There was a lot of flack over the casting of John Travolta as Edna Turnblad in the recent remake of Hairspray (well, “remake” in the sense that it’s the film version of a stage musical based on a 1988 movie) because the role has traditionally gone to a gay man, but I don’t understand why there hasn’t been any sort of large-scale complaint about the treatment of race issues in the movie. The 2007 Hairspray is, at best, naively ignorant and, at worst, racist—and, in all cases, something to be ashamed of.
(Note: I’ve never seen the 1988 movie or the stage musical, so my comments here are entirely based on the 2007 movie.)
Did you even know that Hairspray dealt with race? Chances are, you didn’t, because Queen Latifah is the only one, of the many African American actors in the film, to receive top billing. In a movie that, half an hour in, pompously proclaims to be about integration, that’s a problem. The movie subsequently forgets its announced subject matter to focus on John Travolta in a fatsuit, Michelle Pfeiffer as a rather boring villain, and, of course, Zac Efron singing and dancing as a teen heartthrob. In other words, though set in 1962, the movie is a pretty realistic portrayal of 2007—including our willed ignorance of the continuing reality of racism.
Hairspray centers around the character of Tracy Turnblad, a plump, white Baltimore teen who wants nothing more than to sing and dance on The Corny Collins Show (think The Mickey Mouse Club, only with more early rock music). When she meets that goal, she nobly decides that her next step is to “make every day Negro Day”—because, you see, the daily Corny Collins Show devotes one day of every week to music popular with African American teens. Tracy actually makes her first black friends when she is sent to detention—because where else would young black people be? (The movie could have made this acceptable by somehow indicating that the African American students are unfairly represented in detention because of the racism of white administrators, but, no—it seems they’re just the only people in detention because that’s where fun-lovin’ black people belong.)
After a long, long time and no content at all related to race relations, for some reason there’s suddenly a protest march to integrate The Corny Collins Show—which would indeed be a good goal, if the movie or its characters actually cared about it. Mostly, the protest march just gives Queen Latifah to sing a solo number. And then, when they reach the television station, Tracy, who has been marching along with the African American characters, accidentally taps a policeman on the back of the head with her protest sign. He promptly tries to arrest her for assaulting a police officer, and she RUNS AWAY. Hello? Isn’t getting arrested the whole point of a protest march?
It would be one thing if Tracy had to face the consequences of her cowardice, but the movie doesn’t even recognize her actions as cowardice. Nope, it’s necessary self-preservation so that she can compete in the Miss Teenage Hairspray pageant. Meanwhile, all the black protestors get arrested. True, Tracy’s father does bail them all out (if that’s not white noblesse oblige, then what is?).
The most egregious moment in the film is when Tracy, still on the lam from the law, shows up at Motormouth Maybelle’s (Queen Latifah’s) house to hide, and Maybelle, all smiles, says, “Why wouldn’t we help her out, after all she’s done for us?” ALL SHE’S DONE FOR YOU? Excuse me? Thank you, white screenwriters. Whoever wrote that line, I hope you never get a raise and have to keep picketing for the rest of your life. Just you. Even if you’re John Waters.
And those are just the film’s moral problems. I haven’t even started in on its aesthetic failures, from the director’s apparent lack of knowledge of how to film a dance number, to John Travolta’s fat-costume, which renders his face immobile.
To return to the main issue, though, I think one of the film’s biggest problems is that it treats all forms of prejudice as equal. “Fat, black, gay—we ought to accept and celebrate all ‘different’ people!” proclaims the film cheerily. And I’m not here to say feeling prejudice against overweight people is any less bad than feeling prejudice against African Americans. As feelings, all prejudices may indeed be created equal—but in historical reality, there are significant differences between oppression of African Americans and oppression of fat people. I don’t recall reading about lynchings of overweight people anywhere in my American history textbook. To somehow equate the experience of the overweight and the experience of African Americans is offensive. And stupid.
So, in conclusion, I hereby dub Hairspray the second-worst film of 2007, after 300. (Of course, that’s just among the films I’ve seen, and I have no intention of seeing Norbit or Alvin and the Chipmunks.) No musical has ever made me this grumpy. If it wins any Golden Globes tomorrow, I’m expatriating. Oh, wait–the Golden Globes are given out by the Hollywood Foreign Press, so that won’t help. Rats.
January 12th, 2008
Drop everything and go see the film Porpoise is calling the “best movie of 2007”! (And your faithful Otter calls it “the second best movie of 2007,” after The Lives of Others, which really came out in 2006, but which I’m counting as a 2007 release because if Roger Ebert does, then why can’t I?)
Yes, Juno is one of this year’s unexpected-pregnancy movies—along with Knocked Up, Waitress, and Bella—but for some reason, it has drawn less criticism from the press for the main character’s decision not to have an abortion, even though Juno MacGuff’s reasons are as vague as any of the other protagonists’. This seems strange, considering that Juno is sixteen, whereas the other women (at least in Knocked Up and Waitress) are relatively responsible women in their twenties. Maybe—and I’m being optimistic here—it’s because people really recognize that Juno is a better movie—funnier, more complex, better constructed, and without the undercurrent of misogyny that runs through Knocked Up.
First of all, it’s got great acting. Ellen Page is entirely believable as a wordy, precocious teenager who finds herself pregnant after impulsive sex with her best friend. Some have criticized her lines as too smart, and there were a couple that did seem a little forced—but because these were near the beginning of the film, I think that effect may actually be intentional. The movie doesn’t coast on cuteness at the expense of Juno’s real character growth; the smart lines don’t drop off as she discovers that she’s not as mature as she thinks she is, but they gain nuances.
Michael Cera does his sweet-awkward routine from Arrested Development impeccably here as Paulie Bleeker, the baby’s unwitting father. J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney are fabulous as Juno’s working-class dad and stepmom. The biggest surprise for me, however, was how good Jennifer Garner was as the prospective adoptive mother to Juno’s incubating baby. A perfectionist yuppie who believes she was “born to be a mother,” her character Vanessa reminded me of several people I have known and disliked. But the movie doesn’t leave her the way we meet her, and it doesn’t leave us with the same attitude either. Someone please give Garner a Best Supporting Actress nomination: she deserves it for making me consider charity towards people who typically annoy me.
Jason Reitman (son of Ivan Reitman of Ghostbusters fame) may become one of my favorite comedy directors. His last film, Thank You for Smoking, made the cynical me delighted, while Juno made friends with both my cynical and my sappy sides by being neither cynical nor sappy. The new It Screenwriter of the year, Diablo Cody, has succeeded in making a quirky indie script that isn’t preoccupied with its own quirkiness. It actually has a plot, and it goes somewhere, and characters change along the way.
The folky songs that play during much of the movie are more noticeable than most movie soundtracks, but not in a distracting way. Juno herself is very opinionated about music, and though these songs probably wouldn’t be in line with her taste, the unified style announces that they are someone’s idiosyncratic music preferences, and so it works tonally. Most of the songs are by Kimya Dawson, though there are a couple of contributions by Belle and Sebastian (the Scottish band named after the dearly departed Nickelodeon show of my youth). Make sure you stick around through the credits to hear the extremely odd “I am a vampire, I am a vampire, and I have lost my mouth again.” I promise you’ll be singing it for days. And then you’ll buy the soundtrack so you can learn all the words. At least that’s what Porpoise and I did.
January 4th, 2008
EW’s PopWatch blog has brought up a very good point: why on earth does Daniel Craig’s character Lord Asriel shave his beard after he goes to the cold, snowy North? And why does the film waste time to show him shaving, instead of killing Roger or plotting to kill God or any of the exciting things that Lord Asriel does? Is the razor theme a nod to Sweeney Todd, which I’m hoping will be a much better movie?
For my money, Daniel Craig looks much better with a beard. It helps to balance out his humongous ears.
December 11th, 2007
(There are spoilers below, if you care. If you haven’t read the book, though, they might help you make sense of the movie–or at least to understand how senseless it is.)
I saw The Golden Compass at a sneak preview a week ago, and it’s taken me this long to write my reflections on it—not only because of being busy, but also because, well, it just wasn’t that good. It’s not terrible, either: it’s just there, leaving little lasting impression, in spite of its grandiose music and fancy CGI.
Philip Pullman’s novel—the first of the His Dark Materials trilogy—struck me as imaginative and powerful when I first read it, way back in 2000, right before the third volume, The Amber Spyglass, was released. Yes, you could tell that Pullman was probably “of the devil’s party” and knew it, but at least he wrote a compelling story. By The Amber Spyglass, however, careful storytelling disappeared in favor of sermonizing—anti-God sermonizing, that is. I won’t go into all that, though; my point is that The Golden Compass is well written, if troubling.
The movie is just troubling, and not really for its vaguely anti-Church stance. What’s ultimately troubling is that it’s not really for anything. We don’t really get enough insight into characters to understand what motivates them. Lyra (whose skill at lying is oh-so-subtly suggested by her name) tells tall tales to get out of scrapes, and yet she is the only character who—for some reason—can read the “alethiometer,” the titular compass (“aletheia” is “truth” in Greek). As I recall, this makes some shred of sense in the book, but not in the movie: Lyra can read the compass because she’s destined to do so. Period. There’s no real significance to the alethiometer, except to propel the plot along, to give Lyra an external reason for journeying here, there, and everywhere. Very quickly.
There’s one scene where Lyra, along with the Texan aeronaut Lee Scoresby and a troop of Gyptians (Gypsies) are trekking through snow, on their way to free children from the grim fortress of Bolvangar. The script has Lee say a line about how they need to be careful with the aeroship parts that, for some reason, they are carrying with them—which just makes you wonder, “Why aren’t they flying right now in the first place?” It’s one of the most pointless scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie.
Speaking of pointless, Lyra’s “uncle,” the explorer Lord Asriel, is reduced here to a puzzling cipher. In Hebrew, the name “Asriel” or “Asrael” refers to the Angel of Death, though it’s also associated with a demonic being … and with Gargamel’s cat on The Smurfs. So you’d think, Smurfs aside, that this is supposed to be a pretty important person (and, in fact, in the books, he leads the war against the Kingdom of Heaven). In the movie, however, Asriel’s character mostly disappears after he heads north and gets captured. We learn from Mrs. Coulter (and how does she know?) that he has been perfecting his research on other worlds while in captivity (and why do we need to know this, since he never actually does anything with it before the movie ends?).
In the book, Lord Asriel succeeds in his research before the end of the book, managing to break through to another world—by killing Lyra’s friend, the little boy Roger. Clearly this is not an unambiguously heroic rebel, even by Pullman’s standards. Instead of confronting the fact that both Lyra’s parents are rather wretched people, the movie ends with Lyra escaping her mother, eagerly sailing off in an airship to find the man she now knows is her father. Everything will be all right, she tells herself. We’ll find a way to have a sequel—oh, sorry. That’s the studio talking. At this point, Lyra actually consults the compass, which tells her that she is bringing her father “exactly what he needs.” Viewers who have read the book gasp at the irony here—what he “needs” is her little friend as a sacrificial victim—but those new to the story will be left with a false optimism very much out of tone with the rest of the movie.
And the rest of the movie is dark indeed. And violent. My fellow moviegoers gasped aloud at the violent conclusion to the battle between two Armored Bears, in which the lower half of a bear’s jaw goes flying across the screen. That was bad enough, but I was even more troubled by the scene in which Lyra visits a shed containing the skins of animals who were once children’s daemons (external embodiments of their souls, in animal form). One of Lyra’s former acquaintances, the child Billy, sits on the floor of the shed, caressing the skin of the creature that used to be his daemon, Ratter. It made me feel physically sick. This scene should be disturbing—we should be outraged that the Magisterium is severing the connection between children and their souls—but something felt wrong. It wasn’t until a few days later that I put my finger on it. Because of the way daemons have been portrayed throughout the movie, as little more than cute animal sidekicks, this scene is more like the murdering of a child’s pet than of his soul. It’s still horrifying, but it’s a different kind of horror. The book emphasizes how everyone backs away from a child without his daemon because it’s “unnatural.” In other words, the horror in the book relies less on sentiment. The movie treats daemons very sentimentally.
This is why the utter lack of sentiment for daemons in the climactic battle scene is so troubling to me. The movie, lacking Asriel’s breaking into another world as its climax, builds up a battle between the escaped children, the Gyptians, the witches, and an Armored Bear on one side—and some random people (I forget what they’re called) on the other. They’re just mercenaries hired by the Magisterium to guard Bolvangar, so no one here is fighting the real adversary. And yet the musical swells, the screen lights up with showers of golden dust (actually, Dust), which—oh, wait—is only there because the soldiers’ daemons (along with the soldiers themselves) are dying. Apparently this is beautiful and not horrifying, but there’s no hint as to why. (Pullman’s sermon on why it’s glorious to dissolve into happy little Dust particles, rather than, say, rising again and living with your soul’s Creator and Source for all eternity, doesn’t occur until the end of The Amber Spyglass.)
So, that’s about it. I can’t see how the franchise—if it continues—can improve from here, given the lesser quality of the next two books. The relative success of The Lord of the Rings, the Harry Potter movies, and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe seems to have rushed a lot of lackluster fantasy films into production (most notably, The Dark Is Rising, which looks so bad that I refuse to see it). Here’s hoping the writer’s strike will give everyone a chance to regroup before someone decides to tackle Jonathan Stroud’s fabulous Bartimaeus Trilogy.
December 8th, 2007
Note: this review or meditation or whatever it is contains spoilers. However, Beowulf is not exactly the kind of movie that thrives on suspense, especially since most high school graduates have been forced into a passing familiarity with the plot.
I expected the experience of watching Beowulf to be something akin to watching a train wreck in slow motion. So, I thought, I might as well watch the train wreck in 3-D (Real D, for those who care). That might have been a mistake, because I’ve never seen a movie in 3-D before, and it made me dizzy. I left fairly disappointed in the visuals: motion-capture has resulted in human characters who look like people from Shrek. However, the movie as a whole was much better than I expected.
I’m not saying it was good, because that’s not it exactly. It’s very confused about whether it wants to celebrate macho-manly heroism or to mock and question it. It does both. But here’s the thing: I think that may be intentional, and I think the inconsistencies actually connect it to the original Beowulf poem . . . or at least to postmodern interpretations of the poem.
First off, Beowulf is a weird text. It’s a palimpsest of a pagan tale retold by a Christian author(s), or at least someone familiar with Christian works written in Anglo-Saxon. Anglo-Saxon literature tends to stress feats of physical valor, and the New Testament . . . well, not so much. Thus, in Anglo-Saxon Christian texts, you have Christ, like a young warrior, valiantly leaping up onto the cross to embrace his death. You wanna talk about inconsistency? It peppers this period of literature because of the difficulty of reconciling Anglo-Saxon and Christian values. And Beowulf is no exception.
However, one thing the pagan Anglo-Saxons and the Christians agreed upon was that it was bad to kill your brother (or your kin in general), so this gets a lot of emphasis in Beowulf. When Grendel is introduced, it’s in the context of the legend that monsters are the descendants of Cain, who was, of course, the first kin-slayer. I was happy that the movie kept the reference to Unferth as a kin-killer (though I could have done without some of the graphic details), because it’s especially important for the interpretive angle the movie took. If Unferth is a kin-killer, that raises the question if there’s really that much difference between some men and monsters. And, if the boundary between monsters and men is fuzzier than we thought, does that mean that Beowulf might actually be a kin-killer when he slays Grendel and the dragon?
The suggestion is there in the text (there are a lot of parallels between Beowulf in his old age and the dragon, especially with the hint that Beowulf may love gold too much), but the movie takes it and runs with it. Hrothgar, it turns out, is actually Grendel’s father, and Beowulf, thanks to Angelina Jolie’s—ahem, Grendel’s mother’s—seduction, is the dragon’s father. Do I, the textual purist, mind? Nope, not really. I think it brings out themes that are there in the text and makes them accessible to an entertainment-minded audience. I do mind the stiletto heels mysteriously growing out of Grendel’s mama’s feet, but that’s another issue.
In this Beowulf, our Geatish hero is not only fallible, but actually a blustery, overconfident liar. Much has been made of the utter absurdity of having Beowulf fight Grendel in the buff, with strategically placed candlesticks and other bits of furniture shielding his nether regions from view. Some critics have complained that this sets the wrong tone for the battle, making it comic rather than epic. I agree that it does destroy any sense of gravitas, but, again, I think that’s intentional; it reveals how ridiculous Beowulf’s o’erweening pride is. Since The Lord of the Rings movies, I think we’re too eager to make anything and everything into an epic (and actually, I think that’s one of the biggest problems with the movie version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe—it tried to make an epic of a story that’s really a completely different—and equally satisfying in its own way—genre). Tolkien himself argued in his famous essay “The Monsters and the Critics” that Beowulf is not an epic. I don’t think he would have been happy with a postmodern, ironic treatment of the tale, either, but, as a fairly postmodern, ironic viewer, I don’t object. Given the movie trailer’s silly “I am Ripper, Slasher, Terror, Gouger. I am the teeth in the darkness” line, I had expected to see a 300-esque celebration of macho valor. But when these lines actually occur in the film, Beowulf is completely ignoring Grendel’s plea (in Anglo-Saxon) that he is not a monster, he is a son—and whamming the door repeatedly on Grendel’s arm. Not really a very neat or heroic way of vanquishing one’s foe—and that’s the point, I think.
In Beowulf’s later battle with the dragon, you do find yourself rooting for the “hero” more, maybe because the dragon looks less humanoid than Grendel. But then you remember that the dragon is Beowulf’s son, and you feel really uncomfortable that you’ve been wanting Beowulf to kill him. Again, I think that confused effect is intentional. Since the biceps-and-blood-fest 300 was such a hit, though, will most viewers be able to embrace the discomfort in a more complex (if very imperfect) film? Maybe not. And maybe I’m reading too much into the movie in the first place, interpreting artistic flaws as ironic commentary because I’m a nerd who’s read way too much literary theory.
One more observation: in his older years, Beowulf laments that the age of heroes is coming to an end, and he attributes this to the rising popularity of the “Christ-God,” who, in his view, encourages people to become suffering martyrs. Given that Beowulf isn’t exactly a model of valor and honesty, we shouldn’t interpret his words at face value, which too many reviewers have done. Yes, the movie portrays a Christian negatively in the figure of the drunkard Unferth, but there’s also the beautiful and noble queen Wealtheow, who has the misfortune to be married to two men (successively) who have succumbed to temptation from Grendel’s mother. She seems to exemplify the kind of Christian heroism that Beowulf derides. In the background of one of the scenes in her bedchamber, we see that she has been weaving an image of the risen Christ. In the later scenes, she is wearing a cross around her neck. Wealtheow is one of the most sympathetic characters from the movie’s perspective, and it’s fitting that she doesn’t boast openly about her faith, as her silent strength heightens the contrast to Beowulf’s false bravado. However, I think the lackluster animation does a disservice here, because, if she’s silent, her face needs to communicate a lot. And it doesn’t, because so far the motion-capture technique hasn’t managed to capture the subtlety of human eyes. So, unfortunately, Wealtheow comes off as just passive, rather than quiet and strong.
The movie’s last scene, in which Grendel’s mother appears once again, this time to tempt Wiglaf, ends ambiguously, before Wiglaf chooses one way or the other. He’s probably the only other really sympathetic character, because of his unswerving loyalty to Beowulf, even when he questions his judgment. So I half-wanted to see him chuck something at Grendel’s mama’s head and turn his back on her, thus becoming the new kind of hero by winning the moral victory that Beowulf couldn’t (oh, and by the way, while the visual elements certainly focus on the sexual elements of Grendel’s mother’s temptation, she is verbally offering these men power and fame and wealth—so I’m glad that sin isn’t just associated with a woman’s body). However, I can also sympathize with the decision to leave it open-ended, because if you wrap it up, you diminish the focus on the persistence of evil—human evil. So maybe I’ll get my own satisfaction by renting the movie on DVD and throwing a Nerf ball at Angelina Jolie at the end.
December 1st, 2007
Poppy, Anna, Alice, Oliver, and Megan–the five Pembroke Welsh corgis playing four of ER II’s dogs in The Queen–have won the top honor at the first annual Fido Awards. And I say they deserve it, especially for that bit at the end when one of them jumps up on Tony Blair and seems to be looking in his pocket for a treat.
Now, anyone who reads The Ottery knows how much respect and praise I shower upon Helen Mirren for her performance in the film; however, if you’re a regular reader, you also know that any herding dog from the British Isles will trump any actor on my list of “Things That Make Me Go Squee.” And I was so disappointed that Peter Morgan’s and Stephen Frears’s DVD commentary for The Queen didn’t say anything about what it was like to work with the canine stars. So it is with utmost joy that I present to you a video of CORGIS ON THE RED CARPET!!!!!!
October 30th, 2007
Your faithful Otter is still here–just snowed under with a lot of work. I haven’t seen any movies in the theater for a month and a half, my fall TV shows have just started up, and most of our Netflix rentals haven’t even been worth commenting on. Blades of Glory? Amusing, but not great. 300? Abysmal. Too abysmal to even write an interesting review about.
So what’s been sustaining me? Doctor Who: Season 3, which just finished airing on the Sci-Fi Channel. During the last episode, I teared up no less than three times. Now this may have been due to fluctuating hormones, but still, I’m not usually much of a TV-crier. What were the specific moments, I hear Jillian ask?
1) When Martha, apparently about to be executed, laughs in the face of the Master and reveals that, instead of traveling the world to collect the individual pieces of the weapon that would destroy the Master (Horcruxes, anyone?), she had traveled to tell the story of the Doctor everywhere she went–the story of the man (well, Time Lord) who had saved the planet so many times. I cried because of the importance of telling the Story. I cried because I so rarely want to tell the story of Christ–at least, not in direct words. I cried because Doctor Who inspires me more than “Go make of all disciples.” And I cried because I doubt that Russell T. Davies was trying to tell the Christian story–and yet he did, obliquely, which is always the most powerful way for me.
2) When the Doctor tells the Master, “I have just one thing to say to you, and you know what it is,” and the Master screams “No!”, huddled in a corner, and the Doctor advances toward him, drops down beside him, and says the one thing: “I forgive you.” Waaaa!
3) When the Master chooses to die, rather than regenerate, once again leaving the Doctor as the last Time Lord in the universe. That time I cried just because David Tennant so convincingly grieved. His gravitas in this episode did a good job of showing his manic, loony side as part facade. He’ll be a good Hamlet. Oh yes, he will.
The best-written episode of the season was definitely “Blink,” however. I continue to be in awe of Steven Moffat’s writing. I have to admit, I kind of hope that the rumor he will take over as head writer for the show is true.
October 8th, 2007
I just saw the news that Madeleine L’Engle has died, of natural causes, at age 89. First Lloyd Alexander, now Madeleine L’Engle. Why this year?
Of course, I haven’t really lost them, because they’re still on my bookshelves. And, even if my books all burned, they’d still be ingrained in my story-lovin’ soul.
September 7th, 2007
David Tennant is going to play Hamlet! With the Royal Shakespeare Company! In Stratford-upon-Avon!
So this other guy named Patrick Stewart is in it, too. I have my priorities.
Unfortunately, this will mean a break in the Doctor Who schedule. All the more reason that Porpoise and I need to pack our bags next summer and head to England. Hamlet will be playing July-November 2008, as will Love’s Labours Lost, in which Tennant will play Berowne. Meh. There’s a reason the Shakespeare episode of this season’s Doctor Who toyed with the idea of a Love’s Labours Lost sequel: the play as it is kind of stinks (for Shakespeare, anyway). Even Kenneth Branagh couldn’t make it accessible. But, hey, if I just happened to be in England and there just happened to be a reasonably priced ticket available, I wouldn’t say nay.
Have I mentioned that I once dreamed in iambic pentameter about the events of Hamlet occurring in a swimming pool? Now I can throw David Tennant into that bizarre subconscious mix.
September 5th, 2007
I think it may be time for me to accept that P.D. James and I are just never going to have a good relationship. I’ve written previously about feeling I ought to like her because she’s a Christian, and other Christians I respect have recommended her highly. I tried two of her mysteries—an Adam Dalgliesh and a Cordelia Gray, one early in her career and one late—while waiting for my turn with the public library’s copy of The Children of Men. Not impressed. This weekend I finished The Children of Men, which was my real goal all along. Still not impressed. In fact, rather appalled. Being appalled is of course one of the reactions a post-apocalyptic novel like The Children of Men should elicit—but it should be at the world portrayed, not at the writer.
Baroness James and I were actually on fairly good terms for most of the novel—fairly good terms for us, anyway. Her terrifying vision was indeed compelling, or whatever the back-of-book blurbs say. Her introduction and description of characters seemed less, well, amateurish than it did in her mystery novels. But then the novel’s last few pages undid all the fragile rapport she had established with me.
SPOILERS A-COMIN’!
Call me crazy, but I like post-apocalyptic fiction that ends on a hopeful note. In the novel Children of Men, as in the movie, we have the hope by the end that humanity’s curse of infertility may be lifted. Neither the book nor the movie offers the unrealistic hope that humanity will become better as a result of this. However, the film shows a growth in Theo, the middle-aged loner who becomes a kind of Joseph leading a new Mary to (at least temporary) safety. The novel includes no such safe goal towards which to aim. Cuarón and his screenwriters apparently invented the Human Project, the non-governmental research group that Kee wants to reach, as a narrative device. In the book, Theo and Julian (there’s no Kee character here) meander aimlessly through a limited stretch of rural Britain, with no destination. Now, in real life, journeys may not always have the hope of a goal—but goals sure make for more satisfying stories.
Without a goal for her characters, James sort of writes herself into a corner, where there’s no escape for Theo and Julian unless they (or he, really, since she is primarily passive) adopt evil means for “good” ends. And that’s what Theo does.
Throughout the novel, we’ve been told repeatedly that Theo’s problem is that he doesn’t want anyone else to depend on him; he doesn’t want to be responsible for anyone’s welfare. This is why he resigned from his position as adviser to his cousin, the Warden/Dictator of England. This is why his marriage failed. So, by the end of the book, we expect to see some change in him. We do, but . . . he goes almost straight from loner to budding fascist. Not the kind of character development we want to see in this type of novel.
Because James has left them no Human Project, no apparent alternative, in the final confrontation with the Warden (outside the shack where Julian has just given birth), Theo kills his cousin and dons his ring of power (not magical, just symbolic), thereby becoming the new leader of the nation. He tells himself it’s just temporary, that he’ll be able to take it off and renounce power once he’s made sure Julian and her baby are safe. We readers don’t trust his self-reassurances—nor does James mean us to, so at least she’s not condoning his choice. At least I don’t think she is. But it’s still a tremendously unsatisfying ending. It’s like if Tolkien ended The Lord of the Rings before Gollum bit off Frodo’s finger. Or, even worse, if Tolkien had ended the book by having Frodo push Gollum over the edge, keep the Ring on, and then sing a beautiful Elven song. Yes, indeed. After Theo has killed the Warden and put on the ring, Julian asks him to christen her baby, which he does with a mixture of blood and water. I felt like James was trying to patch things up at the last minute with a nice baptism. And, yeah, the blood-water mix probably stands for the messiness of human nature, and, yeah, ex opere operato (the validity of the sacrament does not depend on the virtue of the person administering it) and all that. It still felt like a narrative trick.
The novel has a lot to say about means and ends and about martyrdom; Theo earlier comments that martyrs accomplish little. Other characters imply that Theo has stayed away from responsibility because he wants to keep his “hands clean.” And who, we might think, are martyrs but those who keep their hands immaculate, those who refuse to capitulate to unjust means for noble ends? Is this desire to stay morally untainted selfish? Maybe—if it’s just squeamishness or self-regard, rather than a desire to obey God. And maybe even martyrs’ motives aren’t unmixed. Julian at least seems to believe that self-regard is the mark of a utilitarian, not of a martyr or Holy Fool. She says to Theo, “The world is changed not by the self-regarding, but by men and women prepared to make fools of themselves.”
I like that sentence. If only Julian’s voice had more weight towards the end of the novel. Instead, as Mary-figures so often are, she is reduced to a cow-like passivity. I much prefer the film’s Kee, who, during labor, has a profanity-laced shouting match with Theo. That’s a woman I’d rather see as the first of a new generation of humans. But I’ve never liked how P.D. James portrays women. And now I accept that I probably never will.
September 3rd, 2007
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