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craftercat · 1 month

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Where did the Northern Wei practice of matricide come from?

Historical records give different ideas of their origins. The Weishu officially states it was an old Tuoba tradition, but it also appears that Tuoba Gui started it. The Southern dynasties blamed Tuoba Si. Personally, I subscribe to the theory that it was started by Tuoba Gui.

The problem with it being an old Tuoba tradition is that Consort Liu of Tuoba Gui is the first recorded person to die of the practice. Princess Qi became powerful in Dai, while Princess Helan helped Tuoba Gui found Dai. This doesn't make sense of this practice of "子贵母死", as the Weishu calls it, was in place. Surely these women would have been executed?

As well, Tuoba Gui wouldn't have needed to explain to Tuoba Si why he killed Consort Liu if it was a Tuoba tradition. Tuoba Gui clearly envisioned Tuoba Si as his heir, so if it was a tradition, Tuoba Si would have known about it. This means that it likely wasn't an old Tuoba tradition as the Weishu states.

The Southern dynasties' account of Tuoba Si being the one to start it is probably incorrect. It has been theorised Consort Liu was actually executed due to crimes and Tuoba Si framed her death as "子贵母死" for political legitimacy. But as I've explained, "子贵母死" was not a thing before Tuoba Gui, and the indications that Tuoba Gui intended Tuoba Si as his heir are too strong to be all be fabricated.

The main reason the official account is doubted is that people don't believe that Tuoba Si would have needed to run away if he was the heir and only his mother was targeted. But the Weishu already answers this. Tuoba Gui was angered by Tuoba Si's mourning for his mother. As Consort Liu had been executed by him, I think he may have believed this mourning was an act of rebellion against him. He summoned Tuoba Si to the palace. Tuoba Si's attendants were afraid of what might happen, as Tuoba Gui would execute people for minor mistakes in his later reign, so Tuoba Si fled the capital in fear.

Therefore, I think that the Weishu version of Consort Liu's death is fairly credible. The Weishu didn't like to talk about "子贵母死", so when they needed to refer to "子贵母死", they would call it an 'old tradition' and say that the consort died due to an old tradition. The deaths of Tuoba Si's Consort Du, Tuoba Tao's Consort He, Tuoba Huang's Consort Yujiulu and Tuoba Hong's Consort Li are all not recorded as "子贵母死" but all have been speculated to be.

In my opinion, Consort Yujiulu and Consort Li's deaths were "子贵母死", while Consort Du and Consort He's deaths were not. As for Consort Du, the timeline simply doesn't add up. The women we know to be executed due to "子贵母死" were executed the same year that their sons were created heir. Consort Du was executed two years before Tuoba Tao received any titles. Even though Tuoba Gui clearly envisioned Tuoba Si as his heir, he waited until Tuoba Si was 17 and he was likely planning to officially make him heir to execute Consort Liu.

However, Tuoba Tao was raised by his wet-nurse Lady Dou from a young age and doesn't seem to have had a close relationship with his mother. As well, Consort Du's brother Du Chao was not allowed to have contact with her, not even through letters. I think it's possible Tuoba Si considered "子贵母死" at some point and separated Consort Du from her relatives to make it less painful for Tuoba Tao and Du Chao, but hesitated to actually do so, and Consort Du died before he could make his mind up.

I have seen a theory that Consort Du had been committing crimes, and she died for this reason. I find this theory plausible. As a posthumous title, 密 is unusual, and unusual posthumous names are generally chosen to particularly reflect the character of the person being awarded it. This title was given to Emperor Xiaowen's cousin also in the Northern Wei dynasty. This cousin did not report a nefarious plot and was demoted to commoner for a period of time.

Another person with this posthumous title is Li Anyuan in the early Tang dynasty. At first, he became bankrupt due to gambling, however he learned from this to focus on his studies. In the Qing dynasty, this posthumous title indicated that the person had made mistakes, but the person had repented at some point. It seemed to be generally given to imperial relatives who had made mistakes but repented (in the case of Li Anyuan) or because the emperor thought it bad taste to give a relative an entirely bad posthumous name. Given the examples of the Northern Wei prince and Li Anyuan, it had the same meaning in this era.

This posthumous name does not fit with the fully praiseworthy posthumous names given to consorts who died due to "子贵母死". It indicates Consort Du made major mistakes during her lifetime, however she either repented or Tuoba Tao didn't want to give his mother a fully bad posthumous title. Du Chao having no contact with Consort Du is also strange, because Consort Li was able to contact her brothers in the Southern dynasties before she died from "子贵母死", so why would Du Chao be barred from contacting his sister?

While Consort Du was favoured at some point by Tuoba Si, he seemed to favour Consort Yao more than her, especially as it got further into his reign. The timeline and Consort Du's posthumous name indicate she didn't die from "子贵母死". I have a theory on her death.

When Consort Yao was alive, Tuoba Si hoped that he could one day make her empress. He may therefore have hoped that she would bear him a son and heir. During this time, Consort Du engaged in some sort of crime, perhaps jealousy of Consort Yao. This was found out and as punishment she was barred from contacting Du Chao.

In 620, Consort Yao died. Consort Du worried that she would be a victim of "子贵母死" and that this would be how Tuoba Si would punish her for her crimes, as Tuoba Tao was the eldest son. She grew ill with worry over being punished by Tuoba Si and died. When Tuoba Tao came to the throne, he followed proper etiquette for his deceased mother and posthumously honoured her as empress, however in light of her crimes gave her a neutral posthumous name. The Northern Wei emperors considered this matter highly confidential.

Of course, this is my speculations on her death, but it makes sense in light of the timeline, Du Chao being barred from contacting her and her posthumous name.

Again, with Consort He, the timeline simply doesn't add up. Consort He died the same year Tuoba Huang was born, not the year that he was created crown prince. For her death, I find the English Wikipedia theory that she died in childbirth to be plausible. Therefore Tuoba Tao wouldn't have needed to carry out "子贵母死".

With Consort Yujiulu, she died shortly after Tuoba Jun was established as emperor. Given the political intrigue at the time, I find it likely that her political rivals forced her to commit suicide according to "子贵母死", citing Tuoba Gui's example. After this, "子贵母死" became more common as powerful women used it to get rid of their rivals.

As for Consort Li, she died the same year that Yuan Hong was created heir, and it is recorded that the palace mourned her deeply. This all seems to suggest death by "子贵母死".

Why was the policy established? I think it was established because the Tuoba family were afraid that others would come to power the same way they did - maternal clan influence. Regardless of which version of Tuoba Gui's ancestry is correct, he relied on his maternal clan (either the Helans or Murongs) to gain power. Therefore, he was afraid that others could do the same.

As a result, "子贵母死" was introduced. This policy was created to avoid maternal tribes from becoming too powerful. Other Hu-led states (I'm talking about you Former Qin) were unable to control their vassal tribes, which led to their downfall. Tuoba Gui therefore used this to restrict the power of vassal tribes.

Tuoba Si introduced a similar policy, unnamed by the Weishu but which I call "臣死妻殉" for similar reasons. I think it's possible that southern intelligence confused the two policies and blamed him for "子贵母死" instead. This policy was more unofficial, and stipulated that when powerful and talented men died, their wives would be forced to commit suicide and jointly buried. This seems to be not noticed because people don't realise that this is what "喪禮一依安城王叔孫俊故事", and "葬禮依盧魯元故事" (Lu Luyuan's burial was based on the rites of Shusun Jun, which indicated this practice) is referring to.

Tuoba Si claimed burial etiquette as the reason, but it seems more likely that the actual reason was to prevent the maternal tribes of these men's sons from becoming powerful, which would allow the powerful tribes to seize power the same way that the Tuobas themselves did. This policy was not commented on at all by the Weishu. The practice persisted as far as Empress Dowager Feng's regency, so this wasn't just a quirk of Tuoba Si but rather a political balancing game. The Tuobas worried the influence and support of maternal tribes would make their powerful tribes too powerful, like with the Tuobas being supported by their maternal tribe.

"子贵母死" was formally abolished by Yuan Ke when Consort Hu had a son. This was because it didn't actually work. Wet-nurses filled the political void that empress dowagers used to occupy, while women would wish to have princesses or ordinary princes but not the crown princes. When Consort Hu got pregnant, other consorts inquired her on what her plan was, indicating that women had abortions rather than risk death by "子贵母死".

As "臣死妻殉" was a more unofficial policy (I had to name it myself), it wasn't formally abolished. It also had adverse effects, namely that noble clans didn't want to marry their daughters to officials or their children. Rather, it seems to have faded out during the reign of Emperor Xiaowen, perhaps as part of the Sinicisation reforms. Han and Xianbei clan structures didn't quite work the same way, and Han clan structures were more limiting on maternal clans than Xianbei clan structures.

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eddie-redmayne-italian-blog · 3 years

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Eddie Redmayne on ‘Red,’ the Tonys, and Color Blindness

By BlackBook Published: June 3, 2010

At 28, Eddie Redmayne has perfected a look of fresh-faced innocence masking inner commotion. He’s invoked the expression for various roles, as the chilling young murderer Alex Forbes in Like Minds and as a downward-spiraling, matricide-committing homosexual opposite Julianne Moore in Savage Grace. On stage, he’s played the emotionally charged boy whose architect father falls in love with a goat in Edward Albee’s The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? Redmayne keeps a copy of the play with him in his current dressing room at the Golden Theater, where he’s starring in the Tony Award-nominated play Red alongside Alfred Molina. Redmayne, who nabbed one of those noms himself (for Best Performance by a Featured Actor), plays another permutation of the plotting innocent—not a murderer, but no less intense as the fictional assistant to abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko (Molina). We caught up with the actor to discuss the fate of Rothko’s famous murals, his own color blindness, and what he’s wearing to the Tonys.

I saw the play last night and am still recovering. It was intense! How do you do it night after night? Well, last night I had some friends in so I ended up going for some drinks after and I woke up this morning with a slightly filthy hangover. So I punished myself by doing tax receipts.

What drew you to the play? I assume it had something to do with your background studying art in college. Well, the theater in [London’s] Donmar Warehouse where the play started is one of the great gems of theaters in the world, and Michael Grandage, who runs it, is a wonderful man. I’ve seen a lot of his work for many years, and I’ve worked at the Donmar before, but never under him. So when the idea of a two-handed play specifically about art—the idea that the arts matters—came up, it was one of those rare moments where everything that I was interested in and engaged in kind of collided, a wonderful little moment of fate.

The play focuses on the murals Rothko painted for the Seagram building before he changed his mind about giving them up. A few ended up in the Tate Modern. Isn’t the museum naturally lit, which would seem to go against Rothko’s wishes? The story is that once he withdrew the commissions he had—I think it was 35 canvases— all the museums in the world wanted to get their hands them. So obviously, Rothko was very tentative about who he would give them to. And one of the guys was Sir Norman Reed, who was the curator of the Tate, and for ten years Norman Reed would swear to Rothko that they would build or create special rooms specifically for them at the Tate Britain—this was before the Tate Modern existed. The wall color would be as prescribed by Rothko, the lighting would be exactly as he wanted, and eventually Rothko agreed to that. So ten years after the end of the play, the same day that the Seagram murals arrived off the boat in London, Sir Norman Reed got a call that Rothko had been found by his assistant with his wrists slit. So the answer is that some of these murals, which were originally in the Tate Britain, are now in the Tate Modern in a room that is lit properly.

Alfred Molina had source material to draw on as Rothko, but your character Ken is fictitious. Where did you find your inspiration? What’s interesting is subsequent to doing the play in America, I got a letter from a woman called Virginia Foster, who is the widow of a guy called Dan Rice, and he was Rothko’s assistant during the Seagram murals. And whilst the character is not based on him, Virginia sent me this transcript of him talking about working for Rothko. And weirdly, even though I’ve done the play in London and done it here, reading the transcript reinforced some of the character. But I approached it the way I approach any character—I see what’s in the text and flesh it out with references from life. And certainly, I’ve had experiences with elder actors and bosses in the past who I’ve had complex and tricky relationships with.

There’s a scene where Ken is talking to someone on the phone, trying to decide whether to show Rothko his own paintings. Who was he talking to? That’s a very good question. I think it’s his girlfriend, and John Logan (the writer) thinks it’s his boyfriend. It remains a bone of contention between the two of us.

You did your college dissertation on Yves Klein, who was a big advocate of blue. [Laughs] So this is the sequel.

As an art lover, do you have a color preference? The color that Yves Klein does. Wet paint has a luminosity that dies when it dries and it loses the gloss. So Yves created this color scientifically that retains that luminosity. He was a big showman, so he got it copyrighted. The color is called IKB—International Klein Blue. And it sounds all bullshit-y and ridiculous, but when you stand in front of those canvases, the color is sublime and dumbfounding. So that specific color is my favorite color in the world. Are you going to follow this up with a colorblind question?

No, wasn’t planning on it, but if you want to discuss it. No, I talk passionately about that color and then people go “but you’re colorblind.” And I go, “I know. I don’t know what I see but I see it and I like it.”

You must have some confidence because you already have the Olivier award for this role. Are you nervous about the Tonys? Do you know what? It’s amazing how many award ceremonies there are in America. Am I nervous about the Tonys? Genuinely, the nomination was completely beyond anything I’ve ever thought about.

You’re being so diplomatic. I wanted to ask who you consider to be your biggest competition. Frustratingly, one problem with doing plays here is that you don’t get to see anything because your schedule doesn’t allow it. But I’ve met all the guys and I’ve heard extraordinary things about Stephen in Fences and Stephen Kunken in Enron is meant to be wonderful. Do you have your outfit picked out? I do. A couple of years ago I did some work with Christopher Bailey who runs Burberry. I’m a huge fan of his so I’m going to be cut out in British Burberry.

So what’s next? I see there’s something called The Pillars of the Earth? I’m actually really excited about it. It’s a huge epic medieval story that was a book by Ken Follett and it was one of Oprah’s favorite books and was subsequently a massive international bestseller. It’s being aired on the Starz network in July. It’s an 8-hour miniseries and I play this young boy who is mute and has grown up in the forest and who, over eight hours, becomes a master builder. So it’s about apprenticeship and craft and it’s also set in a historical time, with monarchs changing and war. What I’ve seen looks spectacular.

https://blackbookmag.com/archive/eddie-redmayne-on-red-the-tonys-and-color-blindness/

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bespokeredmayne · 5 years

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‘Rotten’s’ fresh look at Eddie Redmayne’s career

Eddie Redmayne’s Rotten Tomatoes film scores of critics’ and audiences’ ratings range from 5 for Hick to a preliminary 86 for The Aeronauts. But it’s this digest of a few of the parts he’s played on screen that’s most interesting, with perceptive analysis of his early roles (and impressive vocabulary). Some roles are glaringly omitted, though...

When he began signing for cinematic parts, British lead Eddie Redmayne took full advantage of his sweet, open-faced, and congenial appearance, ironically selecting a series of roles that required him to project an undercurrent of intransigent, occasionally pathological emotional extremity blanketed by a cover of innocence.

He made his first significant mark in 2006 with two such psychologically demanding roles: that of Alex Forbes, a young murderer cracking under the weight of a severely dysfunctional friendship with his second victim and his own father's mistreatment in the psychological thriller Murderous Intent; and that of Edward Wilson Jr., a CIA suit's son reeling from his father's emotional removal in Robert De Niro's ambitious period drama The Good Shepherd.

In 2007, Redmayne waxed equally intense as a young homosexual who commits rueful matricide in Tom Kalin's Savage Grace, and -- on a slightly different note -- donned period costume for a small role in Shekhar Kapur's Elizabeth: The Golden Age. He stayed in his Tudor garb for a small role as Mary Boleyn's husband in The Other Boleyn Girl.

In 2011, he played future filmmaker Colin Clark in My Week With Marilyn, chronicling Clark's time as a production assistant on the set of the 1957 film The Prince and the Showgirl. Redmayne next showcased his singing voice as revolutionary Marius in 2012's Les Miserables.

He followed that up with a star-making turn playing theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything (2014), a part that earned him an Academy Award for Best Actor. Redmayne had similar success the following year, nabbing another Academy Award nomination for The Danish Girl.

#eddie redmayne #rotten tomatoes

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chiseler · 5 years

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Little Devils: 50 Years of Killer Kid Movies

Face it, children are just plain creepy—especially the really cute ones.

Historically—and I’m talking about going back thousands of years—we’ve always been scared to death of the children we’ve spawned. Before they’re born we worry they might be physically deformed or just a little off in the head somehow. And after they’re born and as they start to grow and think and talk, hoo boy, that’s when things really start getting scary, as you start to glean a little something about what’s going on behind those cold, staring eyes. I’m not a parent myself, but having been a kid once I fully understand the panic and fear that can grip parents as they come to better understand their kids. What if they’re no good at sports? What if they start hanging out with a bad crowd and using drugs? What if they get bullied by the other kids and take revenge by shooting up the school? Worse still, what if they decide to bludgeon us to death with a crowbar in our sleep one night? What if they turn out to be the bona fide offspring of Satan himself? What the hell do we do then? Sure, we all pretend to be shocked and dismayed when we hear news stories about some eight-year-old in Kansas or Oregon stabbing the little neighbor girl twenty times for no apparent reason, but let’s be honest—we all know what these pint-sized miscreants are capable of doing, and have simply come to expect it.

As with a few of those other fundamental adult fears, like asteroids, nuclear war, clowns and deadly plagues, over the years our fear of children has led to its own unheralded cinematic subgenre of Killer Kid movies.

While countless slasher films from Halloween onwards feature tykes with butcher knives who grow up to become adults with butcher knives, I’m focusing here on those films in which the snot-nosed killers remain snot-nosed throughout. While I could have included those rambunctious hobo youths from William Wellman’s Wild Boys of the Road (1933), those little back-to-nature wastrels from Lord of the Flies (1963) and the matricidal zombie girl with the trowel from George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968), I, um, didn’t. So sue me.

Here’s a quick chronological list of a double handful of notable features about murderous children. It’s interesting to note that as the years pass, the films themselves seem to grow less clever, endearing, original and interesting. Just like kids!

The Bad Seed (1956)

I’ve long been a big fan of that Mervyn LeRoy. As a director, he always understood the darker side of human nature, and had a sly sense of humor about it. In 1931 he directed my two favorite (and two of the bleakest) Edward G. Robinson pictures, Five-Star Final and Two Seconds. Then eight years later he directed The Wizard of Oz. I always like to think (though I’m undoubtedly wrong about this) he intended his 1956 creeper The Bad Seed as a kind of bonk on the head to those audience members who hadn’t recognized the darkness that lay at the heart of The Wizard of Oz.

Okay, Nancy Kelly plays Christine, the nightmare-plagued mother of the world’s most perfect little girl. Not only is blonde, pigtailed and always immaculately dressed Rhoda (Patty McCormack) perfect, the ten-year old knows she’s perfect. As a perfect child, she also knows what she deserves out of life and those around her, and lord help anyone who doesn’t cough it up. As time goes on, Christine begins to suspect Rhoda may somehow be responsible for the tragic drowning of a classmate who’d recently won an award Rhoda felt she rightly deserved. And if she was responsible for that, maybe she was responsible for all those other weird deaths that have been happening all over town, too. And what the hell’s the deal with that recurring nightmare, anyway?

Although based on a stage play that was itself based on a novel, it was LeRoy’s film that would become the standard reference point and template for so many of the Killer Kid movies down the line, though few would come close to matching it.

Village of the Damned 1960

John Wyndham was a reasonably popular pulp writer in the 1930s. While his crime stories gained him the most attention at the time, these days he’s best remembered for his occasional forays into sci-fi and horror. Day of the Triffids, his end-of-the-world masterpiece about killer plants (a personal phobia) was a major hit when adapted for the big screen, but his cautionary evil kid tale Village of the Damned had a much longer reach after director Wolf Rilla got ahold of it.

Yes, we all know the story: one day everyone living in a small English village falls asleep at the same time for some unknown reason. When they awaken several hours later, all the women of child-bearing age (even the virgins!) find they’re pregnant. Weirder still, they all go into labor at exactly the same time.

Ten years later, all the kids born that day have turned out to be extremely intelligent, blond, beautiful, and emotionless. Snappy dressers though they may be, they’re also arrogant little snots who have no time for adults or other kids, and only hang out with one another all the time. They also seem to share a psychic connection, and there are hints they have some larger purpose in mind. Anyone who tries to interfere with them gets the creepy glowing eyes treatment shortly before unexpectedly committing suicide. George Sanders at the top of his game plays a rational sort who tries to get to the Bottom of what all the hell,

It remains a starkly eerie and atmospheric picture that to this day can still make you want to punch blond British pre-teens right in the face.

The film went on to spawn one lesser sequel (1964’s Children of the Damned), one superior sort-of sequel (Joseph Losey’s 1962 These Are the Damned), a 1995 remake directed by Jon Carpenter, and a Simpsons parody. My favorite bit of cultural impact, however, is that some of your more out-there paranoids have worked Village of the Damned into the Montauk Project conspiracy, claiming beautiful, blond alien/human hybrids were created in the secret government labs in the caves beneath Montauk, Long Island. These Montauk Children, as they’re called, were set out into the world as sleeper agents (though most settled in Denver for some reason), and to this day are awaiting their secret orders from above.

The Twilight Zone: “It’s a Good Life” (1961)

It was included as one of the segments in Twilight Zone: The Movie, but good as that was, there’s just no topping the original. And there’s no topping the original because back in the early Sixties Billy Mumy was the creepiest kid on the planet. Rod Serling clearly recognized this, which is why he kept casting him.

Little Anthony Freemont (Mumy) lives in a pleasant small town where everyone knows him and everyone’s really nice to him. I mean really, really, REALLY nice to him,. And they’re really nice because over time they’ve come to realize that even if he doesn’t opt to simply blink them out of existence if they don’t do what he says, he has the power to make incredibly awful things happen to them. Even thinking bad things about Anthony isn’t such a hot idea. Things aren’t any better in the Freemont household, where his terrified parents (John Larch and Cloris Leachman) have to walk on eggshells out of fear he might do something else to his siblings, or them. )“It’s a…very GOOD thing that you did that…”)

It remains one of the most delightfully wicked and true portraits of just how terrified adults are of kids, and just how sinister kids can be.

Interestingly, Mumy apparently also had this power in real life, later going on to have a big hit with the novelty song, “Fish Heads.”

The Other (1972)

Kids alone are creepy enough, but you get twins to boot, you know you’re in for some bad news. And you get twin boys in a rural town in the 1930s? Holy mackerel, you might as well just pack it in right there and go home. Nothing good is going to come of it.

I don’t know how many times I watched Robert Mulligan’s film (based on the Thomas Tryon novel) on TV in the early Seventies, but it was a lot. Enough that to this day I still remember every shot and every line of dialog., but it still gets under my skin as one of the most effective of the lot.

Real twins Martin and Chris Udvarnoky play Holland and Niles Perry. As with most twins, one is mostly nice and sweet and innocent, while the other, Holland in this case, is the dominant, wickedly mischievous one.. Also like most twins, Niles and Holland share a weird psychic link. But in their case, and under the guidance of their Russian grandmother Eda (Uta Hagen), they can use a special ring to take things one step further. They call it The Game. As in Being John Malkovich, they can actually enter the consciousness of anyone they choose, from a magician in a traveling carnival, to a passing crow, to a corpse.

It’s a Northern Gothic tale complete with dark family secrets, farm accidents, dead babies, emotionally shattered mothers and real freaks. And an evil twin. It unfolds very slowly and quietly, and even though we get the Big Revelation at the halfway point, it doesn’t matter because the story rolls on with a few more twists and surprises left. It’s not shocking or terribly bloody, but extremely unnerving. Featuring an early turn by John Ritter and a Jerry Goldsmith score.

Don’t Look Now (1973)

Nicholas Roeg’s brilliantly shattered, hallucinatory narrative with the shock ending might be a loose fit here, but it had such an influence on other sort of Killer Kid movies (like David Cronenberg’s The Brood) it deserves mention.

The great Donald Sutherland was rarely better than he was here as John, an architect whose young daughter recently drowned near the family home in England. He takes a job in Venice, thinking a few months away from home might be just the thing to help him and his wife cope. Shortly after they arrive, however, they encounter a blind psychic in a restaurant who tells them their daughter’s spirit is around, and seems happy. Being the slide Rule sort, John is less willing than his wife to accept this at face value. At least until he starts having recurring visions of what seems to be his daughter all over Venice. Dresses like her, anyway. He becomes a little obsessed with that little girl in the red cloak who may or may not be his daughter. Who cares if she might have something to do with that whole nasty string of brutal stabbings around the city?

The less said about it at this point, the better (and easier, to be honest). Almost 45 years on now, it still works, that ending still gets me, and there’s nothing else like it.

It’s Alive! (1974)

People might cite Rosemary’s Baby as the be-all and end-all of films about pre-natal anxiety, but think about it. Sure, she gave birth to the Antichrist, but she has a good support network right there in the building, and if she treats him right, she’s set for life. No, for my money Larry Cohen’s breakthrough monstrous infant hint trumps them all, beginning with one of the most unsettling ad campaigns of the Seventies.

Funny thing is, though it’s remembered as a film about a baby with fangs and claws who slaughters all the doctors in the delivery room before escaping to go on a killing spree around town, if you go look at it again now you realize that’s only a minor subplot. It’s also a conspiracy film about government scientists using unwitting citizens as guinea pigs. Above all else, though, it’s an indictment of the mass media, which has the power to destroy the lives and reputations of innocent people on a whim, in this case the Davis family. And damn but that John P. Ryan is great as the horrified and disbelieving father who finds himself and his wife being publicly blamed (as is So often the case) for giving birth to a kid who isn’t quite right.

Much smarter and more subtle than most would give it credit for, It’s Alive ! Is loaded with Frankenstein references, and went on to spawn two equally good (and very different) sequels. To this day I will not put my face or fingers anywhere near a baby’s mouth.

Devil Times Five (1974)

The early to mid Seventies were mighty good years for Leif Garret. Not only was his picture plastered all over every teeny-bopper magazine in the country month after month, he was also scoring supporting roles in huge drive-in hits like Macon County Line and Walking Tall. Let’s just say considering his squeaky-clean image, Devil Times Five (aka Peopletoys) was a departure.

Garret plays one of five kids traveling on a bus which crashes in the mountains during a snowstorm. With the driver dead and not knowing what else to do, the five youngsters take refuge in a nearby resort.

It eventually comes out the bus was actually delivering the kids to an institution for the criminally insane, as they’re all kookoo bananas and extremely violent. There were hints of this beforehand, as per the standard asylum movie cliche, each nutty kid has a telltale tic—this one thinks she’s a nun, the black kid thinks he’s in the military. etc. But it’s all just mild comic relief until they pick up the knives.

Well, before you can say “Mr. Green Jeans,” they begin slaughtering everyone at the resort in a variety of hilarious ways, and occasionally in slow motion.

Unlike other Killer Kid movies which try to explain away antisocial behavior by blaming it on assorted external forces (government scientists, radiation, aliens, Satan, or an eclipse), these kids are just plain old evil by nature, and that’s all there is to it.

It wasn’t a big hit, it didn’t do much to propel Garret into leading roles, but today it’s earned itself solid cult status as a pre-slasher grind house number. And what’s not to love about the ol’ “piranhas in the bathtub” gag?

The Omen (1976)

In the Seventies and Eighties, a number of once-huge stars—Ray Milland, Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Rory Calhoun, Ida Lupino, George C. Scott and, in this case Gregory Peck—found themselves making genre pictures simply because that was all that was available to them. Granted, The Omen was a few cuts above The Devil’s Rain and Tentacles, but still.

Okay, regardless what the producers and screenwriter David Seltzer may claim about the franchise’s origins, the original trilogy of Omen films was lifted wholesale from “The Devil’s Platform” episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker.

Be that as it may, when you get a cast like this, a smart director like Richard Donner, a simply astonishing score by Jerry Goldsmith, some diabolical camera trickery and editing, wonderful practical effects (Lee Remick’s fall from the balcony kept me going for years), and a story about a smiling, (mostly cheerful 3-year-old Son of Satan wandering around England leaving a trail of beheadings, impaled priests, seriously pissed off baboons and hanged nannies in his wake, how can you go wrong? Even if the script itself is absurdly silly.

In an interesting postscript, like so many other child actors deeply associated with high-profile horror films of the era—think Danny Lloyd from The Shining—Harvey Stephens (who as Damien spoke, what, five words onscreen?) would not appear in another film for the next four decades. And even then he hasn’t been in much, though he did have a cameo as a reporter in the remake of, yes, The Omen a few years back.

Alice Sweet Alice (1976)

I dare you to show me one worthwhile horror film about Presbyterians. No, as far as religious sects go, Catholics have it all over everyone when it comes to horror. You got your robes, your chanting, your weird rituals, your transmutation, your Inquisition, your fetishism, your magic relics, your ghostly visions, oh, it just goes on and on. The Catholic Church is just one big horror show, top to bottom. As a result, Catholicism lay at the heart of countless horror films, and Alice, Sweet Alice is among the best.

The tagline read, “If you survive this night, nothing will ever scare you again,” which may or may not have been a reference to the fact this was Brooke Shields’ film debut. Shields plays 10-year—old Karen, the cute, quiet, polite and well-dressed younger sister of that moody, smart-mouthed and generally ornery Alice (Paula Sheppard), who likes to pull nasty pranks and doesn’t dress nearly as well as her sister. Everyone from the neighbors to their own parents to the local priest adores Karen and showers her with gifts, while they just wish Alice would go away. She clearly needs to see a shrink or something. So when Karen is brutally stabbed to death outside the church on the morning of her first communion and Alice is found with Karen’s veil in her pocket, well, there you go. And then when a whole bunch of other people around town somehow connected with Alice end up all stabbed to death as well, well, there you go again. I mean, she just looks like someone who could do something like that, right?

Alice, Sweet Alice is an American Giallo, so the less said about the story the better. For having such a tiny budget, the visuals are rich and gorgeous, filled with Catholic imagery and ritual throughout, featuring a cast of wholly unlikable characters you honestly don’t mind seeing stabbed to death (especially that Little Miss Perfect Karen). The one standout is Alphonso DeNoble as the crass, sleazy, filthy and morbidly obese landlord Mr. Alphonso. DeNoble has a terrifying charisma, which may have come from being a bouncer at a gay nightclub in Jersey in real life.

Yes, the film owes quite a bit, and blatantly so, to Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, but aimed at a more lowbrow mainstream audience. It’s a bloody, nasty little shocker still held dear by thousands of disaffected girls who survived Catholic school.

The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1976)

1976 was not only a busy year for Killer Kid films, it was also the busiest year of Jodie Foster’s career, during which she appeared in half a dozen films ranging from Taxi Driver to, well, this, a film she and other cast and crew members would bad mouth down the line. In retrospect, it’s not really as bad as all that.

A 13-year-old Foster plays 13-year-old Rynn Jacobs, a precocious girl who may or may not be living alone in a rented house in a secluded section of a small, affluent seaside town. Her rich, nosy and suspicious landlady keeps barging in uninvited to ask too many questions, the landlady’s perv of a son (Martin Sheen) keeps putting the moves on her, a local cop is endlessly curious but nice enough, and a gimpy teenage magician from the area knows the score. But Rynn is self-sufficient and smart beyond her years. Enough so anyway to dispatch with all those nosy yokels who’d try and pry into her business.

It’s less a horror film than an atmospheric mystery that ties up all the loose ends by the three-quarters mark. Based on a 1974 novel, the claustrophobic stagebound film is mostly forgotten today, but back in ’76 the poster creeped the hell out of me. Certainly more than the film did.

The Children (1980)

Although “creepy bloodthirsty children” seems to be a simple, straightforward notion just bursting with possible storylines, 1980 marked the point at which screenwriters and filmmakers everywhere seemed to run out of ideas, so simply began rehashing those earlier, better films. Case in point is this slight variation on Village of the Damned.

This time around, instead of mysterious alien impregnation, a school bus full of perfectly normal kids drives through a cloud of yellow radioactive fog released from a nearby nuclear power plant. The radiation, it seems, turns all the tykes into shambling, emotionless and murderous zombies. Instead of glowing eyes, the infected kids have black fingernails (which was easier on the fx budget), and instead of psychically driving adults to kill themselves, the mere touch of these evil zombie children can fry any adult to a crisp. With little else to do, the radioactive zombie kids lay siege to their small town as the adults try to figure out just how to handle this. I mean, it was already hard enough trying to get them to go to bed on time.

Oh, derivative as it is, the film does have it’s moments. In fact it includes one scene I must admit I’ve never seen repeated in any other Killer Kid film, in which a group of well-armed adults barricaded inside a house open fire on the army of evil radioactive curtain climbers massing in the front yard. And when the adults finally do figure out how to dispatch the little monsters, well, let’s just say it was unexpectedly gruesome.

The Godsend (1980)

Given the year had already provided a Village of the Damned knockoff, it was apparently time for a Bad Seed knockoff, and an obvious one at that.

A pleasant and kindly British couple, the Marlowes (Malcolm Stoddard and Cyd Hayman) decide to take in a young unmarried pregnant woman even though they already have six kids of their own, telling her she can stay with them until she has the baby. What nice people those Marlowes are! But wouldn’t you know it? As soon as the ungrateful wench spits out the baby she vanishes without a word, leaving them with a seventh mouth to feed.

Being pleasant people they don’t complain too much, and over time the child grows into a polite and lovely little girl named Bonnie (Wilhelmina Green).

Well, sure enough before you know it all the other Marlowe kids start dropping like flies, and the parents take their own sweet time connecting the dots. I mean, come now people! We all know what happens to the youngest kid in a large family.

Itself based on a less-than-original novel, director Gabrielle Beaumont’s low-budget film plays like a TV movie, and lacks pretty much everything that made The Bad Seed so effective.

Bloody Birthday (1981)

On June 9th, 1970, three women in a small California town give birth during a total solar eclipse (uh-oh!). The resulting three kids—Debbie (Elizabeth Hoy), Curtis (Billy Jacoby) and Steven (Andy Freeman)—understandably share a tight bond, and as their tenth birthday approaches in 1980, plans are underway for a big bash pretty much everyone in town is expected to attend.

In the week before the party, maybe just to trim that guest list down a bit, the trio of little scamps undertakes a killing spree. They bludgeon and strangle a couple of stereotypical slasher film teens making out in a graveyard, beat Debbie’s dad (the local sheriff) to death with a baseball bat, shoot a teacher, and attempt to lock a classmate in a refrigerator in a junkyard. No one suspects them, of course, because they’re freaking nine years old. Nowadays we know better. While you’d expect the big party to be the film’s climactic scene, it just comes and goes without much happening, and those darn kids keep killing.

Around the halfway point, a teenaged amateur astrologer offers up the closest thing we get to an explanation for such naughty behavior. During that eclipse, see, both the sun and moon were blocking Saturn. Since Saturn controls the emotions, these kids were born with no conscience. Okay, so you come to accept a lot on faith in these things. Ultimately, though there are hits of both Village of the Damned and Bad Seed here, the picture owes much more to Devil Times Five.

Director Ed Hunt had made a handful of genre cheapies prior to this, but today Bloody Birthday remains his most memorable film. The dialogue is often painful, the soundtrack is comprised of library music from TV movies, and it’s not nearly as gory as would become standard for slasher films, but his three little killers all exude a believable David Berkowitz vibe, and the film contains enough boobs to earn an R rating. In an irrelevant sidenote, it remains one of the very few entries here in which the kids use guns, and, I think, the only one in which they use a bow and arrow.

Sleepaway Camp (1983)

Writer/director Robert Hiltzik’s weirdie is a delightfully oddball number not only within the Killer Kid subgenre, but also among slasher films, which is doubly surprising considering when it was released.

Although the film at the outset has all the standard earmarks of a cookie-cutter post-friday the 13th slasher film (a bunch of youngsters at summer camp, and endless supply of sharp implements, a fast-rising body count), careful viewers will note a few unsettling details. First, apart from the counselors, most of the campers (and victims) are pre-adolescent, and all the males, young and old alike, wear shorts that are just a little too short and a little too snug. Hmm.

Anyway, Angela (Felissa Rose), has been sent to summer camp against her will with her older brother. She’s pretty and nice and shy, but has clearly been damaged in some way. She adamantly refuses to go swimming or play games ore shower wit the other kids, despite repeated (and usually understanding) pleas from the counselors. She prefers to be alone, and isn’t much interested in making new friends. I know the feeling. I was sent to summer camp once, and after a lummox named Trent got to go home because he got a fish hook in the eye, I considered bribing those kids with the fishing poles to do the same to me.

Anyway, if you haven’t seen it, the less said the better. Let’s just say it fits the category, but with a notorious twist, and remains near the top of the lists of many slasher film fanatics I know. I do wonder, though, given the age we’re living in, how this one would go over today. It also leaves me wondering what the deal is with that Robert Hiltzik.

Children of the Corn (1984)

Yes, it’s a stinker, but remains a memorable touchstone within the then exploding subgenre of Stephen King stinkers. I always find it funny that King continues to bitch about Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining, but never has a word to say about this, or The Mangler, or Silver Bullet, or Maximum Overdrive or…

But that’s beside the point. Given the subject at hand, both the original short story and Fritz Kiersch’s film adaptation are interesting in that they represent a genre-blending crossover between Killer Kid movies and Religious Zealot horror.

AS much as there is to chuckle at here—my goodness what an awful bit of filmmaking, from the script to the performances to the camera set-ups and fx—dammit I keep going back to it. I do enjoy that flashback in the diner, as well as the fact the initial slaughter of the adults is never clearly explained. Not really, anyway. And I do dig the amateurish overacting on the part of John Franklin as the crazy young preacher Isaac and Courtney Gains as his True Believer henchman Malachai. And I’ll watch that R.G. Armstrong in anything. Mostly, though, I think I keep going back time and again just to hear the line “He wants you, too…Malachai!,” which has been a catchphrase of mine for years now.

Firestarter (1984)

Amid the mid-‘80s flood of Stephen King quickies, at least director Mark L. Lester had a few more chops than most. He also had a much larger budget, which allowed him to sign a cast that included George C. Scott, Art Carney, Louise Fletcher, Martin Sheen and Heather Locklear (!).

So a young couple who met in college while volunteering as research guinea pigs in a secret government drug test later get married and have a daughter. As these things happen (see Blue Sunshine or Jacob’s Ladder), those secret government drug tests have a way of hanging around awhile, with some mighty unexpected side effects. In this case, their new daughter Charlie (Drew Barrymore, who was in a few King adaptations) was born with pyrokinetic powers, meaning she can set anyone or anything she doesn’t like ablaze, the lucky brat.

Well, a few years later when the secret government agency that ran the secret government drug test catches wind of what little Charlie can do, they decide they’d like to have a little chat with her, and maybe her dad too (the briefly popular David Keith), who himself might have psychic powers. Or maybe they’d like to have something more than a chat.

Less a horror movie than conspiracy thriller and chase picture, Firestarter remains an oddity here, as it’s one of the few Killer Kid films in which we’re asked to root for the Killer Kid, actually hoping the wee pyro in question, even though she’s cute and blond, will set a few of those icky, mean adults on fire.

It’s hardly on a par with The Shining, Carrie, or The Dead Zone, but at least it’s better than Night Shift, Sometimes They Come Back, Children of the Corn IV, Cat’s Eye, Maximum Overdrive…

The Omen IV: The Awakening (1991)

As would become standard for plenty of other franchises that had seemingly run their course, some bright TV executives thought there was still some money to be made with that whole Omen thing. A decade after the last and supposedly final entry came out, why not give it the TV movie treatment? And while we’re at it, why not give it a fresh twist by doing a little gender switcheroo, right? So this time around, why not make Damien a girl? That’d throw viewers for a loop, wouldn’t it?

(An Omen IV novel had actually been released shortly after The Final Conflict came out, but it had nothing to do with this.)

The events of the previous three films have long been forgotten by the time we get underway here, I mean, don’t we see the Second Coming of Christ at the end of Final Conflict? Okay, so I guess Jesus had gone on vacation or something by the time two young smug and wealthy lawyers (Michael Woods and Faye Grant) adopt a new daughter without asking too many questions.

Their daughter Delia (Asia Vieira) grows into a pretty, dark-haired young girl who is extremely unpleasant. Oooon, but she’s a bratty little smartass who could use a spanking. I always thought the Antichrist was supposed to be charming and charismatic, but I’ll let it slide. In any case her New Age hippie nanny starts to suspect something far more sinister than smug parents might be at the heart of Delia’s bad attitude. When all her magic crystals turn black in the little girl’s presence, she starts making frantic calls to her other New Agey friends.

I’m going to stop there. Hilariously awful film, save for one scene, And that one scene alone is reason enough to forgive the film’s countless other unforgivable flaws.

The nanny drags Delia to a New Age fair in a park in hopes of getting a snapshot of her aura, and let’s just say things don’t go well for much of anyone. In simple slapstick terms, it’s on a par with Final Conflict’s montage of baby murders.

The Good Son (1993)

As he transitioned from the “dorky, buggy-eyed but still weirdly cute” kid in the Home Alone pictures into a “dorky, buggy-eyed and much less cute” adolescent, Macaulay Culkin decided to prove his range as an actor by playing against type in still another take on The Bad Seed.

Instead of telling the story through the mother’s eyes, in Joseph Ruben’s film we see things through the eyes of a nice, wholesome kid named Mark (a young Elijah Wood). After his mother dies, he’s sent to live with an aunt and uncle and two cousins. Not yet knowing he should avoid anyone named “Henry,” Mark and his cousin Henry (Culkin) become good friends. But after Henry is clearly delighted when one of his silly boyhood pranks triggers a deadly multi-car pileup, and after he shows off his homemade gun to Mark, and furthermore hints he once tried to kill his own brother, Mark starts to get the idea Henry might well be a psychopath with bigger diabolical schemes in mind.

Ruben’s picture is a slight cut above the likes of, say, The Godsend thanks to that change in perspective. Although Culkin makes for a believable psycho kid, it didn’t really do much to revamp his career and set him on that road to an Oscar. Thinking about it, though, Henry’s use of improvised and homemade weaponry wasn’t that big a step away from his Home Alone character, but with more fatalities and fewer cartoon sound effects..

Home Movie (2008)

The found footage/hand held video/POV horror film was pretty well dead and buried as a style by 2008, but that sure didn’t stop anyone. It was a cheap way to make a movie, after all. In this case, though, the story would have worked much better as a straight narrative, as the POV gimmick just gets in the way, leaving viewers (or maybe just me) repeatedly asking, “Why would anyone be filming this?”

Why, for instance, would an alcoholic Lutheran minister (Adrian Pasdar) choose to film an intimate argument with his psychiatrist wife (Cady McClain)? And why would a psychiatrist use the family video camera to record private patient notes, leaving them mixed in there with the Christmas and Easter home movies? Maybe writer/director Christopher Denham was trying to make a point about people so obsessed with living through screens that they can easily ignore the obvious and increasing threat posed by their clearly disturbed twin children, who mostly just lurk in the background as the parents focus on themselves. I doubt it though.

The creepy ten-year-olds Jack (Austin Williams) and Emily (Amber Joy Williams) were born on Halloween. While their parents try to desperately prove just how fun and cool and hip they are by setting up haunted houses in the basement and teaching their kids how to pick locks, Jack and Emily spend the first half of the film staring sullenly at the floor. Soon enough though, they begin killing goldfish, crushing toads in vices, crucifying the family cat, and attacking schoolmates, working their way up the evolutionary chain toward You Know Who.

Oh, I’m not giving a goddamn thing away here—the goddamn tagline gave it away! And even without the tagline if you couldn’t see exactly where this was headed with the first scene, maybe you need a nap or something.

To it’s credit, like Devil Times Five, Home Movie offers no explanation for why the kids are funny in the head. If you wanted to push it you could make something out of that Halloween birthday or the fact the family name is “Poe.” Myself, I just tend to accept that any kid unlucky enough to have a preacher or a shrink as a parent is fucked from the start.

Case 39 (2009)

Renee Zelwegger stars as a young sincere and overworked case worker at Children and Family Services. After the seemingly unbalanced parents of a shy, sweet and neglected girl on her case list try to cram the pre-adolescent into the oven (repeatedly!) one night, the parents are institutionalized and the social worker adopts the girl.

Okay, same as with Home Movie, if you can’t see where this one was headed ten minutes in, theres something wrong with you. Funny twist is, while I initially took it to be simply yet another Bad Seed knockoff (which it is) before deciding it was simply another Omen knockoff (which it is), by the half way point it finally became clear: what I was watching was in fact a knockoff of Omen IV: The Awakening. And that’s pretty bad. To make it all even sadder and more pointless, Case 39 is capped by a climax that makes absolutely no sense, if you think about it even for a little bit. Even the Omen IV had a better ending, and that’s saying something.

Considering all the above, the ultimate lesson to take away here is that, talk as we might about The Terrible Twos, it’s when the little monsters turn ten that you really need to watch out.

by Jim Knipfel

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stageworthy · 5 years

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Natalia Bushnik and Robin Luckwaldt

Natalia Bushnik and Robin Luckwaldt are KAIROS Theatre who present their award-winning, touring show, 'The Bathtub Girls' (Critics' Choice - Hamilton Fringe, 2016; Official Selection - Twin Cities Horror Festival, USA, 2018) in Toronto, in the Assembly Theatre's 2019 curated season, May 21st - June 1st!

'The Bathtub Girls' is a fiction inspired by the first documented case of sibling matricide in Canada. Two sisters, encouraged by their friends, drown their mother in the bathtub of their family home. We join the girls in their irreconcilable waking nightmare of survival and atonement, which began long before we arrived, and which we have no power to stop. When the water stills, the door’s broken down, the body carried away, who do we punish? Who do you judge?.

“A dark but compelling piece of theatre” - CBC “Gripping storytelling” - City Pages, Minneapolis “Truly phenomenal” - Fringe Review

Directed, Written, and Performed by Natalia Bushnik and Robin Luckwaldt Sound / Set Design by Phoebe Wang Lighting Design by Waleed Ansari Promotional Trailer by William Innes : https://youtu.be/xUKPop7ccgI

https://kairostheatrecollective.com/ Instagram : @kairostheatre

Check out this episode!

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marysrhetoricportfolio-blog · 6 years

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Week Two

Group Post and Presentation: Students will summarize group text in post and presentation, and somewhere in this summary put forth what they discern to be the top 3 lessons about rhetoric and law that emerge from the text. All group members must participate equally and this must be demonstrated in the deliverables of post and presentation.

My group: Aeschylus, The Eumenides

Original Post:

Group 1: Mary McKeller, Rebecca Seeger, & Charlotte Stone

VIEW POWERPOINT PRESENTATION HERE

Aeschylus’ The Eumenides

The opening scene of the Eumenides is set outside the temple of the god Apollo. When the priestess of the temple arrives, she discovers a man, Orestes, sleeping with a sword surrounded by sleeping Furies, goddesses of vengeance . Petrified, the priestess flees the temple. From the previous play in the Oresteia trilogy, the audience knows that Orestes has come to the temple to absolve himself after killing his mother, Clytemnestra.

When Orestes wakes up, the god Apollo suggests that Orestes travel to Athens to seek the help of the goddess Athena. Apollo tells Orestes that he will defend Orestes in his trial for the killing.

When Apollo and Orestes leave, the ghost of Clytemnestra, Orestes’ dead mother, appears inside the temple. She wakes the Furies and riles them up, encouraging them to pursue Orestes for his crime.

When Apollo returns to the temple he argues with the Furies, insisting that they leave. The Furies charge that Apollo is chiefly responsible for the death of Clytemnestra because he convinced Orestes to kill her. Angry and out for the blood of Orestes, the Furies leave the temple to hunt him down in Athens.

Now in Athens, Orestes prays to the goddess Athena. Just when the Furies are catching up to Orestes and paralyzing him with a binding song, Athena enters, answering Orestes’ prayer. Orestes explains that he killed his mother because his mother slayed his father, Agamemnon. Athena proposes that they settle the issue by means of a trial with a jury of twelve Athenian citizens. She will assume the role of judge.

Next, the trial begins. Apollo arrives to defend Orestes. The Furies begin the proceedings by interrogating Orestes who admits that, acting on the advice of Apollo, he did slice Clytemnestra’s neck with a sword as revenge for her having killed Agamemnon. When the Furies question Apollo, he confirms Orestes’ account of the incident. Apollo and Orestes both advance the argument that Orestes was not related by blood to his mother since mothers only provide for the bodily needs of children, while fathers act as their true parent.

The members of the jury cast their votes. Athena announces that she awards her vote to Orestes because she favors men over women. The audience then learns that the jury is split, so Athena’s vote becomes the tie-breaker. Orestes goes free.

Upset about the outcome, the Furies chant their frustration. Athena persuades them to accept Orestes’ acquittal by offering them a home in Athens where they can act as goddesses that both encourage good and punish evil. With this new purpose, the Furies become “the Eumenides” or “The Kindly Ones.”

Rhetoric and Law Lessons that Emerge from the Text:

1 ) Patriarchy is historically bound up with society’s rhetoric and laws.

-Apollo argues that the mother is not the real parent anyway. “Not the true parent is the woman’s womb that bears the child.”

-He uses Athena, who was born of Zeus as an example: “Athena, daughter of Olympian Zeus, Never within the darkness of the womb...but a bud more bright than any goddess in her breast might bear."

-The play reduces a woman to her body parts: “She doth but nurse the seed.”

-Finally, Athena casts her vote in favor of Orestes because a woman’s murder is not morally equivalent to a man’s.

Overall, a large part of the rhetoric used to persuade the jury is built from strongly patriarchal values.

2) Different approaches to law exist in the world and are pitted against each other. Therefore, rhetoric must constitute justice.

-The way the Furies tell it, Orestes brutally murdered his mother and should therefore be tortured and killed himself. They exhibit a strict intolerance to crime and an eye for an eye mentality.

-The way Orestes tells it, the killing of his mother was a justifiable response to her murder of his father.

This disagreement is proof that the law is inadequate without rhetoric. Without an obvious answer, those involved must count on rhetoric to reach a solution.

3) Although a system may appear to be just, it can be tainted by unjust rhetoric.

-The trial of Orestes is supposed to bring about justice and end the cycle of revenge within Orestes’ family, but the outcome of the trial is arbitrary.

-Athena, the deciding vote, makes her decision based on the fact that she is a “champion of men.”

-This is a debatably unjust outcome to the situation.

Therefore, we must consciously critique our societal processes for rhetoric and law if we are to avoid unjust outcomes.

Some important quotations to consider:

Chorus of Furies: condemning Apollo for defending and protecting Orestes

“Thou, child of the high God Zeus, Apollo, hast robbed us and wronged;

Thou, a youth, hast down-trodden the right that to godship more ancient belonged;

Thou hast cherished thy suppliant man; the slayer, the God- forsaken,

The bane of a parent, by craft from out of our grasp thou hast taken;

A god, thou hast stolen from us the avengers a matricide son-

And who shall consider thy deed and say, It is rightfully done?” (Aeschylus).

Leader of the Chorus: being an accomplice is just as bad as committing the crime

“O king Apollo, in our turn hear us.

Thou hast not only part in these ill things,

But art chief cause and doer of the same…

Thine oracle bade this man slay his mother…

Then didst thou aid and guard red-handed crime,” (Aeschylus).

Chorus of Furies: an eye for an eye mentality

“It may not be! a mother's blood, poured forth

Upon the stained earth,

None gathers up: it lies-bear witness, Hell!-

For aye indelible

And thou who sheddest it shalt give thine own

That shedding to atone!

Yea, from thy living limbs I suck it out,

Red, clotted, gout by gout…” (Aeschylus).

Chorus of Furies: determined to not let crime go unpunished

“But if, as yonder man, he hath

Blood on the hands he strives to hide,

We stand avengers at his side,

Decreeing, Thou hast wronged the dead:

We are doom's witnesses to thee.

The price of blood, his hands have shed,

We wring from him; in life, in death,

Hard at his side are we!” (Aeschylus).

Athena: refuses to accept the Furies’ account of the story without hearing the other side. Her scale is balanced until evidence shows her otherwise.

“Two stand to plead-one only have I heard.”

“Enough is said; I bid the judges now

With pure intent deliver just award,” (Aeschylus).

Athena: chooses a jury of citizens to examine this difficult case despite being a goddess herself

“I choose unto me judges that shall be

An ordinance for ever, set to rule

The dues of blood-guilt, upon oath declared.

But ye, call forth your witness and your proof,

Words strong for justice, fortified by oath;

And I, whoe'er are truest in my town,

Them will I choose and bring, and straitly charge,

Look on this cause, discriminating well,

And pledge your oath to utter nought of wrong,” (Aeschylus).

Apollo: presents a sexist argument in defense of Orestes

“...Not the true parent is the woman's womb

That bears the child; she doth but nurse the seed

New-sown: the male is parent…” (Aeschylus).

Athena: Before the citizens begin to vote

"Therefore, O citizens, I bid ye bow

In awe to this command, Let no man live,

Uncurbed by law nor curbed by tyranny;

Nor banish ye the monarchy of Awe

Beyond the walls; untouched by fear divine,

No man doth justice in the world of men…” (Aeschylus).

Athena: casts the final vote of the trial in favor of Orestes to champion men

“Mine is the right to add the final vote,

And I award it to Orestes' cause.

For me no mother bore within her womb,

And, save for wedlock evermore eschewed,

I vouch myself the champion of the man,

Not of the woman, yea, with all my soul,-

In heart, as birth, a father's child alone.

Thus will I not too heinously regard

A woman's death who did her husband slay,

The guardian of her home; and if the votes

Equal do fall, Orestes shall prevail...” (Aeschylus).

Works Cited

Aeschylus. “Eumenides.” Translated by E.D.A. Morshead, The Internet Classics Archive | Eumenides by Aeschylus, 1994, classics.mit.edu/Aeschylus/eumendides.html.

Shmoop Editorial Team. “The Eumenides Summary.” Shmoop, Shmoop University, 11 Nov. 2008, www.shmoop.com/eumenides/summary.html.

Commentary:

I really enjoyed our project on The Eumenides. Working with my two brilliant classmates opened my eyes to new perspectives on classical legal rhetorical theory. Rhetoric constitutes the law, the need for rhetoric to prevail justice, and the patriarchal society of which rhetoric creates the law. I believe we tapped into critical legal rhetorical theory before we even knew the basics of it.

#week two

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