is costumed impeccably.

But who is responsible? Who chose the clothes that make the woman? I will tell you know, and you should read these names:

Tiger Curran: costume assistant / wardrobe intern (26 episodes, 2008-2009)

Allison Leach: assistant costume designer (18 episodes, 2007-2009)

Joanne Bradley: tailor (17 episodes, 2007-2008)

Tiffany White: costume production assistant / costumer / … (17 episodes, 2007-2008)

Michael Castellano: costumer (12 episodes, 2007-2008)

Bud Clark: costume supervisor (12 episodes, 2007)

Le Dawson: costume supervisor / costumer / … (9 episodes, 2007-2009)

Kristine N. Haag: costumer (9 episodes, 2008)

J.R. Hawbaker: costumer (7 episodes, 2008)

Kimberly Nickerson: costumer (6 episodes, 2007)

Lynn Ollie: costumer (6 episodes, 2007)

Hannah Jacobs: costume production assistant (5 episodes, 2008)

Thanks IMDB!

But Joan wasn’t the first! Of course she wasn’t. She’s a throwback, she’s created now. She may be a marvelous depiction of a lady of ‘63ish (I don’t actually know.. I can’t watch Mad Men, because I believe I would burst re: injustice, prejudice, social horror) but she’s a product of 2007.

So, who was really there?

I’ll tell you!

Wende Wagner played Lenore “Casey” Case in The Green Hornet, a show I happen to heart. Bruce Lee’s tv break, too. Am I looking forward to the movie? NO.

Casey was Brit Reid’s secretary. Brit Reid was the editor-owner of the Daily Sentinel, a newspaper. He was also by night the Green Hornet, a asked crimefighter who went about his vigilante business by pretending to be a worse criminal than anyone else. I love that. Casey was one of the three people who knew of Brit’s alternate identity, and she was often involved in his cases. There was no romance between them, and he respected her as a professional and a friend. Andrew Pallack is credited in IMDB as the men’s wardrobe master. I will check my dvds to see if there’s any info on the women’s costumier.

Eve Whitfield was costumed by Grady Hunt. She was an Officer on Ironside’s team, an integral member. She was kind of a hardass sometimes, actually. But look how she dressed! So good!

Photobucket wouldnt take the collage whole! I had to chop it, and I was in a bad, tired mood.. :/

The last, smallest wardrobe featured is that worn by Scott Bakula as Sam Beckett as Samantha “Sam” Stormer (yeah, it’s a maze of a show) in the episode “What Price Gloria?” of Quantum Leap. This was probably costumed by Jean-Pierre Dorleac, but Jacqueline Saint Anne also took charge of the wardrobe duties on “unknown episodes”. Produced in the eighties/early nineties, rather than the 60s proper, but OH that episode gives me the envies. Marvelous.

Thanks, costume designers and wardrobe departments. When you do your jobs, you make stories so much better.

Right now I am watching The Mummy Returns on the Hallmark channel. Which is serendipitous - I have been planning to write this post all week.

So: 2001’s The Mummy Returns, starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weiss. I really, really enjoy this movie! I didn’t see it in the cinema, but I’ve owned it long enough that my copy is on video. It’s just.. basically flawless*, as a movie to feel good whilst watching. It has:

• A married couple who are in love
• who have a child
• who isn’t annoying
• who is actually fun to watch! He’s spunky!
• The wardrobe is marvelous, all 1933s archaeologist-adventurer/stylish English lady wearing egyptian burnished-deco
• The supporting cast all have personalities and are not crippled by their quipping
• Emotions are engaged despite the action-movie set pieces, the cg monsters, etc
• Imhotep is one of my FAVOURITE VILLAINS EVER.

Let’s talk about Imhotep.

In this film - which is a sequel to the remake of the 1932 Karloff picture The Mummy - Imhotep is played by Arnold Vosloo, in place of Boris Karloff.

Part of the reason I like Arnold Vosloo is that I think he looks like G1 Megatron, and I both find that amusing and enjoy Megatron, so I start this situation with kindly feelings.

In this version of the history, Imhotep was (basically) advisor to the Pharaoh who fell in love, reciprocated love, with the Pharaoh’s woman. And from here-on in, SPOILERS. Be ye warned. Imhotep and Anc-su-namun are discovered together, and he is taken away to be executed whilst she kills herself, unwilling to stay the property of the Pharaoh. In the twenties Imhotep is raised - as per the curse he was buried under - and searches out Anck-su-namun, only to be foiled. In Returns he (guess what!) returns - raised by the reincarnation of Anck-su-namun, and they plan to gain the power of the Scorpion King and live it up like they never got to before.

Imhotep’s motivation is, basically, he misses his girlfriend and he’s cranky after being woken up from being murdered horribly (twice). I feel for him; I miss my [gentleman]friend and I too am cranky when I wake. Occult rivalries, too, bring out a worse side than my usual face. He has a minority of the movie’s kills. And his reaction to his final betrayal.. well, do you have a heart? You may find it squeezed for him, the poor mite.

Right??

As per last time: I owe this movie to Karloff’s movie. And he did make that movie; if you haven’t seen the Universal The Mummy it is available for free, legal download on archive.org. It wowed me, to be honest. I was so-so until the close-up on Karloff-Imhotep’s awakening. That, friends, is acting.

And I enjoyed, enormously, comparing the old Mummy with the new Mummys. These remakes.. in my opinion, they are respectful. The build on the story. There are a couple of references that really made me smile, but the story weaving is my favourite. Take 1932Mummy on one hand, and the 1999/2001Mummy(Returns) on the other. If you watch one hand, you will have a fine cinematic experience. If you watch the other, ditto. But if you watch both, you will have a better experience. They work together, they’re a dialogue. The way the nuances of the story and the characters change between the eras, the way the new ones are the old one re-worked rather than simply re-written. The Mummy vs The Mummy will give you some of this, but for the full joy Returns is a must. It is a rare breed of sequel. I think it is a fine tribute.

Once again, let us cheer! Thank you, Boris Karloff! Thank you very much!

Oh, and one more thing - Don’t bother with Tomb of the Dragon Emperor That movie can go.. fish.

*Bar the only-features-two-ladies (three if you count the “I am a gold-digger with my non-1933 cleavage” five-second cameo) catch, natch. :/

Until October, I had never watched a Karloff horror. I know, it’s sort of unbelievable. But nevertheless, I owed him a debt of culture, and not a small one. Through several different channels I had felt the influence of Karloff the Uncanny, and been enriched. I’m going to talk about the various ways I’d felt the hand of Frankenstein upon my shoulder in different posts, and today’s is going to be a short one because i need to go to bed soon.

If you click the play button on the cassette graphic above, you will hear one of four versions of Dig Up Her Bones by the Misfits.I didn’t check which versions when I was making the playlist, because I was in a rush, so there are three electric and one acoustic that comes after a bit of general meandering chat. There’s also an acoustic version on the playlist on the purple tape to the right in my banner-strip. I’d advise fiddling until you’ve heard at least one electric and one acoustic version.

My beloved introduced me to this band. He told me they were his favourite band, and the first time I visited him at Uni he played me a bunch of their songs so I sort of can’t entangle listening to their songs from being awake in the small hours with the person who makes my insides sing, which is score one for my enjoyment of Jerry Only and crew. But even apart from the context, their songs, in all line-ups but particularly Graves-onwards (internet I am my own woman, and I am allowed to have opinions about jewellery Danzig! ..thanks Jackie Burkhart), are kickass good. Just so good.

Dig Up Her Bones is one of the more romantic-sounding ones. It’s a heart-grasper, a sky-reacher, and you will want to sing along. It’s about, research told us, Bride of Frankenstein.

I’ve seen Dig Up Her Bones live twice, and both times it was so good. I don’t remember if it was performed well (live shows, sometimes they sound like crap. This is a fact.).. it was just The Band performing The Song, never mind how dissimilar 2006 Misfits were to 1997 Misfits.

It doesn’t allow me to stay disconnected; I hear it and I want to hear the whole story and someone to soothe the narrator from his pain.

Karloff’s performance in Frankenstein helped bring about Bride, and his performance in that helped bring about this song. Boris Karloff helped bring us Dig Up Her Bones.. so I think we should all say thanks.

Thank you, Boris! It is much appreciated. I have played this song a lot.

Click above to read other people’s Karloff entries, and learn more about the BKBlogathon.

Here are the rules I must follow:

1. Say Thank You and give a link to the presenter of the award

2. Share “10 Honest Things” about myself

3. Present this award to 7 others whose blogs I find brilliant in content and/or design, or those who have encouraged me.

4. Tell those 7 people that they have been awarded HONEST SCRAP and inform them of these guidelines.

Amy Claire has given me an award. Nice! So I guess I have to follow the rules now.

Thanks Amy! :D

Honest things:

1) Right now I am watching Sarah Haskins episodes I’ve seen before in bed at half-past midnight lounging alone in a double bed that needs the sheets changing.

2) This does not depress me; it makes me feel like I am awesome and a character I would enjoy were I to read me.

3) I use a nail file on the skin around my nails

4) If I don’t do that, I feel a great compulsion to gnaw at the sides of my nail beds. Gross, right? I used to make them bleed.

5) I like to sleep on wet hair, because the shape it makes in the morning is an adventure

6) I’m not scared about the future, on the whole (obviously I am scared of hypothetical disasters, but I don’t *expect* them to happen)

7) I stopped watching Peep Show when Channel 4 showed Polanski’s Oliver Twist last week.

8) I got really, really indignant at the movie Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Fuck that noise. Why is it that a Victorian novel which includes characters actually saying that women’s brains can’t take the strain of things like those of men can is more feminist that a movie based on that novel made after three waves of publically identified feminism?

9) Also, Dracula looked flipping ridiculous in it.

10) And the ending was shit.

Er, I’m gonna have to think further on who to re-award this to.. watch this space, right? Thanks again, Amy!

EDIT: My nominees are HERE

Having just mentioned JCVD over on No Good For Me, I am reminded that a month or so ago I planned out another whole post on one of the inspirations/reinforcements behind my personal aesthetic. This influence being, The Movies of Jean Claude Van Damme (except The Order).

I say “except The Order” because that is a very bad film. It’s not good-bad, it’s just really lagging and laboured and basically feels like you’re watching a movie that ripped off Indiana Jones (the one with Sean Connery.. I refuse to remember which IJ movie is which because I think he is an ass and dislike his and his movies’ attitude to women), sucked all the rollickingness out of it, and then somehow saw into the future and sucked some plot strings out of the head of Dan Brown. And sucked all the rollickingness out of THAT, too (I like airport novels, and the only part of The DaVinci Code that really annoyed me was when they couldn’t guess that they were looking for AN APPLE. COME ON GUYS). And then shot it in an incredibly drab way, using that one from CSI: Miami on a bad, bad hairweek. That is the worst JCVD film, including Black Eagle.

Jean Claude Van Damme the man himself is not the target of my visual pondering. I don’t know how he dresses out of character (and I haven’t seen JCVD yet). It’s in the movies, and the entire movies themelves; the filmography of Mr Van Damme is a part of my lifelong lookbook. It’s so.. Butch-sensitive. Yeah. I think that’s actually the exact phrase I was looking for.

Jean Claude Van Damme isn’t Arnie. And he’s not Stallone either. But he is Jean Claude Van Damme; he is a name. He’s not one of but he is THAT guy. And that gives his films a little more leeway, I think. Let me take a moment to say I’ve never seen a Stallone movie that wasn’t Stop, Or My Mom Will Shoot and I think that Schwa-chan’s movies are some of the greatest ever (and that he is an honestly under-appreciated actor/movie star). The thing is though that they are all serious. I don’t mean that Twins and Junior are meant to be honest psychological studies of people discovering they’re victims of weird reproductive experiments, but these movies do know that they’re “family entertainment”: now slapstick, now tear-jerking, now “it’s funny cos it’s TRUE!”. The movies of Jean Claude Van Damme on the whole lack defined tone. That is what makes it not matter that they’re not blockbusters or “good movies” in that finely crafted oscar winner way. That’s what makes them more important to me.

I have seen two separate movies where Jean Claude Van Damme plays two roles. No, wait, make that actually three. There are probably more. But three is enough! THREE MOVIES where he plays TWO GUYS. Okay, in one of them the identical twin is dead, but even so, a different actor-thinking-publicism would have said “no, sorry, I’ve already done a movie (TWO MOVIES) where I get credited twice.” That’s not exactly to do with visuals (though it also obviously sort of is), but the absurdism present in the fact that more than once the question “but doesn’t it need.. more ME?[/HIM, I like to be fair]” has been answered in the affirmative.. it appeals to me. That sub-surreal what??ness also carries to the rest of the show, actually.

He has just punched this snake.

When I watch a Jean Claude Van Damme movie, afterwards I think to myself or say to my beloved, “what was that movie about?”. And there’s not really an answer. Apart from “People kicking each other, and with guns, and not really dealing with the feelings brought on by completely bizarre life circumstances”. They all have stories, of course, but the stories aren’t really what the films are about. They’re sort of like my kind of poetry.

JCVD movies, to me, are atmosphere/attitude pieces. And the visuals are way important to that (because.. they are movies). Do you see the butch-sensitive? Most of these screenshots (from vandamme.ru) are shot in hard pastels, with that harsh hard dusty comfy familiar feelings of the streets that Westerns were shot on. There’s a whole bunch of denim, which I actually don’t like to wear ever but that is not the point. The point is in the culmination.

There’s a lot of pink and little fussy patterns, little details like a popped collar, combed hair, coloured lenses, that spandex. Tucked in shirts. Jean Claude Van Damme movies are not devoid of femininity, and I’m not even counting the ladies. The dude is kind of femme. But he’s also the butch hero kicking asses and faces and guys off of motorcycles, with the huge muscles and the wrestler hair and all the tough fabrics, frowny faces, boning of chix. BUT he’s also pretty big into caring for people and holding sulky grudges.

The thing I really enjoy about the films of Jean Claude Van Damme, is, I guess, his gender ambiguity. Not in an extreme way, the way you hear it everywhere now, not in an androgynous way, not in a questioning my identity way. It’s not so much ambiguity, in fact, as it is that he is UNambiguous - he just does what he does. To my feeling there is a Van Damme movie persona (I’m not saying he plays the same character in every movie; he doesn’t. I’m saying that the feeling you get having watched a bunch of his movies is cohesive). And it’s a guy, a movie, a world which just does what it does because those things are the way it is. I don’t watch his movies and think “is that guy confused?” I think “compromising himself is not something that he considers, so it doesn’t happen”. And that’s fabulous. I feel at home in those movies.

Even Replicant.

Having just watched a tv trailer for the movie Gamer, I find myself of the opinion that if you don’t have a female name amongst those made a Big Deal of in the trailer, you shouldn’t be allowed to show ANY ladies at all. Or girls. It’s basically demeaning.

Especially if the one lady you do show is winking, and has either dyed hair or a wig (which are both Hollywood code for HOTSEXY) and heavy eyeliner (which is Hollywood code for HOTSEXY).

EDIT:

The following are all of the Gamer stills available from aceshowbiz.com that feature ladies.

I am overwhelmed by the range of expression and personality that the publicists have chosen to display in their actresses. -_-

These professionals can also be seen in:

Hitch (Amber Valetta plays an A List film star, who is written respectfully and like a real person rather than a shiny object),

What Lies Beneath (Amber Valetta plays the dead wife of the Protagonist’s husband; she’s dead, but she’s not letting him win and she doesn’t hold a grudge against his new wife)

Justice League: The New Frontier (Kyra Sedgwick voices Lois Lane (Lois Lane!))

Mystery of the Batwoman (Kyra Sedgwick voices Batwoman (Batwoman!))

The Woodsman (Kyra Sedgwick plays a woman dating an ex-convict, who turns out to have gone to jail for child molestation)

Drag Me To Hell (Alison Lohman is cursed and has to fight to save her soul (please try to reject the gypsy stereotyping I have heard is in the movie)),

Or (if you don’t mind dubs rather than subs) the english version of Nausicaa Nausicaa (Alison Lohman voices princess Nausicaa is a warrior/eco warrior/pacifist trying to prevent war and save the world and it is animated beautifully).

I would recommend any of these movies over Gamer. That is what happens when you market badly, media people!

Something I think about a lot is responsibility, of the role model sort.

It’s not in evidence on this site yet but I work a lot on a project I share with my beloved where such matters are incredibly important. We have extensive plans (scripts, arc-synopsis(esesesPLURAL), character biographies, character designs, turnarounds, character wardrobes, characters of multiple levels of importance, set background information, research, character tics, growth charts (physical and emotional) and so on) for a children’s series, a cartoon. That isn’t the kind of thing one should do half-assedly; Children matter a great deal, and what their heads and hearts are filled with matter so much. I spend sleepless nights fretting over permutations of the various messages we could be sending with our designs and our character interactions and who the main roles go to and so on and so on.

This is not political correctness gone mad. This is us, gone caring.

The social responsibility of character design (and by extension, the framework of an entire series or feature (yes, character design IS that important)) is something that fascinates and awes me and I honestly think that it doesn’t get paid enough attention.

“The media” gets the blame, and rightfully, for a lot of the ills of the world - particularly, relevantly, for the mental health, mental strength, personality, and opinions of individuals relating to their interpersonal relations - but animation lurks in the shadows of these debates. Animation isn’t credited with much importance in the mainstream of the British reporting media and so it naturally escapes much criticism beyond “Disney princesses are so thin! That’s sending screwed up messages!” And you know, it really is sending screwed up messages.

I wrote a huge chunk of essay on the semiotics of Disney Princess character design, and it made me feel awful. I love those ladies, they filled a lot of my childhood, but those images are doing our children wrong. Children never stop counting, even when they are grown up. I’m not sure if it’s worth showcasing some examples of what I feel is really bad, irresponsible character design. It might be though, and so I am going to do it.

First though here’s an example of it done wonderfully, hugely right:

And I am not talking about the live-action version.