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historyhermann · 1 year

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Ashly Burch’s Contribution to LGBTQ+ Representation

Four of Ashly Burch's roles, all of which are canon LGBTQ characters

Recently, Ashly Burch, a well-recognized voice actress, singer, and writer, came out as pan and queer. Taking into account this development, I decided to examine some of her past roles and offer my thoughts on her contributions.

Reprinted from The Geekiary, my History Hermann WordPress blog on Feb. 11, 2023, and Wayback Machine. This was the forty-eighth article I wrote for The Geekiary. This post was originally published on July 30, 2022.

On July 1st, Ashly Burch came out as pan and queer, saying she is "old fashioned pansexuals". She added that this is not a shock because half the characters she plays are "members of the rainbow fam" and added more in a longer thread.

Burch has added herself to the list of other LGBTQ+ voice actors who have voiced LGBTQ+ characters in media. There's Anna Akana, a bisexual actress of Japanese and Filipino descent. She recently voiced Sasha Waybright in Amphibia and Daisy in Magical Girl Friendship Squad. Both characters are bisexual.

A non-binary actor, Iris Menas, has voiced non-binary characters in various Disney series. Ian-Jones Quartey, a bisexual creator, has voiced various characters, including Radicles "Rad" in his series, OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes. Abbi Jacobson, a bisexual actress, voiced a bisexual princess named Bean in Disenchantment. She also voiced a lesbian woman named Katie Mitchell in The Mitchells Vs. the Machines.

In many ways, Burch is definitely a queer icon. Apart from her video game voice roles, live-action roles, commercial roles, and dubbing roles, there are five roles that stand out to me. This article focuses on those roles and their significance in LGBTQ+ representation.

Ash in Hey Ash Whatcha Playin'

Ashly with her beauties in Season 1 - Finale Part 1 of Hey Ash Whatcha Playin'

In May 2008, the series Hey Ash Whatcha Playin' first premiered on Destructoid. It would garner tens of millions of views. The series used surreal humor and sibling rivalry with her brother Anthony. Each episode focused on video games, and their themes, trends, and societal impacts. In 2011, the series began airing on YouTube. Papa Burch, Burch's actual father, and Ashley "Leigh" Davis, who becomes Anthony's girlfriend, also appear. Guest stars include Burch's mother and many others.

Many episodes had queer themes. One implies that Burch had sex with sex workers. In another, she says things can be "really gay" when everything becomes male genitalia. The icing on the cake was when she struggled with the homophobia exhibited by Orson Scott Card, whose ideas inspired the game, Shadow Complex.

In the show's second season, Anthony had gay sex through a message board. Ashly asked her dad for help with "lady problems" (i.e. liking a lot of women). Some episodes had Ashly joking about how brains are "gay" and defending her brother as a person who doesn't bash gay people. Others included dildos, Papa Burch coming up with imagined gay scenarios, or defense of female characters.

One episode stands out from the lot, the one where Ashly says she likes pretty girls and runs away when she sees a girl she likes. Later episodes have Ash loving a female villain-of-sorts or portray her losing her cool when people use the word "lesbians".

Enid in OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes

Enid (left) and Red Action (right) in an episode of OK K.O.!

Burch is known for her role as Enid Mettle in this action-adventure-comedy animated series by Ian Jones-Quartey, Rebecca Sugar's husband. In the series, Enid is a bisexual woman previously in a relationship with Radicles "Rad". She is later Red Action's girlfriend.

Enid has a key role in OK K.O.! as a witch and a ninja all in one. She also fights villains and works at Gar's Bodega. Burch has voiced Enid in almost all her appearances apart from the original pilot. She has been the subject of much fan art and over 700 fan fics.

Somewhat like Enid is Lainey in Loud House, who Burch also voiced. Lainey is dating another character, a woman named Alice. Unlike OK K.O.!, Lainey only appears in two episodes. In the former series, she becomes very romantic with Red Action, a lesbian character voiced by actress, comedian, and model Kali Hawk.

Ash in Final Space

Evra (left) and Ash (right) in an episode of Final Space

Burch is less known for her role as Ash Graven, who has the same first name as her. In the series, Ash is a humanoid alien who strikes up a romance with Evra (Jasmin Savoy Brown), a genderless being, in the Season 3 episode "Forgiveness". They sit together in a romantic moment, watching lights that resemble the aurora borealis.

Before this, she says she hates a man named Jordan Hammerstein with all her guts. This hints that she is a lesbian rather than "ambiguously bi," as I noted in my review of the series. In that review, I noted a podcast where show creator Olan Rogers confirmed Ash as an LGBTQ character. At the time, Rogers said he would expand the relationship between Evra and Ash if he had another season.

Ash is only one of the many LGBTQ characters in the series, although the others are recurring characters rather than protagonists. Unlike Enid, she becomes an antagonist, and villain, akin to Cassandra "Cass" (Eden Espinosa) in Tangled. She is a character as complex as Cass while both are exploited by someone else who plays on her trauma triggers.

Rutile Twins in Steven Universe

Rutile Twins (right) brings Lars and Steven to the Prime Kindergarten where Off Colors are hiding out in their debut episode.

In a little-known role, Burch voiced a non-binary Gem fusion named Rutile Twins in Steven Universe. She later said she was "extremely honored" to be on the show. Unlike the other characters she voiced, these characters are non-binary women, as are all Gems as Rebecca Sugar confirmed in a 2018 article. So that makes this character unique beyond any others mentioned in her resume.

In an interesting trivia, since Burch voices both components of the character, they have the same voice, but with different tones. The same is the case for the Amethysts, all voiced by Michaela Dietz, or all the Rubies voiced by Charlyne Yi. Real-life rutiles are said to help with the stabilization of emotions and relationships. They reportedly evoke romantic feelings and aid with handling past trauma.

The Rutile Twins are outcasts who are part of a group of Gems ostracized by society, the Off Colors. These Twins later join Lars Barriga, and the other Off Colors, traveling through space, and living on Earth. In Steven Universe Future, the Off Colors graduate from Steven's school for Gems, known as Little Homeschool.

Molly in The Ghost and Molly McGee

Andrea (left) and Molly (right) in the "Andrea Song Takeover"

Burch voices a lead character named Molly McGee. Unlike her other roles, Molly is half-Thai and half-Irish, like Burch in real life. The series incorporates Thai culture into storylines and helps educate viewers about Thai culture.

In The Ghost and Molly McGee, Molly befriends a ghost named Scratch after moving to the Midwestern town of Brighton with her father, mother, and brother. Also appearing in the series is Molly's grandmother. She meets many friends there. This includes a Latine and Jewish girl named Libby Stein-Torres (Lara Jill Miller). She also has a geeky friend Sheela (Aparna Nancherla) and a sweet pink-haired friend, Kat (Eden Riegel).

Although Molly is not a canon queer character, some fans have shipped her with her frenemy, Andrea Davenport (Jules Medcraft), with their ship being Mollandrea. Others have shipped her with Libby Stein-Torres, with their ship called Mollibby. This ship has been denied by Bob Roth, a show creator, who said that LGBTQ representation unfolds naturally in the series.

Closing thoughts

There are many other characters Burch has voiced or played since her career began in 2007. She voiced Josette Grey in Blackford Manor and Tiny Ghost in Chainsaw Richard. She offered her voice as Lila Twinklepipes in Pig Goat Banana Cricket, Meadow Springs in Trolls: The Beat Goes On!, and Miss Pauling in Expiration Date, along with others in Over the Garden Wall and We Bare Bears.

She is further known for voicing Bun Bun and Breezy in Adventure Time, Ridley in Glitch Techs, and Cass Wizard in Bee and PuppyCat. Recently, she played Rachel in Mythic Quest who is in a relationship with a Black woman named Dana (Imani Hakim).

Many of these roles aren't canon LGBTQ+ characters. However, since Burch came out as pan and queer, this could lead to new interpretations of these characters. Burch was also a writer for "Shadows at the Gates", the fourth episode of The Legend of Vox Machina, a mature animated series filled with LGBTQ+ characters and based on the Critical Role podcast.

In the end, Ashly Burch will likely continue to voice queer characters, working with other such actors to continue improving queer representation in media.

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oswincoleman · 2 years

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Here is a very detailed interview with Jenna Coleman for Netflix tudum, about The Sandman!

Some key aspects of the interview are:

And then I was shooting in Bangkok and some material came through to me. And I knew it was Sandman, but I didn't know what [character]

So Jenna was first considered for the roles of Johanna Constantine/Lady Johanna Constantine all the way back in 2019 (or early 2020)!

Here, she talks about Neil Gaiman's imagination, and why she wanted to play a role in The Sandman:

his world is so vast and rich and poetic and [he has] such a psychedelic imagination. For a performer, it allows you to bring a sense of theater that is very hard to find in material like that. And it feels like it's so distinctly Neil Gaiman's visual aesthetic and imagination and art. That was a big reason for me wanting to do it.

How she prepared for the role:

And then a lot of the research came from the comic books, [Gaiman’s story] “Dream a Little Dream of Me” and looking at exorcisms and going down the occult research route as well.

How she interacted with Tom Sturridge (Morpheus):

I think when we got to set, in terms of the meeting of Dream and how Tom [performed], it was like he was completely present and grounded and in the present world with you, but his movement, his voice, caught that ethereal nature. He's operating on so many levels of consciousness at once. It was so interesting because I was like, “I'm not reacting [like] this is just another human or another character. This is another kind of being.” So it really changed the dynamic and the performance, just working with him and reacting to his interpretation of Dream.

How she describes Johanna Constantine:

There's a certain disillusionment and disenchantment with Johanna Constantine. She's been working since she was young. She's seen a lot of things in her life. It's very hard to surprise her or intrigue her. I also think she has a vast intellect and is quite easily and quickly bored. And I think that's where the conman artist aspect comes in as well. She's always looking three steps ahead and operating in a way of trying to distract people while she's doing something else on the back end. Whereas with Dream, and what I found with Tom in terms of his rhythm, she was kind of intrigued by him, so I think it changed that tempo a bit.

And her relationship with Morpheus:

She can very easily read people and very easily, obviously, deceive and trick and be that con artist, whereas obviously Dream is an entirely different kind of someone than [who] she's come into contact with before. So it is kind of seeing Johanna tick in a way that, one, she's impressed by him and she admires him, but also equally, she's trying to work out how to crack him and [find out] where his weaknesses are and using humor or wit to do that while she's also constantly calculating. It's like playing a game of chess; she's chess-gaming with him all the time. As we were filming, there were certain scenes where they took unexpected directions. And I think there's a mutual admiration for the other one with an absolute reluctance to show it. I think that it was like a lovely, slow dawning of a friendship of two lone warriors.

Jenna's favourite scenes to film were:

I really loved the stuff with Mad Hettie [who warns Constantine about Dream] because I just felt like it was right out of the comic book. I could see the images from the comic just coming to life. And we were shooting in London at the height of the pandemic, and there was nobody [anywhere]. London was so quiet. It's the stillest I've ever seen London and there was something quite beautiful about that. So yeah, I'd say that. And there's certain iconic shots, like Dream with the Raven in silhouette form and Johanna in the rain with the umbrella — there's something like a nod to a lot of those old noir films there.

We've not seen those film noir type scenes yet, but from this description, they promise to be amazing!

Finally, Jenna also commented about the future prospects for her characters:

We've only touched upon Lady Johanna Constantine [in Season 1], so I think there's definitely a lot more to explore there. But in terms of as a character of the contemporary Constantine, yeah, I'd absolutely love to see that particular version return.

This is a very interesting statement, as John Constantine (who could not be used in the show, and whose role in the story is instead played by the newly created character of modern-day Johanna Constantine) does not appear in later comics. So this would require several new storylines for this newly created character to be made. As far as I've seen, the initial reactions to Jenna's modern-day Johanna Constantine have been very positive, and Netflix clearly likes having Jenna on the cast.

Possible future seasons of the show will, however, certainly feature 18th-Century Lady Johanna Constantine, as Jenna mentioned in the interview.

I also want to point out that I find it very weird that the article starts off with the sentence: "After five years, Jenna Coleman is returning to genre television". Jenna has done a lot of television in the last 5 years. There are even 2 separate shows on Netflix that were released in the last 5 years; The Serpent and The Cry.

And always remember: Jenna Coleman, MVP

#jenna coleman #jenna louise coleman #the sandman #sandman #sandman on netflix #netflix #johanna constantine #lady johanna constantine #interview

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altmusicposting · 2 years

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Heroes or Cons? Breaking down 21st Century Breakdown

Released on May 15th, 2009, 21st Century Breakdown was Green Day's 8th Studio album, and proof that they had no intention of slowing down or shutting up anytime soon. An 18 track album full of (mostly) under 5-minute bangers that carry a combination of Green Day's tried and true socio-political criticism and their more recent story-driven angle, this disc deserved way more credit than it got.

Unfairly overshadowed by and nearly always discussed in the context of the band's previous album, American Idiot, especially now that we are more than a decade out from its release, Breakdown doesn't get the opportunity to stand on its own, the way it absolutely can. While the concept-album, rock opera style angle was inspired by its predecessor, Breakdown does plenty on its own to differentiate itself and thus I will be speaking in the context of Idiot no further.

Rolling Stone's Rob Sheffield describes the overarching concept of the album as "a Seventies-style epic, telling the story of two young punk lovers [Christian and Gloria, songs according to Rolling Stone] on the run in the wreckage of post-Bush America," who take care of each other because "no one else will." Included and beyond this are themes of technology, stagnation, complacency, disenchantment, hope, and defiance. This can be heard throughout the album through literal means, like the scratchy radio and technical glitch sounds, and both literally and figuratively through Green Day's iconic biting lyricism. As Alternative Press's Scott Heisel says, "Armstrong [front-man, singer, and guitarist] isn't afraid to spit out exactly what he's thinking."

Many of the band's fans cite this album or songs from it as favorites despite its relative underdog status. However, it was not as well received by some critics, like Pitchfork's Jess Harvell, who can, in the nicest way possible, fuck off. How could anyone who listened to songs like East Jesus Nowhere and Peacemaker call Green Day's efforts here "pompous and dumb"? With lyrics like "Don't test me/second guess me/protest me you will disappear," and one of my personal favorites of all time "this is a stand-off/a molotov cocktail/on the house," it should be more than clear that Green Day has by no means lost their desire or ability to speak their mind and revolt. Furthermore, the specific references like the name drop of Beretta (an arms dealership used for private, police, and military supply), nuclear disputes, climate change, and more show they are not just spewing generalist political outrage. There is nothing empty or hollow to suggest that Green Day is merely trying to recreate previous successes.

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One concession I will make is that there are a few areas where the typical up-front message is detoured to further the "plot" of the characters, as in Last Night on Earth, and that can be a bit confusing. The main thing I suppose, is that there is a lot happening all at once, which can be hard to follow. Even still, this is one of the things I personally enjoy about the album. It makes it fun to listen through and to more than once, and putting the disparate parts together forces you to be an active listener.

What creases me about this review though, almost more so than the ignorance in regards to the album's finer points, is that Harvell makes snide comments about each of the band members and their musical/artistic prowess in turn. Criticisms of this kind always bother me a bit because, while it's fine to have a negative opinion of something, particularly when it comes to art, that's not necessarily a reason to insult the artist who created it. Furthermore, despite a proclaimed love of the band, and punk and alternative music in general, Harvell seems to focus on the simplicity and repetition of the musical techniques, phrases, and chord progressions used in this album and by the band in general. Not only is this claim at least partially baseless, given the diversity in instruments (including strings, tympani, and piano), tempos, time signatures(4/4 to 7/4), and moods of these songs, but also ignores the fundamental punk idea that its anyone's game. Yes, much of Green Day's music relies heavily on a few power chords, but its accessible. Which I think, is the point. You don't have to be a musical genius, you just have to say something, and say it loud.

I mean, just listen to !Viva La Gloria! and ?Viva La Gloria? [Little Girl] and tell me you don't get excited by the tempo changes, genre mixing, and impassioned lyrics.

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For further proof that Harvell's claims that Green Day are just concerned with "reinforcing their own stature," or "could shit this stuff out in their sleep," are false, one need only turn to the source. In an interview with the Sunday Times newspaper, Billie Joe Armstrong described the aftereffects of leaving the record as akin to post-partum depression. Could this have been a publicity stunt? Sure, I guess. Though I am more inclined to believe it was perhaps exaggerated, but genuine.

One other commonly critiqued part of the album is the Song Know Your Enemy, which appears early on (track 3), and in all honesty does not have much substance. Alternative Press calls it more of "an interstitial piece than a stand-alone song," which I can understand. In all honesty, it has never been a favorite of mine, but I still believe there is a place for it in the track list and in the genre. It serves as a call to the classic angry, repetitive, head-bangy short songs of the "Clash-sized bootboy chants," as Sheffield puts it.

Another critique I have, is with the choice to include the n-word in the lyrics of the second to last track, American Eulogy: Mass Hysteria/Modern World. It is not the first time the band has done this, and though it is (in this case) used as something the martyr, who is described as a compulsive liar, says to insight more chaos and hysteria, it's use by a non-black individual has always made me feel a bit uncomfortable. Given the band (and Billie in particular)'s political activism and stances outside of their music, I find its use especially confusing.

My final issue with the album is that there appears to be little to no songs from the perspective of Gloria. This is disappointing because I love that the songs switch perspectives between in the story (through Christian's eyes), and a narrative third party (Billie/Green Day). This shifting makes the absence of Gloria's perspective in all but Murder City all the more apparent. Whether this absence is for any particular reason, i.e. the band wanted to mainly draw parallels between Christian and Billie, or not, it is still frustrating to have the female "main character" largely as an observed/addressed party rather than an active story-teller.

To return to positives for the end here, the individual songs throughout this album provide some of my favorite examples of high-energy socio-political commentary. For its part, the album as a whole employs fantastic transitions between tracks, with the ending of one leading seamlessly into the next, and so I highly recommend listening to this album all the way through.

#music #rock music #punk #punk music #green day #my thoughts #my writing #album review #alternative

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mars1anthonydeyn · 1 year

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Matt Groening Research

Matt Groening is the artist/ animator responsible for The Simpsons, Futurama, and more recently Disenchantment. Simpsons being the oldest, then Futurama and now Disenchantment. Out of the three my personal favourite is the Simpsons. I really like the simplistic character designs, they had just the right amount of detail. Something else I like that might be surprising is the slightly janky animation on older episodes. I wouldn’t want to watch it all the time since it would defeat the whole reason of why I appreciate it. Animated shows in the modern day are all so polished and perfect. It can be rather refreshing to watch an episode of the same show but have it has a slightly less polished look to it. This is why I’m so fond of the old 1930’s/1940’s Betty Boop and Mickey Mouse animations.

I have only ever watched Futurama a couple of times. In all honesty I don’t think its anything special. To me it just feels like Simpsons in space without the iconic yellow skin of all the characters. I can see how maybe a few years ago when the show was in its prime people genuinely enjoyed it. However this is because that was the best animation had to offer. This is before the days of Rick and Morty, Adventure time and many other beloved shows. If you’re below the age of 20 and your favourite show is Futurama you have no excuse when other amazing animated series exist.

Personally I’m not a huge fan of Matt Gronenings Animation style or character design. I find it boring and bland, it doesn’t have the humour of more modern TV shows. Also it doesn’t have the likeable funny slapstick humour like many other animations such as Loony Tunes or even Tom and Jerry. Its just very medico in my eyes which is often a worse place to sit than a terrible show, because quite often a really bad show is often so bad it becomes enjoyable. I would much rather watch more modern shows like Rick and Morty or even really old 1930’s animations, you may think this is hypocritical of me to say I love literally some of the oldest animations out there. However I think it’s important people have a mild respect for some of these ancient classics. These are the very first animations that gave birth to the genre of animation.

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awesomejustgotawesome · 2 years

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Hey everyone!

So what I’ve been working on (admittedly really slowly) is separating my gifsets to their own blogs. I thought of them as a way to back up my gifsets in case something happens to this blog (happened once before but I was able to get it back), and so I’d just be reblogging them from here. But then I decided otherwise for a few reasons:

To fix a lot of my older gifsets (mostly the text on them but sometimes quality).

There’s a new format to the posts I’m doing which I really love.

And just because I really like organizing things. Like a lot hahah.

It's also a way for anyone who likes one particular show, but not others/what I reblog, to be able to just see the gifsets for that. And I’m gonna get back to making new gifs soon. The new gifs will be posted on those blogs first, but I’ll reblog all of them here the same or the next day. So they’ll all end up here as well.

I’m really excited, loving these new blogs already. Went with a simple look for all of them (spent time making character icons for the tags as well). But yeah had this idea since I started giffing Disenchantment & Final Space a lot way back when. I even made some for shows I haven’t giffed yet but plan/hope to in the future, kind of just went overboard a little hahah.

So I’m not going to be posting to all the new blogs right away, just a few for now starting from July 1st. I’ll be starting from the first episode of the shows and working up. New gifs will come once all the old ones are posted, meaning out of the main four The Orville will be getting new gifs first later next month.

Anyway here they all are:

Disenchantment

Final Space

Rick and Morty

The Orville

---------------------------- (these are the ones I won’t be posting to right now, although Bob’s Burgers, Futurama & Gravity Falls are the next 3 I plan to gif very soon)

Bob’s Burgers

Futurama

Gravity Falls

Steven Universe

The Last Man on Earth

Adventure Time

Regular Show

so yeah that’s what I’ve been up (as well as other things). Probably should have done this much earlier on but oh well. Hope you enjoy if you like any of these shows and/or my gifs.

#matt babbles #I also made ones for BoJack Horseman and Tuca & Bertie #but those are way off if I get around to giffing them #I also made a HTTYD one for gifs from my HTTYD blog #not sure if I'm gonna use it like these ones though #but yeah you'll see the different formatting like I said #I was never a big fan of putting the title of the show/movie on every gifset but ever since I learned how to do the colors I love it haha #matching the colors of the gifset and all that #looks freaking neat #one thing that was tough was coming up with blog names #some came very easily #some not so much #and a few I'm still a little unsure of #but oh well it is what it is #didn't want to name them something generic like disenchantmentgifs or whatnot #that's too boring

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wazafam · 3 years

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Disenchantment has returned for a third season and its amazing ensemble of veteran voice actors has returned with it. The new season also boasts some impressive guest stars, who only appear for an episode or two, but have a major impact upon the story and setting.

Set in a fantasy realm that may also be the same reality as Futurama, Disenchantment centers around Princess Tabeanie, or Bean for short. A hard-drinking rebel who has little use for her father's ideas about marrying her off to secure an alliance with a neighboring nation, Bean feels that there's some great destiny awaiting her somewhere outside the gates of Dreamland. She's right, but she's also not too crazy about fulfilling that destiny, which involves paying a debt her mother's family owes Hell and having a crown screwed into her head.

Related: Netflix: The Best New TV Shows & Movies This Weekend (January 15)

Season 3 picks up right where season 2 ended, with Bean having escaped being burned at the stake as a witch by a mob of Dreamlanders only to find herself surrounded by an entirely different mob of Trogs: a race of stunted, sub-terrain cave dwellers, who are in league with Bean's treacherous mother, Queen Dagmar. Here's a rundown of all the returning cast of Disenchantment and the roles that they play, as well as all the guest stars with major roles in season 3.

The lead heroine of Disenchantment, Bean is not your typical tomboy princess who wants adventure in the great wide somewhere. She'd be much happier if she just had the freedom to get wasted and pick up whatever cute guys she could find at the tavern, but fate (and the rest of the world, it seems) have other plans for her. She is voiced by Abbi Jacobson, who is best known as the creator and star of Broad City. She can also be heard in Bojack Horseman as the voice of Todd's ex-girlfriend, Emily.

Luci is Bean's own personal demon, bonded to her for all eternity to push her to the path of wickedness. This proved to be a much easier job than Luci's masters in Hell had anticipated, and he soon began to slack off on his demonic duties to run a bar and contribute to the general wickedness of Dreamland as a whole. Luci is voiced by Eric André, who is perhaps most famous as the creator and host of The Eric André Show. He also voiced the hyena Azizi in The Lion King remake.

Too cynical for the world of elves and too naïve for the world of man, Elfo is a half-elf who isn't entirely sure where he belongs. He has found a place at Bean's side, but his crush on her is unrequited and the only other love he seems to find is in all the wrong places (very wrong, incredibly sick and filthy wrong places). Elfo is voiced by writer/actor Nat Faxon, who is probably best known for his collaborations with Jim Rash, such as The Descendants and The Way, Way Back. He also played a lead in the FX show Married and the Netflix comedy series Friends From College. More recently, he's provided the voice for Captain Underpants in The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants in Space and will be playing Han Solo in the upcoming Star Wars: Detours series.

Related: Netflix: Every Movie and TV Show Releasing In January 2021

Absolute ruler of Dreamland and Bean's beloved (if begrudging) father, King Zøg starts season 3 in ill health and on the verge of losing his life along with his crown. Naturally Zøg being Zøg, he's more concerned about the hat than his health. He is voiced by animation legend John DiMaggio, who is well known to Futurama fans as the voice of Bender. He also provided the voice for Jake the Dog in Adventure Time, Dr. Drakken on Kim Possible, and even Marcus Fenix in the Gears of War video game series. Recently, he voiced Heidegger in the English dub of the Final Fantasy VII remake. He also voiced both King Shark and the demon Trigon in Justice League Dark: Apokolips War.

The second wife of Zøg, who abandoned him and Dreamland to seek a new life as Queen of the Pirates, Oona returns to Dreamland in Disenchantment season 3. She is voiced by Tress MacNeille, who has voiced multiple characters on both The Simpsons and Futurama, including Agnes Skinner and Mom (of Mom's Friendly Robot Corp.). MacNeille also provides the voices for Prince Derek and the Archdruidess who leads Dreamland's state religion. She is also beloved as the voice of Dot Warner from Animaniacs.

Heir to the throne of the neighboring kingdom of Bentwood, Prince Merkimer was intended to be Bean's second fiancée after the untimely impalement of his older brother. While the wedding was called off after he was turned into a talking pig, Merkimer continued to hang around the palace of Dreamland being sad and/or drunk. He is voiced by British comedian Matt Berry, who is famous for his appearances on The IT Crowd, Toast of London, and What We Do In The Shadows. He can currently be heard in The Watch, lending his voice to a magic sword named Wayne.

A torturer and executioner by trade, Stan is still a jovial man who does his job with a kind word and a craftsman's eye. He is voiced by British comedy legend Noel Fielding, who is well-known as one half of The Mighty Boosh and for playing Richmond in The IT Crowd. Viewers may recognize him as a co-presenter for The Great British Bake-Off. He also lent his voice to Balthazar in The LEGO Movie 2.

Related: Disenchantment Season 2 Has Some Weird Game Of Thrones References

Still best known for playing the role of Michael Bolton in Office Space, David Herman went on to become one of the most prolific voice actors in Hollywood. He voices several characters in Disenchantment, the most notable being the Herald of Dreamland. He also provides the voices for Bean's uncle Jerry and the snarky spa attendant Chazz. He can also be heard as Mr. Frond in Bob's Burgers and Dmitry in Central Park.

Bean's mother and King Zøg's first wife, Dagmar is a wicked witch who has big plans for Bean involving some sort of prophecy. Season 3 will find her once again manipulating her daughter for her own sinister designs. Dagmar is voiced by Sharon Horgan, a comedian and voice actor who has appeared in several British sitcoms including Catastrophe and This Way Up. She provides the voices for Courtney Portnoy in Bojack Horseman and Kathleen in Bob's Burgers and also appeared in the movie Game Night

One of the most prolific voice actors in the business, Maurice LaMarche is perhaps most famous for his impression of Orson Welles, whom he played on both The Simpsons and Futurama. His voice was also dubbed over Vincent D'Onofrio's performance as Orson Wells in Tim Burton's biographical film Ed Wood. LaMarche's chief role on Disenchantment is the treacherous, three-eyed minister Odval, but he voices a number of supporting roles as well, such as the legendary demon hunter Big Jo.

Bunty is Bean's simple-minded, ever-pregnant maid. She is voiced by Lucy Montgomery, who will be familiar to many fans of British comedy. She appeared in the 2011 revival of Absolutely Fabulous, The Armstrong and Miller Show, Bellamy's People of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Tracy Breaks the Internet. She can also be heard on a number of children's programs, having lent her voice to both Thomas the Tank-Engine and Bob the Builder.

Related: All The Simpsons & Futurama Easter Eggs In Disenchantment Season 2

The chief wizard of Dreamland ever since he was allowed to put stars on his dunce cap, Sorcerio is perhaps the most incompetent member of Dreamland's ruling council — a low bar to jump over. He is voiced by legendary voice actor Billy West, who is instantly recognizable to fans of Futurama as the voice of Fry, Zoidberg, Zapp Brannigan and Professor Farnsworth. West has provided several iconic voices over his long career, including the title characters from The Ren & Stimpy Show and Doug. West pulls quadruple-duty on Disenchantment as well, also providing the voices for the Jester, Sir Mertz, and the Elf King Rulo.

Season 3 of Disenchantment briefly finds Elfo confined to a freak show, where he befriends a sarcastic mermaid named Mora who has dreams of being an actress. Mora is voiced by Meredith Hagner, who might be recognized as Portia Davenport from Search Party. She also voiced Madison on Bob's Burgers.

Rich Fulcher as Sir Turbish - Best known for his work with Noel Fielding and Matt Berry on various projects, Rich Fulcher returns to voice the awkward but well meaning Sir Turbish.

Lauren Tom as Trixy - Well known to Futurama fans as the voice of Amy Wong, Lauren Tom lends her voice to Trixy: a female Torg who develops a truly disturbing attraction to Elfo.

Richard Ayoade as Alva - Best known as Maurice Moss from The IT Crowd, Richard Ayodae plays Alva, the mysterious man who essentially rules Steamland.

Phil LaMarr as God - Best known to Futurama fans as the voice of Hermes Conrad, Phil LaMarr returns as the voice of God, the chief deity of Disenchantment's cosmology.

More: Disenchantment: The Biggest Unanswered Questions After Season 2's Ending

Disenchantment Season 3 Cast & Character Guide: What The Voice Actors Look Like from https://ift.tt/3ikobqy

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beigewatcrs · 4 years

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❝ task 001 ❞ ⋮ mun questionnaire

name / alias : emily gender / pronouns : cisfemale ; she/her where ya from ? : indiana — i hate it sm the current time : 10:30 pm starting this. 11:20pm finishing bc i got distracted lmao

height : 5 foot. 3 inches job or major : music therapy major ; teaching percussion at two high school marching band programs ; in a drumline for professional basketball team pet ( s ) : two dogs — kendra and annie favorite thing ( s ) about yourself : v many things, but probably my passion for music and change any special talents ? : idk if it’s special but i can play the two different four mallet techniques for percussion

why you joined hqclouds : i really wanted to play a canon chara and thought hqclouds had a v nice spin w/ the glitch and un - glitch idea and was super intrigued.

meaning behind url : i usually do ‘skies’ or ‘waters’ at the end and add some word in front lmao. also in case i wanted to pick up another i could still use this url for a mumu blog

last thing you googled : kong wobbler for my dog in training lmao

birthday / zodiac : july 2nd ; cancer in your opinion , does your sign suit you ? : omg YES hogwarts house : slytherin. woop woop

three fictional character ( s ) you see yourself in + why : princess bean from disenchantment ; she’s determined and fights for what she wants/believes. nia nal from supergirl ; she can be levelheaded but when it comes down to it she also leads with her emotions. jenny from gossip girl ; i tried v hard to fit in with the populars when i was younger and then i basically said fck it and went off doing my own shit ( and making parents upsetti too oop )

i started roleplaying : i think i abt two years ago and then took a long break bc senior year needed a lot of attention for internships, job apps, and auditions. types of rps i enjoy : honestly it depends on what i’m feeling in the moment and what isn’t too generic/what many rps are doing favorite fcs to use : love lulu and elliot fletcher rn, but i many i’d like to play but not enough time lmao fandom ( s ) you’d like to write in : probably more animated ones bc i never have — like disenchantment and futurama lmao fandom ( s ) you aren’t in but are curious about : adventure time, steven universe, atla — honestly plan to watch all of these though, starting atla soon

favorite canon muse ( s ) to play : penelope park and zoe rivas

canon ships you can’t help but love : o m g SO MANY. especially if they’re wlw

i prefer . . .

angst , smut , or fluff : i love fluff and angst sm, it’s hard to choose bc the plots can be so good long or short replies : i usually try to match what’s given to me?? maybe shorter in the beginning to get the ball rolling pre plotting or chemistry : pre - plotting for most things ; but i think chemistry is v important sentence starters or headcanon memes : i haven’t done either in so long but probably headcanon memes lmao single muse or multimuse blogs : i just started my first mumu blog and LOVE it, just getting use to the tagging system lmao gif icons , medium gifs , or static icons : gif icons

grab the book nearest to you and pull a quote from it : he had forgotten about magic — he had forgotten that he was short and skinny and thirteen, whereas black was a tall, full - grown, man — all harry knew was that he wanted to hurt black as badly as he could and that he didn’t care how much he got hurt in return ; from harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban. i have read these books so many times and thought fitting during quarantine ( although i do not condone what j.k. rowling said )

what’s a quote or song lyric that speaks to your soul ? : i’m just a tenant paying rent inside this body and i got two windows, well, i call them my eyes ; mind is a prison by alec benjamin

top current celebrity crushes : omg this is so difficult but melissa benoist or naomi scott last movie you watched : incredibles 2 did you like it ? : i love it sm favorite tv show ( s ) of all time : futurama, bobs burgers, super girl, the originals, legacies, and some others favorite tv show that hasn’t ended : bobs burgers and super girl favorite series of books / novels / comics : harry potter, the shadow children series, and ellen hopkins is a v good author sports team ( s ) you rep : chicago blackhawks and boston bruins. go hockey. favorite youtube channels : rose and rosie ; amy ordman hobbies : pretty much anything with music lmao

put your music on shuffle. what six songs pop up ? : smile — avril lavigne ; bang! — ajr ; good things fall apart ( stripped ) — illenium & john bellion ; untouched — the veronicas ; lay all your love on me — mamma mia version ( but i love abba too so ) ; more than ok ( acoustic ) — r3hab, clara mae, & frank walker

dream vacation ? : anywhere w/ a beach or traveling through europe dream job ? : music therapist ; maybe starting my own practice or company dream car ? : it changes almost weekly if i could live anywhere , it’d be : boston or portland ( oregon ) or possibly germany favorite musical : oliver ! coffee order : so many different ones but ALWAYS ICED. i hate hot coffee

what’s a subject you know too much about + never get tired of talking about ? : music therapy/percussion

#cloud:task #cloud:ooc

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cinemamablog · 4 years

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Lana Del Rey Goes to the Movies

I use roughly 1/16th of my iPhone’s storage space to hold my collection of Lana Del Rey’s music, including her (misspelled) self-titled album Lana Del Ray AKA Lizzy Grant and over a hundred of her leaked, unreleased tracks. (If you have an MP3 of “Yosemite” or “Life is Beautiful”... Hit me up, please.) My husband teases me because I have a LanaBoards account so I can read - and occasionally participate in - the pre-release gossip months, sometimes years, before the next Lana album drops.

Just like I make no secret of my Lana Del Rey obsession, Ms. Lizzy Grant pulls no punches when it comes to her idolatry of the silver screen and Hollywood lore. With songs aptly titled “Hollywood,” “Hollywood’s Dead,” and “Super Movie,” she wears her movie loving heart on her sleeve. Lana makes references to movies, iconic (usually dead) actors, and David Lynch throughout her discography. She has also contributed to countless recent movies, providing sultry vocals while matching the vibe of the films, like on the soundtracks for The Great Gatsby, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, and Big Eyes. In fact, Mary Ramos, Quentin Tarantino’s music supervisor, revealed last summer that Lana submitted music for Tarantino’s latest film, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood. She also reportedly recorded a song for the James Bond franchise at one point. A casual fan of motion pictures, Lana is not. To which I say: girl, same.

Lana frequently references to Marilyn Monroe in her music, always in a very blatant (some might say distasteful) manner. “If I call you on the telephone, I might overdose, ‘cause I’m strong but I’m lonely, like Marilyn Monroe,” she mews in an otherwise sweet love song named after the actress. She also references suicide and Monroe in her single “Body Electric”: “Elvis is my daddy, Marilyn’s my mother,” she sings in the first verse. By the second verse, she sings “Diamonds are my bestest friend [Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, anyone?]. Heaven is my baby, suicide’s her father, opulence is the end.” On a less morbid note, she also pays homage to Monroe in the intro of her National Anthem music video. In the black and white clip, Lana sings “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” a la Marilyn Monroe, except instead of JFK on the receiving end, she serenades rapper A$AP Rocky.

The reason for Lana’s attraction to Marilyn’s mythos seems obvious to me. They both created their persona by studying the stars that came before them: Marilyn by emulating Jean Harlow, Lana by paying her respects to Marilyn, Sharon Tate, and other young movie stars known for the tragedies that marked their lives. The cycle continues into the 21st century.

Lana has a few other movies and film people that reappear throughout her song catalogue: David Lynch, Scarface, and Easy Rider. I find this appropriate, as all three present the viewer with stylized visions of how the American Dream can go wrong. Lynch explores the nightmarish underbelly of the suburban lifestyle, Scarface follows Al Pacino’s immigrant character up a violent ladder of success, and Easy Rider glorifies living on one’s own terms, a freedom for which the main characters pay dearly.

Lana covered the titular song of David Lynch’s film Blue Velvet on her first studio EP, Paradise. At first, I thought that maybe she just likes the song, but then, on her second studio album, Ultraviolence, she gave an undeniable nod to Lynch that marked her for a fan. In the song “Sad Girl,” she sings: “He’s got the fire and he walks with it,” a blatant reference to the phrase “fire walk with me” from Lynch’s project Twin Peaks. Both Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks focus on the sexual, drug-fueled violence lurking just under the surface of an otherwise idyllic community, much like Lana’s storytelling through song.

“Scarface, sacrifice, sold my soul to make it nice. It was worth it, paid the price, life is death when blow is life,” Lana sings on an unreleased track called, you guessed it, “Scarface.” The lyrics of the song follow the same themes as the movie, describing a life characterized by mob violence and stoned patriotism. Lana also references the De Palma remake in another unreleased song, “Never Let Me Go”: “Like they say in Scarface, kid, you can push your drugs and I can make it big.” I’m pretty sure they don’t say that in Scarface, but still, the sentiment remains the same: the road to the American Dream (and doom) can be paved with drugs, money, and luck.

“Is the sun in your eyes, easy rider?” Lana asks in the unreleased “Angels Forever, Forever Angels.” She sings in the bridge, “Paradise is a hell-colored flame sky. Is it nice to feel free and wild?” throwing out a subtle, decades-old reference to the theme song of Dennis Hopper’s 1969 counterculture hit Easy Rider, “Born to be Wild.” On her third studio album, Honeymoon, Lana recycles the reference on the track “Freak”: “Sun reflecting in your eyes, like an easy rider.” Like Blue Velvet and Scarface, Easy Rider shows the American Dream onscreen as a drug-induced fantasy that can’t end well, but the ride is worth it.

Occasionally, Lana sings about the real dark side of Hollywood, where the bad decisions and late nights aren’t a fun game or even a choice anymore, but rather the price of artistic success, demanded of her by men with sinister intentions. In Lana Del Ray AKA Lizzy Grant’s “Put Me in a Movie,” Lana teases a powerful man in the movie industry: “Come on, I know you like little girls... Put me in a movie.” Some of Lana’s other lyrics came under fire in the media shortly after the accusations against Harvey Weinstein publicly surfaced. Lana sings the lyrics in question during the bridge for the already-controversial song “Cola”: “Harvey’s in the sky with diamonds and he’s making me crazy.” She’s since claimed in interviews that she won’t sing “Cola” anymore due to the backlash, but I think the song has made its point: Lana’s always known that men like Harvey have the money and power (“diamonds”) to drive desperate people crazy.

In her penultimate album, Lust for Life, Lana doesn’t let up on the Hollywood imagery. In the album’s teaser trailer, Lana lives inside of the Hollywood sign, stirring a witchy potion and pondering the fate of the world from above the LA lights. She climbs that same Hollywood sign with the Weeknd in the music video for the titular song, “Lust for Life.” While the album begins on this upbeat note, by the third song, “13 Beaches,” we return to a familiar sense of isolation and sadness. An audio clip from the cult classic movie Carnival of Souls plays over string instrumentation: “I don’t belong in the world. That’s what it is. Something separates me from other people. Everywhere I turn, there’s something blocking my escape.” (This monologue is only available in the deleted scenes of the recent Criterion Blu-ray release and in unrestored YouTube videos. Lana knows her independent horror movies.) This cinematic depression haunts the rest of the album, with lyrics like “Cherry”’s “My celluloid scenes are torn at the seams, and I fall to pieces” and the disturbing Charles Manson references in my all-time favorite LDR song, “Heroin”: “Manson’s in the air and all my friends have come ‘cause they still feel him here… Something ‘bout the sun has made these kids get scary. Oh, writing in blood on the walls and shit…” Even when Lana tries to shift her audience’s focus to her lust for life, she can’t help but revert to her old melancholic ways. But as she sings in the final bridge of “Heroin”: “I hope that I come back one day to tell you that I really changed.”

“You move to California, but it’s just a state of mind,” Lana sings on her latest album, Norman Fucking Rockwell, and the rest of the album echoes that sentiment. Her disenchantment with the City of Angels has been a running thread through her discography and yet she returns to it over and over, in songs like “Bartender” and “California.” On Honeymoon, she sang “I will never sing again. With just one wave, it goes away.” On Lust for Life, she sang “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t sick of it.” Now on NFR, she sings “I guess that I’m burnt out after all.” But after three albums of threatening to leave it all behind, I don’t think Lana Del Rey will ever really be done with Hollywood. In the words of the last song on NFR: Hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like Lana to have… but she has it.

#music #critique

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astrognossienne · 5 years

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tragic beauty: grace kelly - an analysis

“The idea of my life as a fairy tale is itself a fairy tale.” - Grace Kelly

Long before Meghan Markle was even a thought in anyone’s minds, it was Grace Kelly whose path from Hollywood to royalty captured everyone’s interest. As a royal, as with her career as an actress, Kelly always carried herself with maturity and class and was by most accounts, pleasant and likable. Her cool patrician reserve, style, natural elegance, glamour and...well, graceful personality made her the epitome of feminine charm, and she captivated and dazzled the world. She was the original American princess; a storybook fairytale that enchanted a generation and beyond. Her beauty, talent, and character made her naturally stand out. However, Kelly’s life, like her persona, was a showcase of duality—an endless tug-of-war between social conformity (Pisces moon) and rebellion (Scorpio sun). She was both a shy girl who spent her life wanting to please her father and a woman who knew her worth, willfully demanding roles worthy of her talent and shunning the press to preserve her soul as well as to save the purity of her craft. Kelly won the professional respect of her male peers; Cary Grant confirmed Kelly as his favourite leading lady, saying:

“With all due respect to Ingrid Bergman, I much preferred Grace. She had serenity. Ingrid, Audrey, Deborah Kerr were splendid, splendid actresses, but Grace was utterly relaxed. The most extraordinary actress ever.”

I definitely agree. The enduring legacy of Kelly paints a picture of Old Hollywood's most beautiful and sophisticated ice queen, though that ice queen is rumored to have had a rather steamy love life. True Scorpio that she was, her raging libido threatened to destroy her career. Because of her royal title, Grace Kelly’s scandals were largely covered up and forgotten, and Ice Queen Kelly sure did have some outrageous scandals.

During the prudish 1950s, Kelly bedded many of her costars, who were frequently married and much, much older than she was. This behaviour is often linked to Kelly’s relationship with her father, who allegedly said he didn't expect her to become “much more than a housewife” and referred to her acting as only “a slim cut above [being a] streetwalker”. Kelly went on to marry into the Monaco royal family. Some say her marriage was an effort to win her father's approval. Upon marrying Prince Rainier III of Monaco, the rumors of Kelly’s illicit affairs seemingly disappeared from cultural knowledge, as she’s now remembered for her class. And when she married into royalty, she married for love. An opportunist she wasn’t. As with my previous subject Tammi Terrell, it seems everything happened early for Grace...her pain, her fame, her marriage, her disenchantment, and her death. In the six years between 1950 and 1956, she starred in 11 movies, won an Academy Award, and became one of Hollywood’s most enduring icons. However, that legacy doesn’t give much insight into the ambitious, opportunistic, slightly rebellious romantic - that Grace Kelly is much more interesting, even though it's also that Grace Kelly who almost ruined her career. Kelly remains almost a mythical figure, given her short but successful film career, other-worldly beauty and tragic demise. Books and films continue to be made about the girl from Main Line Philadelphia nearly forty years after her untimely ending.

Grace Kelly, according to astrotheme, was a was a Scorpio sun and Pisces moon. She was born in Philadephia to John and Margaret Kelly, the heads of a very well-to-do Irish Catholic family. Her former Olympic gold medal-winning father made his millions from his very successful bricklaying business, and her mother was a former model and competitive swimmer who happened to be the first woman to teach physical education at the University of Pennsylvania. Grace was the shy, sickly, and sweet third of four children, temperamentally out of sorts with the rest of the confident, competitive, go-getter Kelly clan. John Kelly was consumed with work, golf, and politics, and was rarely at home. The reason for this relentless drive? To fit in with the 'Main Line' old-money Philadelphia families; he wasn’t accepted because he had worked as a laborer, however, he was later elected Philadelphia's city council. Kelly had high standards and stressed the importance of achieving goals with his four children. Grace idolized her father and always wanted his approval, but Peggy, Grace’s older sister, was their father’s favourite. She also had to contend with her mother, who demanded obedience, and did not spare the rod, nor did she spoil the child. As a child, Grace was somewhat overweight, wore glasses, and had a “thin, nasal voice from years of sinus problems.” She dreamed of being an actor, and acted in school plays which slowly built up her confidence. By the age of 16, boys at the private Stevens Schools she attended, began to take notice of her.

After graduating, Kelly moved to New York in 1947 to pursue acting, where mention of her Pulitzer Prize–winning uncle George Kelly earned her an audition at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Her parents thought she would get the acting bug out of her system and “grow up to marry some nice boy.” In her second year, she got involved romantically with her instructor Don Richardson. The affair was kept secret because Richardson was married. Grace brought him to Philadelphia to meet her parents, where her father boorishly revealed his anti-Semitism. When Richardson said that Grace was going to be an important movie star one day, her family members burst out laughing. While the couple was out of the house, Margaret Kelly rifled through Richardson’s suitcase and found a letter revealing his upcoming divorce. He was ordered to leave and never return. Grace’s father found out she had started seeing Richardson again secretly, he offered him a Jaguar to end the relationship. After a successful stint as a model, and after performing in more than 60 live television dramas, her ticket to Hollywood came in early 1950 when she screen-tested for a movie called Taxi. She didn’t get the part, but the reel eventually made its way to her future directors John Ford and Alfred Hitchcock. After a rather underwhelming two-minute-long debut in 1951’s Fourteen Hours, 1952’s High Noon was a notable upgrade, with Kelly snagging her first major film role. During filming, she had her first major affair with a costar. On the set of High Noon, Kelly had an affair with Gary Cooper, who was married and 28 years her senior. This - his marriage and their age difference - would become an ongoing theme in Kelly's affairs. Of Kelly, Cooper said:

“She looked like a cold dish with a man until you got her pants down, then she’d explode.”

In 1953, Kelly starred in Mogambo alongside Ava Gardner and Clark Gable. It seemed an affair between Gable and Kelly was predestined; Kelly cited the location, the director and Gable as the three reasons why she wanted to do the film in the first place. When Kelly and Gable finally did get hot and heavy, news of the affair reached Kelly’s mother, who flew out to chaperone her young daughter in Africa. A chaperone may have been unnecessary, as Gable supposedly ditched Kelly once she grew too clingy. Kelly starred alongside Bing Crosby in 1954’s The Country Girl, for which Kelly won an Oscar, and 1956’s High Society, which was her final film. During filming The Country Girl, Kelly had an affair with Crosby, whose wife was dying of cancer. The night Kelly won an Oscar for her performance in the film, Crosby reportedly came to her hotel room expecting to spend the night with her, only to find Marlon Brando, who had beaten out Crosby for an Oscar earlier that night, in her bed. While filming 1954’s Dial M For Murder, Kelly’s affairs finally began to catch up with her. She engaged in an affair with her married costar Ray Milland, who had been married for more than 20 years. When his wife found out about him shacking up with Kelly, she threw him out of their house. It was even reported that Milland planned to leave his wife for Kelly. That is, until Milland realized just how much a divorce would cost him. Milland ended up staying married to his wife until his passing in 1986. Following the Milland affair, she was branded a homewrecker by the press; famed gossip columnist Hedda Hopper reported on the affair and branded Kelly a nymphomaniac. While filming High Society, Kelly was engaged to be married to Prince Rainier III of Monaco. Crosby proposed to Grace. Her mother approved the match because Crosby was a Catholic and a widower, but Grace was not in love with him. Before becoming a princess, Kelly was engaged to the famed fashion designer Oleg Cassini, who is credited with giving Jackie Kennedy her signature look. Cassini and Kelly were engaged to be married, but Kelly’s parents disapproved of the relationship because of Cassini’s Russian roots and his previous divorces. Because Kelly so longed for her parents’ approval, she called off the engagement. It was even rumoured that Kelly was pregnant with Cassini’s child, but terminated the pregnancy

Given their reputations, of course Grace Kelly and future President John F. Kennedy hooked up. Their fathers, both self-made Irish-American millionaires, were friends, so Kelly and Kennedy socialized even before they were famous in their own right. In the early ‘50s, Kelly and Kennedy were in a romance so intense they even discussed marriage; however, Kennedy’s father put a stop to any and all marriage talk because he didn’t want an actress to hinder his son’s political career. In 1954, Kennedy, now married to Jackie, found himself recovering from back surgery. To cheer up her husband, Jackie - completely unaware of their previous relationship - had Kelly visit Kennedy in the hospital. Kelly arrived, dressed as a nurse. According to a gossip columnist, she performed fellatio on the recovering Kennedy. Kelly appeared alongside William Holden in 1954’s The Country Girl and The Bridges At Tokyo-Ri. Kelly reportedly had an affair with Holden, who was married at the time. It’s been rumored that Kelly had an affair with her To Catch a Thief costar Cary Grant. This supposed affair is said to have lasted several years. However, it's never actually been confirmed. While tabloids reported on Kelly’s affairs, she remained discreet and made comments like, “As an unmarried woman, I was thought to be a danger.” The fact that Kelly was seen as wholesome by the general public, despite her apparently busy private life, was something other Hollywood actresses frequently commented on. Silent film star Clara Bow said:

“Grace Kelly, however, will get away with having many lovers. Know why? The damn public will never believe it! She went to bed with anyone she fancied at the time.”

In the '50s Kelly briefly dated millionaire playboy Prince Aly Khan, the leader of the Nizari Muslims, who gifted her an emerald-studded gold bracelet. Prince Aly Khan would reportedly gift women he dated a cigarette case with one emerald in it and women with whom he slept an emerald bracelet. Khan went on to marry Rita Hayworth. Kelly also dated the Shah of Iran, who was said to have showered Kelly in jewelry, including a gold vanity case with a clasp featuring 32 diamonds. In 1955, while attending the Cannes Film Festival, Grace met Prince Rainier of Monaco for a photo op. The couple corresponded and in December of that year, Rainier was due to visit America and asked to visit Grace and her family in Philadelphia. Three days after meeting the Kellys, Rainier proposed. Before her wedding to Prince Rainier, Kelly reportedly pretended to be a virgin, claiming she broke her hymen playing field hockey in high school. After submitting to an exam from Rainier’s doctor that conﬁrmed Kelly could bear children, Rainier proposed, giving her a 10.47-carat diamond, which she wore as her character’s engagement ring in what would be her last movie, High Society. Kelly left her unusually autonomous career for an even more structured life in Monaco’s palace for three reasons: Rainier don’t want his wife to work, her looks were beginning to show age (Kelly saw her makeup call times being bumped an hour earlier—a sign that the 26-year-old was already aging out of Hollywood), and she doubted her abilities as an actress and felt there was nowhere for her to go but down after her Oscar win for The Country Girl. Thus, in April 1956, Kelly —along with four massive trunks and 56 pieces of luggage as well as her wedding dress—sailed with friends and family on the USS Constitution to Monaco. Royal life proved a bad trade for Kelly—she was terribly lonely and isolated from the start. Grace and Prince Rainier had three children. She missed her film career and suffered depression, knowing that that part of her life was over.

Or was it? In 1962, Kelly’s shot at coming out of retirement arrived when Hitchcock oﬀered her the title role in Marnie. She was overjoyed, and perhaps because he now had his heir, Rainier allowed her to accept. But she reneged when she learned she was pregnant. Two weeks later, she miscarried. It was never made public, so the oﬃcial reason was given as an angry outcry from the Monegasque people, who supposedly didn’t want to see their princess kissing another man. Kelly never returned to Hollywood. Rainier and Kelly’s relationship became more distant in the 1970s. She began drinking heavily, and friends observed she was struggling with depression. On September 13, 1982, Kelly and her youngest daughter, Stephanie, left the family’s country home for Monaco in their 1972 Rover 3500. She had an appointment with her couturier, and loaded some dresses that needed altering into the back seat. Because the car was crowded, she drove herself and left their usual chauffeur behind. Kelly never liked to drive, and the winding mountain roads on the way to Monaco were especially difficult to navigate. A truck driver witnessed her car swerving, then speeding up and ﬂying over a cliff. The car bounced upside down, rolled several times and then came to a stop on its roof. Stephanie suffered a hairline fracture to her neck; Kelly was unresponsive. The palace issued an early alert that the princess only had a broken leg, but it was later revealed that she had experienced a massive stroke while driving, and another brain injury in the crash. Kelly was taken oﬀ life support the following day. She was just 52 years old. Images of the star’s funeral beamed around the world, with 100 million people watching the moving ceremony on television. Much like Princess Diana a little more than a decade later, her candle burned out long before her legend ever did.

Next week, I’ll focus on her co-star in Rear Window, an actor whose sex appeal was just as compelling as rumours about his sexuality...and his perennial good looks made him the ultimate leading man: Capricorn Cary Grant.

Stats

birthdate: November 12, 1929

major planets:

Sun: Scorpio

Moon: Pisces

Rising: Scorpio

Mercury: Scorpio

Venus: Libra

Mars: Scorpio

Midheaven: Leo

Jupiter: Gemini

Saturn: Sagittarius

Uranus: Aries

Neptune: Virgo

Pluto: Cancer

Overall personality snapshot: She could be a real Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, torn between passion and compassion. At one level she was the highly sensitive, idealistic, dreaming poet; at another the shrewd, ruthless and determined go-getter who thrived on challenge. When both sides came together she could be a deeply motivated and persuasive romantic who saw life as a mission to help those whose cannot help themselves. Be it in medicine, social welfare or political reform, she had a curative magnetism that few could ignore, though some may reject. She had a fertile, often lurid, imagination. This can add an extra dimension to whatever she did, be it work or play. It could make her a wonderful spinner of yarns and creator of atmosphere, or it could allow her to become haunted by her own inner macabre imaginings, nightmares and psychic insights. She was capable of both great self-indulgence and immense self-discipline. Her creative middle way came through dedication to some higher ideal, for whatever captured her strongly emotional imagination captured her life, and she found herself swept along by a passionate dedication and intensity. Whilst her sympathies went out to the underdog, she would not hesitate to play top dog if necessary to achieve her ends. She loved a mystery, and whether she was creating or evoking a mysterious atmosphere, or probing into the secrets of nature, she would pursue the world of the unseen, unknown and arcane with an immense thirst and relish to get to the bottom of things.

Her immensely rich, powerfully poetic and creative imagination, especially for the dark side of life – death, destruction, greed, fear and sexuality – gave her a deep understanding of human nature. Her capacity for seeing into and through other people and their foibles and deeper motives made her a natural psychologist. At the same time, her insights could be totally devastating, for despite her compassion, she could be a ruthless critic and would not hesitate to put the knife in if this is what she felt is required for the greater good. Her motto could usefully be ‘Blessed are the pure in spirit’, for she was at her happiest when her sensitivity to the needs and motives of others was allowed to move her to great works rather than into cynicism, bitterness and game-playing. But if she did get hooked on games she could be a superb strategist, able to sense others’ moves. Her imaginative and emotional nature made her more than usually prone to addiction, be it to love, drugs, alcohol, films or simply food and sex. She needed the fuel of constant emotional stimuli. When she did decide to quit a particular habit, however, she could make a dramatic turn-about. During her life she was therefore likely to touch the heights and the depths, and to go through a series of dramatic rebirths as she rediscovered her deep sense of purpose and commitment to a larger vision.

She had dark, brooding looks with thick, abundant hair and strongly marked eyebrows that framed the most important feature of her face, her eyes. Her eyes had a piercing, penetrating quality. Overall, she gave the impression of quietly contained power. Her movements were controlled, and her clothes were chosen for their dramatic value. She held a lot of hidden rage and passion within her, which had to be released. It would have been good if this energy was released in a positive way, but unfortunately, it poisoned her inside. She followed her instincts and beliefs with great dedication, but few people really knew what she was up to until after her demise. This is because she liked to keep her motivations a secret. More than likely was too brash, foul-speaking, critical and sharp-tongued at times. She was ambitious without being ruthless. She became deeply involved in her work, wanting to work at the highest level. Work and leisure was indivisible, especially with her work being artistic and creative. Shoe could be an enormously hard-working and loyal employee if she could look up to her bosses, as long as she found the work conditions congenial. She was a mentally restless person, both versatile and broad-minded. She experienced personal growth through analysis and using her intellect, although the collection and communication of facts may have been an end within itself.

It was often difficult for her to maintain her self-confidence and optimism, and she was easily discouraged. However, she was academically ambitious and very intelligent. She felt that there was no problem that couldn’t be resolved, as long as she was sufficiently informed. Although she was popular, periods of seclusion were necessary for her. She always tried to make sure that she was acting for the noblest of motives, and she had a tendency to moralize at times. She may have liked to associate with older and more experienced people, and she herself had an air of dignity and gravity to her. She belonged to a generation with a practical and materialistic frame of mind, and which was critical of standards of religion and government. As a member of this generation, she could be idealistic and zealous, even aggressive, if she was following a cause, and she welcomed change and progress. Flashes of inspiration caused her to investigate new and more exciting ways of doing things. As a member of this generation, she tried to restore order where chaos and injustice ruled, although sometimes her aims and objectives were misunderstood. Changes were also experienced in the relationships between parents and children, with the ties becoming looser. Was part of a generation known for its devastating social upheavals concerning home and family. The whole general pattern of family life experiences enormous changes and upheavals; as a Cancer Plutonian, this aspect is highlighted with Kelly not getting the emotional reinforcement she needed from her parents and her lifelong obsession with achieving their approval (especially her father’s).

Love/sex life: She was the Mars in Scorpio lover least likely to acknowledge the dark side of her sexual nature. Since she was generally affable and kind, a gentle lover with a sweet approach and a courtly manner, she refused to believe that anyone could be hurt in her pursuit of pleasure but, the fact is, that they could and often were. It’s not that she ever intended to do damage. It’s just that her emotional needs are so intense and her sexuality so overwhelming that she often ended up taking from her partners much more than they ever thought about giving. On the positive side, she was also the Mars in Scorpio lover who was easiest to love. She spent less time brooding over the seriousness of sex and more time celebrating the joys of love than most lovers of this type and she was more inclined to see a relationship as a partnership rather than a power struggle. Still, she was not immune to the dark fascination with sex and the obsessive tendencies typical of this group. Her obsessions had a way of slipping up on her or of creating mischief in the background, behind her pleasant smile and lovable manner. As a model and actress she was known for her elegant good-looks and her cool, blond professionalism. Behind the scenes, however, the story was quite different. Kelly became sexually active in her teens and remained extraordinarily so for the next ten years, going through a wide variety of men and having a very good time. Then, at 26, she decided in was time to get married. Her choice, Prince Rainier of Monaco, was remarkable from a publicist’s point of view but it represented a sudden shift both in Kelly’s career (she had to give up acting) and in her free-and-easy lifestyle.

minor asteroids and points:

North Node: Taurus

Lilith: Capricorn

Vertex: Gemini

Fortune: Cancer

East Point: Scorpio

Her North Node in Taurus dictated that she needed to be careful not to let the more emotional side of her personality overwhelm her. Instead, she should have set out to consciously develop her more practical abilities. Her Lilith in Capricorn ensured that she had a scrappy plucky attitude hot-wired into her psyche. She needed to be in control and to be mistress of her own destiny, because her life was in the control of not-so-well-meaning others as a child. Her Vertex in Gemini, 8th house dictated that she had an all consuming need to communicate with her partner. Here, intimacy was equated with communication on a daily basis, whether the conversation involved daily matters or deep issues of a psychological or spiritual nature. If her partner was prone to innuendo and subtle gestures she would not notice, she required that communication be verbal and straight to the point. She had an internal yearning for an inseparable union with and total commitment from another, come what may. This need was so intense that she may have fantasized all manner of unspeakable actions and reactions if the final dream, once attained, was even threatened. The dark side is that when the reality of her partner didn’t fit this model (and it rarely did totally) she had a difficult time adjusting if faced with a breach of contract of any sort. Once badly hurt there was a tendency to become jaded and guarded in future relationships, thereby passing up the opportunity to explore interactions which might just fulfill out her intense needs perfectly. Her Part of Fortune in Cancer and Part of Spirit in Capricorn dictated that her destiny would bring money into her life. Her wealth came through her father. Happiness and good fortune lay within her home and family, which provided emotional and financial security. Her soul’s purpose was to create practical and long-lasting achievements. She felt spiritual connections and saw the spark of the divine when she observed her progress through life and saw it take a form and structure that will outlive her. East Point in Scorpio dictated that she felt the need for self-control, personally identifying with a sense of mastery.

elemental dominance:

water

air

She had high sensitivity and elevation through feelings. Her heart and her emotions were her driving forces, and she couldn’t do anything on earth if she didn’t feel a strong effective charge. She needed to love in order to understand, and to feel in order to take action, which caused a certain vulnerability which she should (and often did) fight against. She was communicative, quick and mentally agile, and she liked to stir things up. She was likely a havoc-seeker on some level. She was oriented more toward thinking than feeling. She carried information and the seeds of ideas. Out of balance, she lived in her head and could be insensitive to the feelings of others. But at her best, she helped others form connections in all spheres of their daily lives.

modality dominance:

fixed

She liked the challenge of managing existing routines with ever more efficiency, rather than starting new enterprises or finding new ways of doing things. She likely had trouble delegating duties and had a very hard time seeing other points of view; she tried to implement the human need to create stability and order in the wake of change.

house dominants:

1st

12th

5th

Her personality, disposition and temperament is highlighted in her life. The manner in which she expressed herself and the way she approached other people is also highlighted. The way she approached new situations and circumstances contributed to show how she set about her life’s goals. The general state of her health is also shown, as well as her early childhood experiences defining the rest of her life. She had great interest in the unconscious, and indulged in a lot of hidden and secret affairs. Her life was defined by seclusion and escapism She had a certain mysticism and hidden sensitivity, as well as an intense need for privacy. Her life had an emphasis on creativity and self-expression. This included new beginnings; in fact, it included any way in which her creativity manifested itself. It showed how she was special and stood out. Also indicated an emphasis on leisure activities and holidays, gambling and speculation, romance and courtship, entertainment, sport, and sex.

planet dominants:

Venus

Pluto

Mercury

She was romantic, attractive and valued beauty, had an artistic instinct, and was sociable. She had an easy ability to create close personal relationships, for better or worse, and to form business partnerships. She brought about complete and profound transformations in her life, good or bad (and it was often bad). She felt the need to let go of what was familiar to her and accept new and different ways of being and doing things. There were areas in her life where she had to accept regeneration, which involved the destruction of the old and the creation of the new. She was intelligent, mentally quick, and had excellent verbal acuity. She dealt in terms of logic and reasoning. It was likely that she was left-brained. She was restless, craved movement, newness, and the bright hope of undiscovered terrains.

sign dominants:

Scorpio

Libra

Pisces

She was an intense, passionate, and strong-willed person. She often imposed her will on others. As a less aware Scorpio dominant, this often manifested in Kelly as cruelty, sadism, and enmity, which had the possibility to make her supremely disliked. She needed to explore her world through her emotions. She loved beauty in all its guises—art, literature, classical music, opera, mathematics, and the human body. She usually was a team player who enjoyed debate but not argument. She was, at her best, an excellent strategist and a master at the power of suggestion. Even though she was likely a courteous, amiable person, she was definitely not a pushover. She tried to use diplomacy and intelligence to get what she wanted. She felt things so deeply that quite often she became a kind of psychic sponge, absorbing the emotions of people around her. As such, she gravitated toward the arts, in general, to theater and film specifically. She could be ambivalent and indecisive simply because she was so impressionable. She also tended to be moody because she felt the very height of joy and the utter depths of despair. Love and romance were essential for her. These fulfilled her emotionally, and she generally flourished within stable relationships.

Read more about her under the cut.

On November 12, 1929, Grace Patricia Kelly was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to wealthy parents. Her girlhood was uneventful for the most part, but one of the things she desired was to become an actress which she had decided on at an early age. After her high school graduation in 1947, Grace struck out on her own, heading to New York's bright lights to try her luck there. Grace worked some as a model and made her debut on Broadway in 1949. She also made a brief foray into the infant medium of television. Not content with the work in New York, Grace moved to Southern California for the more prestigious part of acting -- motion pictures. In 1951, she appeared in her first film entitled Fourteen Hours (1951) when she was 22. It was a small part, but a start nonetheless. The following year she landed the role of Amy Kane in High Noon (1952), a western starring Gary Cooper and Lloyd Bridges which turned out to be very popular. In 1953, Grace appeared in only one film, but it was another popular one. The film was Mogambo (1953) where Grace played Linda Nordley. The film was a jungle drama in which fellow cast members, Clark Gable and Ava Gardner turned in masterful performances. It was also one of the best films ever released by MGM. Although she got noticed with High Noon, her work with director Alfred Hitchcock, which began with Dial M for Murder (1954) made her a star. Her standout performance in Rear Window (1954) brought her to prominence. As Lisa Fremont, she was cast opposite James Stewart, who played a crippled photographer who witnesses a murder in the next apartment from his wheelchair. Grace stayed busy in 1954 appearing in five films. Grace would forever be immortalized by winning the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Georgie Elgin opposite Bing Crosby in The Country Girl (1954). In 1955, Grace once again teamed with Hitchcock in To Catch a Thief (1955) co-starring Cary Grant. In 1956, she played Tracy Lord in the musical comedy High Society (1956) which also starred Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. The whimsical tale ended with her re-marrying her former husband, played by Crosby. The film was well received. It also turned out to be her final acting performance. Grace had recently met and married Prince Rainier of the little principality of Monaco. By becoming a princess, she gave up her career. For the rest of her life, she was to remain in the news with her marriage and her three children. On September 14, 1982, Grace was killed in an automobile accident in her adoptive home country. She was just 52 years old. (x)

#star analyses #tragic stars #grace kelly #scorpio #long ass post #mine

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laikarandall · 5 years

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EXERCISE 2 - ALIEN OR FANTASY CREATURE

HISTORICAL INSPIRATION:

Ars Goetia and the lesser key of solomon:

For this design task I knew I wanted to draw inspiration from the Ars Goetia; a book in the lesser key of Solomon that describes the hierarchy of demons and how to summon them. Some famous examples Of Goetic demons are: Baal, Abaddon, Steve Bannon, Beelzebub, Azazel and Paimon (hail paimon!)

I wanted to make a demon that looks like it could come out of the goetia. In the end this part of the design became a little diluted. Sidenote: look at this hansome boy, my son: Camio

“he is a good disputer, gives men the understanding of the voices of birds, bullocks, dogs, and other creatures, and of the noise of the waters too, and gives true answers concerning things to come.” (Crowley, 1904)

What a fine boy.

Pan, God of the wild (but mainly hedonistic unadulterated pagan sex parties):

We remember pan as a pipe-playing tree hugging hippie... but like hippies, he loved to stick it in. a rampaging ALPHA SEX CHAD of the Forrest. I decided against including this in my character design (because if you didn’t know, he was often painted and sculpted with a massive dong).

As chritstianity took hold, the idea of pan was eventually incorporated with the abrahamic idea of satan. Though it has been argued the idea of pan as satan is modern, as the image of pan was very popular within Edwardian and Victorian Neo-paganism (Hutton,1999). This is contrasted with portrayals of the devil including clawed feet, and not hoofs. (Okay back on track now) Pan isn’t so much the inspiration here butthe general concept of a horned god (often invoked in wicca, paganism, occultism etc.) The more pertinent figure here is: Baphomet (or Sabatic Goat):

This image was created by occultist daddy and hermetical magician Éliphas Lévi. The origin of the name is an interesting and intimidatingly complicated theory, But this particular icon is what I’m interested in. Weird fact about this symbol: this is actually (kind of) a socialist icon? I’ve been using it for ages and didn’t even realize it’s socialist origins, I love it. (Josephson-Storm, 2017) I chose to not give my design breasts because I was worried someone would think it’s my horny fursona or something, I’ve see a lot of designs in this course that are basically A) A fursona or B) big titty anime girl. And I, on an artistic level, think these designs are un-inspired. Anywhoos It;s a goat thing I think we get it at this point. I’m making a goat thing.

ARTISTIC INSPIRATION:

Francisco goya: The first thing I thought of in the vein of artistic representations of demons was that portrait of Margaret Thatcher. The second was Francisco Goya. Goya was a 18th century romanticist painter and print maker who’s life was marred by pessimism and upheaval. His work during the “black period” especially are a great source of inspiration. (far left in the above image).

Brian Froud: Brian froud is a 20th century painter best note for helping design the characters and creatures in Dark crystal (1983) and labyrinth (1986). I used to own a children’s book by him (the name escapes me) but it’s was really influencial to my art as a child. There’s a particular “look” to the character’s especially in the face. The best way I can describe it is 90 year old toddler. Arthur Rackham: Arthur rackham is a 19th century fantasy illustrator, (And Brian Frouds inspiration). There is a particular “quality of line” to his work that I love and tried to incorporate into the design. And a kind of glowy and soft yet dark shading that influenced the way I went on the texture the creature.

Egon schiele: Egon schiele was a 19th century portrait artist who’s figures look twisted and weary. This was the quality I wanted to capture in the human aspects of my character. It didn’t transfer too much however, though the inspiration remains in the prominent ribs, the long figures and the sharp geometry of the overall figure.

NATURAL INSPIRATION:

Obviously the main inspiration was a goat. And I’ve said Goat enough today. Baboon:

I didn’t want to just remake gay icon Satan (From the Chilling adventures of Sabrina). I wanted to make something more unique. Baboons look terrifying to me, so it was an obvious route to go. I particularly adopted the jaw, mouth and nose into the design. Legs: I investigated Unguligrade and digitigrade leg structures to better understand the anatomy behind it.

FINAL DESIGN:

I can’t believe I took this much time to tell you I’m making a goat/monkey dude with wings. Listen, my medication is really strong, and it makes me hyper-fixated on things, and also I’ve been riding a month long Manic episode. This might not even be graded. I missed therapy for this. I’m happy with this design, (At the time) I thought it’d be relatively easy for me. And I was right! Until I got to the hair and wings. REFERENCES:

- S. L. MacGregor Mathers, A. Crowley, The Goetia: The Lesser Key of Solomon the King (1904). - Hutton, Robert (1999). The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft. Oxford University Press. - Josephson-Storm, Jason (2017), The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences, Chicago: University of Chicago Press

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poipoi1912 · 6 years

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Barba-centric thoughts on Ep 19x13

For the last time.

But first, to get it out of the way.

Sonny Thoughts

Who’s that?

No but, are we honestly expected to believe that Sonny would pass on observing Barba’s murder trial?

Sonny, who is a lawyer himself, would pass on witnessing a) any colleague’s MURDER TRIAL, b) BARBA’S murder trial, c) Randy Dworkin working his magic and d) the skills of Peter Stone, out of sheer curiosity? How does any of that make sense? Sonny as a law student was eager to shadow Barba just to observe a random trial he had no personal connection to, and he’d return to the precinct literally saying “court was AWESOME” while the others rolled their eyes, and now that he’s a lawyer, all he does is say “lol it’s a good thing I’m a cop”?

Remember when the conversation was “will Carisi join or even replace Barba at the DA’s office?” to the point where Peter was asked about it in interviews? Remember when Sonny’s law degree had a purpose? When it was building up to something, to a potential change? When Sonny actively faced a dilemma? Now it’s only good for a throwaway line.

What has Sonny done all season?

Nothing.

Which brings me to, what has Barba done this season?

A lot, and none of it’s good, unfortunately.

Barba Thoughts

Barba has messed up many times this season. Too many. Twice it’s been completely intentional (causing a mistrial with the jurors on that elevator, and this). We’ve seen him act way too emotional for someone in his position, and indeed we have seen his heart guiding him (like it did the other week, with the alt-right/antifa case, when he dropped the charges because his heart wasn’t in it). It’s a fact that Barba changed, a lot, over the years, and this season saw him going through even greater changes.

In the past, he always had his integrity. He may have misstepped before (like with Munoz, who was a very close childhood friend) and he may have held opinions which pitted him against the squad or the police in general (the Terrence Reynolds case), but he always held his positions with impressive, if firm, conviction. Just last season, he admitted to what was, at the time, his “deepest” secret, i.e. giving money for drugs to a witness who ended up OD’ing, and even then he believed he had done the right thing.

Because he did do the right thing. Then.

This season, however, Barba has been doing the wrong thing, way too often.

Part of me appreciated the focus on Barba’s decisions, and part of me was suspicious (as I mentioned recently) because I knew that, usually, when a character receives an unprecedented amount of focus, it means they’re on their way out, and all those “bigger” moments are meant to sett up their exit arc.

I was wrong.

Barba’s exit wasn’t the result of his longterm disenchantment with his work. Barba’s exit wasn’t set up previously at all. Barba’s prior mistakes were, in retrospect, simply meant to highlight the fact he has turned into Liv, i.e. he shows complete disregard for the law and just does whatever he wants wait no, I mean, he has grown a heart. also he could never fully become Liv because her actions never have consequences Because you can’t have a heart and still prosecute criminals? For some reason? Do the writers know Barba wasn’t a defense attorney?

Anyway,

This was no masterplan. Barba’s exit happened on a whim. Even though the writers have known about Raul’s desire to leave since literally before the season started, they did nothing to create an actual exit arc. They just used him as normal, and they came out with the most dramatic, far-fetched and soapy idea they could to create a single exit episode, instead. Which Barba then had to share with McCoy and his own replacement, both of whom took up valuable time which could have been spent on Barba himself, and on highlighting Barba’s importance to the entire squad.

When an actor leaves amicably, and when they graciously make themselves available for an exit “arc”, it’s customary to treat them with the analogous level of respect.

Barba deserved a tribute, and this episode was no tribute to Rafael Barba.

Case(y) Thoughts

Remember when I said a “right to die” case had some potential for an exit arc, even though it would never come close to (the actual best ADA) Casey Novak’s iconic exit in S9? Casey, of course, put her career on the line by knowingly lying about evidence (i.e. something a lawyer would conceivably do), because she wanted justice. Because she tried to help a friend and colleague (my fave, Chester Lake) who snapped and resorted to extreme actions when the system failed him and a victim.

“He deserved to pay.”

“And so do you.”

That’s how you write a morally gray exit.

You do NOT have an Assistant District Attorney literally turn off life support for a baby even though he is not a doctor or even a relative of the child. Truly no one would do what he did in real life. No one. No matter what half-assed and canonically inaccurate story the writers tried to spin about his father.

Can you imagine? Physically ending a life thus rendering yourself liable for homicide? When it’s not your place to do so? And you are fully aware of the legal ramifications? When the life in question is a child’s life, and the parents disagree on what to do? Can you imagine “siding” with one parent and taking that final (and irreversible) step, as the other parent is forced to forever live with the consequences of your actions?

Can you imagine any of us finding any of that ethical?

Can you imagine that, instead of having Barba passionately argue a case for the right to die, or find a smart, legal-yet-shady way to help the mother do the deed herself without being charged for a crime (which was what I thought was going to happen, when the episode began), the writers had him physically pull the plug?

With that one move, and with the fact Barba’s actions were attributed to (selfish) emotion, because of his father, Barba lost his moral footing, no matter what that opening eulogy tried to tell us. His position on the matter may well have been correct (it was certainly defensible), as was his instinct to help that poor mother, but his actions were wrong. And this is now how or why I wanted him to leave. Not because he was so very wrong.

Squad Thoughts

I admire Liv for personally and single-handedly manning an entire Special Victims Unit while taking the time to attend lengthy trials and also haphazardly inserting herself to any and all hostage situations in the Tri-State Area.

Stone Thoughts

Eh. That said, I did like his quip about the Class A Felony. My Barba thoughts aside, I’ve been saying it all along, SVU needs a prosecutor who does the job without being emotionally compromised every five minutes. It’s one thing if A Case hits home, but an ADA who can’t do his job because his feelings are clouding his judgment shouldn’t have a job oh wait he no longer has a job lol.

Also I can’t believe I’m saying this but I was Team Stone, not Team Liv (or Team Barba) and I kinda think that’s exactly what the showrunner intended? And I’m offended I fell for it? But Stone was right so I had no choice but to agree with him? is it because i’m a lawyer too omg

I’m conflicted. But Liv dissing him over not having children (I hate that more than I hate most things by the way) and then acting like Barba, who also has no children, “gets it”, I guess because he’s been around her long enough, and her parenting skills are so good they’ve transferred over to him? Ugh.

Seriously, Team Stone. Do you think there’s a chance the showrunner (who created the character and is clearly attached to him) will actually let Stone be his own person? And challenge Liv on equal footing? Because Liv might be Liv, and Mariska might be Mariska, but the showrunner’s love for Peter Stone might be enough to keep him from being swallowed by the Benson Vortex?

(and do I kinda like that? Are they gonna make me like Peter Stone by having him disagree with Liv every time she’s wrong i.e. all the time? Because I’m open to it 👀)

Religious Thoughts

Both Barba and Carisi have talked about their faith in the past. Carisi especially is a man of faith who regularly goes to church and has been shown to be a true believer. And yet, he had no insight to offer about what the Church might have to say about a case like this. In fact, religion was not mentioned at all. During this case, of all cases. In my opinion, that was because the writers knew that by religious standards there is no defense for Barba’s actions, and they didn’t want to give the audience a reason to think negatively of him. Still, this was a glaring omission.

Stray Thoughts

“Weasel”? They couldn’t find a better word lol?

RANDY DWORKIN. Not an obvious choice to defend Barba (oh, Rita, where art thou?), but definitely an entertaining one. I felt like I was watching the original Law & Order every time he spoke. Also, every single thing he argued was, indeed, defensible, and the writers made a decent (if schmaltzy) effort to paint Barba’s actions in a positive light, but the fact remains; having the right to die (which I personally support) is not the same thing as allowing a complete stranger to (technically) kill you “for your own good”. Even if it was the right decision, it was not Barba’s decision to make, and the trial glossed over that a bit.

Jack is still the DA? Since when? And why did they never namedrop him in all these years?

Both Peter Stone’s Class A felony quip and Jack’s quip about it being “unbecoming” to have his ADA’s killing people were great lines, but they rubbed me the wrong way because they were effectively making fun of Barba? But also they were accurate? And Barba deserved to be dragged? Again, I’m conflicted.

The new showrunner can write dialogue very well, but he cannot write season-long arcs (the Sheila mess confirmed that), he can’t write characters well or consistently, and he struggles with original episode ideas. For Season 19, I guess that’s not so bad. But for television in general, in its current thriving state, it’s pretty disappointing.

Liv, to an Assistant District Attorney: Forget the law for a minute.

me: *facepalm*

Peter Stone: lol how ‘bout I don’t?

me: u go gurl

The Barisi Corner

One last time, for old times’ sake.

The ship lives forever in our hearts. Where it’s always lived.

And also in Peter Scanavino’s heart ❤️

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un-enfant-immature · 6 years

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Matt Groening goes back to the drawing board for ‘Disenchantment’

“I tried walking around in a Homer mask, but the latex is hard to breathe in. My head gets so sweaty and my glasses fog up. It’s not worth it for me,” Matt Groening laughs. “But what a way to go, suffocating on a Homer Simpson mask.”

The cartoonist bemoans his inability to go incognito on a recent trip to San Diego Comic-Con. It would be a poetic death, perhaps, asphyxiating beneath the likeness of his most iconic creation. But he doesn’t want to make the headline writers’ jobs too easy when he finally casts off this mortal coil.

“Years ago, there was an airline that did a promotion, where they painted The Simpsons on the side,” Groening adds. “We all drove out to give it a send off, and the entire crew got on the plane in Burbank and road it around in a circle and it came down. One other writer and I refused to get on the plane, because we didn’t want the jokes that would invariably come if the plane were to crash. That’s not how we wanted to be remembered.”

Groening in 2000. (Photo by Colin Davey/Getty Images)

The Simpsons will forever loom large over Groening’s existence. Spawning 30 seasons of a nearly universally beloved television program will do that to a legacy. And most recently, the show and its creator have been grappling with the topic of embattled character Apu — which he’s addressed with mixed results and was intent on not discussing on our call.

In recent weeks, the artist has been single-mindedly focused on Disenchantment, with one final promotional push before the series makes its mid-August Netflix debut.

The show has some seemingly impossible expectations to live up to as Groening’s third animated series. Its predecessor, Futurama, while failing the nearly impossible task of maintaining the ubiquity and longevity of The Simpsons, has become a beloved franchise in its own right, living on beyond its two-network running through constant syndication and an endless stream of memes.

In many ways, the series is Groening’s most ambitious to date, trading in the streets of Springfield and pneumatic tubes of New York for a fantasy world somewhere between Westeros and Middle Earth. It’s a genre he says he’s been looking to tackle for decades, but had never found the right outlet. And while the new series exists in a world familiar to fantasy fans, it rarely butts up against direct parody of beloved properties.

“I’ve been thinking about fantasy for a long time,” Groening says. “Some of my favorite forms of entertainment are fantasy, starting with Fractured Fairy Tales on the old Rocky and Bullwinkle show, to Monty Python and the Holy Grail to the original Wizard of Oz film and novels by Terry Pratchett and Gene Wolfe.”

Disenchantment is a tricky cocktail to get just right — a fairly tale adventure mixture, spiked with solid punch lines. “I try to incorporate all of that as inspiration and then try not to do straight parody,” says Groening. “The problem with comedy is that just getting the genre is very easy and only goes a little ways. So, what we do is try to get people on board with the fantasy characters and make them as emotional real as possible.”

An embarrassment of talent should help. The series is helmed by Groening and former Simpsons show runner, Josh Weinstein. Broad City star Abbi Jackson takes the lead as Bean, a drinking/gambling/cursing princess with a fittingly rebellious streak. Comedians Eric Andre and Nat Faxon fill out the primary leads as a “personal demon” named Luci and elf with the decided uninspired name, Elfo, respectively.

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The rest of the cast is rounded out by a stack of British comedians from series like The Mighty Boosh and The Toast of London, along with mainstay voice actors from his previous series. Groening and Weinstein also poached liberally from the shows to stock the writers’ room.

“We have a writing staff that’s a combination of old guys from Futurama and The Simpsons and some younger writers who definitely have a different point of view,” says Groening. “They just don’t understand the appeal of old character actors from the 1930s and ’40s.”

All of that is rounded out by music from Devo mastermind Mark Mothersbaugh, whom Groening refers to fondly as “a Balkan-ska-klezmer combination that you’ve never heard before in a fantasy show.”

The real secret sauce, however, may be Netflix itself. Along with Amazon and Hulu, the platform has transformed the way television content is consumed, freeing Groening and the rest of the crew from television sitcom constrains that shaped his two previous series.

As Springfield Confidential, the new book from longtime Simpsons show runner Mike Reiss reveals, Groening has been interested in long-term character pay-off for some time. It was Groening who pushed for a series ending in which Marge is revealed to be a rabbit — an homage to Groening’s longtime weekly strip, Life in Hell.

Oh, and then there’s his big plans to reveal that Krusty the Clown was actually Homer disguised as a way to connect to his son. That was ultimately a too-complicated subplot for the writers to tackle during the show’s early seasons.

“You take advantage of whatever the boundaries are and try to push them,” says Groening. “It’s one thing when it’s a 22-minute network sitcom that has commercial breaks every seven minutes. That makes you write in a certain way. If you’re on Netflix and have 10 episodes to tell your story, it changes everything. You can tell longer, bigger arcs, you don’t have to reset at the end of every episode. There’s a literal cliffhanger at the end of episode one.”

Disenchantment may never hit the full epic fantasy sweeps of Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones, but it’s clear from the outset that the story has broader ambitions than most can achieve in a traditional half-hour comedy format. Without showing his hand, Groening lets on that “the very first thing you see is a giant clue that’s staring you in the face that reveals something about what you’re watching.”

(Photo: Flickr/Gage Skidmore under a CC by-SA 2.0 license)

It’s not a particularly useful hint, so far as those things go, but the artist is clearly happy to prime the pump for enthusiastic fans to comb over the content of the first 10 episodes through repeat binges. If its predecessors are any indication, that sort of rapid fandom ought not be too difficult to stoke.

“We threw in a lot of secrets and clues and puzzles for the kind of obsessive fan I’ve come to know, specifically from Futurama and, of course, The Simpsons,” says Groening. “You try to reward those people for paying attention. That’s where the original idea for the freeze-frame jokes from The Simpsons came from. If you didn’t see it, it doesn’t matter, but if you’re the kind of person who would freeze the frame and actually read the joke, you’ll get something out of it. We’ve done that with Disenchantment. We think it works as a sleepy time, fun, epic fantasy you can watch as you drift off at night. Or, if you’re the kind of person who obsesses, there’s something for you there, too.”

More immediate gratification for Simpsons and Futurama fans can be found in Groening’s unmistakable character design. It’s a bit jarring at first, seeing those icons filtered through a medieval fantasy landscape, but ultimately the aesthetic provides a grounding for first-time viewers. It’s warm and comfortable, like an old coat, and likely to help fans stay invested as the story unfolds gradually over the course of these first 10 episodes.

The style has been Groening’s calling card since well before The Simpsons — prior even to Life in Hell, which finally drew to a close in 2012 after a 32-year run.

“What always amazed me is that this very simple style could be very expressive,” Groening explains. “With just a few curving lines and changing them slightly, you could come up with every expression that you wanted. I can’t do it, but I work with animators and designers who can take that style and make them attractive.”

That Elfo looks like a green Bart Simpson in a Smurf hat is the result of something more primordial in the cartoonist’s line work.

“I developed that style of the large bulgy eyes and ridiculous over-bite when I was 12 years old,” explains Groening. “Actually, Elfo is based on the very first character in that style that I drew. He was named Melvin. I used to draw a lot of comics with that guy, and basically gave him an elf hat and pointy ears.”

“Bart and Elfo came from Melvin — Elfo didn’t come from Bart,” Groening adds with a laugh. “That’s a very important clarification.”

Disenchantment premieres August 16 on Netflix .

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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Stargirl Villains: A Guide to the Injustice Society

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This article contains Stargirl spoilers.

The Injustice Society has been terrorizing the heroes of the DC Universe for over 70 years. Although they might not be as well known as their more famous counterparts, the Injustice League, and definitely aren’t as criminally insane as their predecessors, Shazam villains the Monster Society of Evil, the members of the Injustice Society have made their stamp on comics history. They’re also about to be discovered by a much wider audience as they’ve been revealed as the dangerous rogues in the new Stargirl TV series, which is airing on both DC Universe and The CW.

Created by Sheldon Mayer and Bob Kanigher, DC’s maniacal supervillain super-team debuted in 1947’s All Star Comics #37. This makes them one of the earliest supervillain teams in comicdom, though they were beaten out by Mister Mind’s Monster Society four years earlier. Seeing as we’re having fun with comic book history here, I’m going to point out that the Injustice Society and Monster Society were both predated by another team of bad guys who were the first ever super-villain team, and the reason they’re relevant is that they faced off with the Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy too!

In 1941’s Leading Comics #1, Green Arrow, Speedy, Shining Knight, Star-Spangled Kid (and his striped sidekick), Vigilante, and Crimson Avenger took on a group of villains collected by a man known only as the Hand, introducing the first real supervillain team! Alas, the gathering of villains was never named. Although the heroes who fought them would unite to become the Seven Soldiers of Victory, this original evil team of foes was forgotten.

But evil cannot be defeated so easily and seven years later the Injustice Society would be born. Why were they created? Well, that’s still unclear. But when All Star Comics #37 hit shelves, they were already trying to take over the world. On a striking cover that showcased the villainous team portioning out a map of the United States with knives, the famed heroes of the JSA were shackled to the walls behind the Injustice Society. In some classic Golden Age shenanigans the team was assembled by the Wizard, who utilized them to capture the Justice Society of America.

The original lineup differed pretty significantly from the antagonists of Stargirl, with the Wizard joined by Brain Wave (both of whom have made their way to the show), Vandal Savage, and lesser knowns like the Gambler (he’s here too), the Thinker (who you may remember from The Flash season 4), and Per Degaton.

With all of that history dug up, let’s get to the matter at hand: the Injustice League as they exist in the world of Stargirl. The most interesting thing is that just like the series is re-imagining their own Justice Society they’re also setting up the legacy versions of some of the Injustice Society’s villains too. Most of this section will be focused on the original versions, but as we’ve seen, the series is seeding new versions of these characters as well.

Icicle

The leader of Stargirl‘s Injustice Society is Joar Mahkent (Neil Jackson). In the show we know little about the character except that he killed Starman, he’s European like his comics counterpart, and he has recently moved back to Blue Valley at the behest of Brain Wave.

Despite the fact that he wasn’t in the first comics iteration of the team, he was introduced in the same year in All-American Comics #90. In the pages of that book he uses a Cold Gun similar to the weapons that Mr. Freeze and Captain Cold use, but in the show he seems to have powers more like those of his son, Cameron.

Stargirl: Who are the Justice Society Members?

By Mike Cecchini

The only child of Joar Mahkent, Cameron takes on the mantle of Icicle. But due to his father’s excessive exposure to his own Cold Gun, Cameron’s genetics enable him to turn to ice without any aid.

Speaking of Cameron (Hunter Sansone), he’s already been introduced to viewers of Stargirl, so it’s possible that he’ll be heading up the young Injustice Society when they inevitably assemble.

Brain Wave

Henry King Sr. is the ginger telekinetic who spent the first few episodes causing havoc for the familial super team. First introduced in 1943’s All-Star Comics #15, Henry has long been battling the Justice Society of America. He’s also one of the founding members of the original comic book Injustice Society.

But there’s also the matter of his son Henry King Jr. (Jake Austin Walker). During his stint as Brain Wave in the comics, Jr. tried to reinvent himself as a hero only to lose his mind when his father died, eventually becoming a villain. Could we possibly see him develop powers here? The show seems to be hinting at this in recent episodes. If we’re going by comic book history it’s not the craziest leap.

The Wizard

William Asmodeus Zard (Joe Knezevich) is a genius. He’s also a talented magician who trained under a mystic in Tibet who he later murdered. Like the Injustice Society he debuted in 1947, just three issues before his team in All Star Comics #34. We saw him briefly in the opening battle, but he was properly introduced in Stargirl episode 2 (before being dispatched in episode 3)

Solomon Grundy

Probably the most famous rogue in Stargirl is the iconic Green Lantern villain Solomon Grundy. Over the years the character has shifted–most recently into an anti-hero in the DCAU–but from what we’ve seen in the show he’s a stone cold killer. He also seems to have been controlled and imprisoned by Icicle.

Grundy first popped up in 1944’s All-American Comics #61 as the resurrected corpse of a wealthy businessman who was killed in the idyllically named Slaughter Swamp, located just outside of Gotham. Like his namesake, he lives a cyclical life of deaths and rebirths. Post-Crisis he’s mostly a Batman villain, and his resurrection ability is connected to the Elemental Plant magic of Swamp Thing. Here all we know is he’s big, bad, and an impressive digital creation. With Icicle back in the picture, Grundy’s ready to wreak havoc again.

Tigress

Easily beating out her other team members here for longest running rogue is Tigress (Joy Osmanski). The first iteration of the character appeared alongside Krypton’s blue eyed boy in Action Comics #1 as a foe for Zatara. However, the version we see in Stargirl is Paula Brooks. In the comics she was originally a heroine but Roy Thomas turned her into a criminal mastermind.

During her stint in the comics she married fellow bad guy Sportsmaster and they had a daughter named Artemis. She did eventually become the third Tigress, so we could see her on-screen iteration (Stella Smith) suit up. Tigress and Sportsmaster are a delight on the show as over-achieving sports helicopter parents.

Sportsmaster

Speaking of Sportsmaster, Blue Valley’s favorite muscle hungry dad is Laurence “Crusher” Crock. In a hilarious turn of events he runs the town’s gym and goes by his Golden Age nickname Crusher.

Sportmaster first showed up in 1947’s All-American Comics #85 as an antagonist for the original Green Lantern. We’ve covered his familial ties in our Tigress entry, so what about this for a cool twist… could Artemis actually follow in her father’s footsteps and become the next Sportsmaster? It actually makes a lot of sense. In Stargirl episode 2 we see Paula boasting about her daughter’s athletic prowess and her hopes that she’ll be the first woman drafted into the NBA, and later episodes established that she’s the best player on the Blue Valley High football team. Could that dream not come true, leading to her disenchantment and villainy just like her father?

There’s also the chance that the American Dream project the Society has been working on is just a way to channel their children into super-villainy? This seems like a particularly likely route for Artemis as Stargirl seems interested in upending expectations, plus Sportsmaster had a rivalry with Wildcat who has established herself as a member of the new JSA.

Dragon King

A classic Star-Spangled Kid villain who was first introduced during the Bronze Age of superhero comics–1981, to be precise–Dragon King was a WW2 era Japanese spy. Here it looks like we’re getting a comics accurate version of the villain, who spliced his genes with that of a lizard becoming a man-monster in the process (notice how his eyes blink behind that creepy hood!).

Something that’s made the early episodes of Stargirl so special is the way the show embraces the colorful chaos of comics. The Injustice Society is a truly great representation of that, and if the show sticks to these outrageous origins, crazy costumes, and strange stories, then the Injustice Society could become a super-villain team for the history books.

The post Stargirl Villains: A Guide to the Injustice Society appeared first on Den of Geek.

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katebushwick · 5 years

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What is an icon? Icons are symbolic condensations (Freud, 1949: 51). They root generic, social meanings in a specific and ‘material’ form. They allow the abstraction of morality to be subsumed, to be made invisible, by aesthetic shape. Meaning is made iconically visible as something beautiful, sublime, ugly, even as the banal appearance of mundane ‘material life’.

Iconic consciousness occurs when an aesthetically shaped materiality signifies social value. Contact with this aesthetic surface, whether by sight, smell, taste, sound or touch, provides a sensual experience that transmits meaning. The iconic is about experience, not communication. To be iconically conscious is to understand without knowing, or at least without knowing that one knows. It is to understand by feeling, by contact, by the ‘evidence of the senses’ rather than the mind.

Iconicity depends on feeling consciousness. George Herbert Mead once wrote that the ‘content of consciousness is feeling’. He described this as the ‘fund of unexplored social organization which enables us to act more surely’, pointing to its nondiscursive quality as allowing subjectivity to mediate impersonal modernity. ‘We go to strange cities and move about unknown men’, he suggested, ‘without perhaps presenting to ourselves the ideas of one of them, and yet’, he continued, we ‘successfully recognize and respond to each attitude and gesture which our passing intercourse involves’ (Mead, 2001: 67). Mead protests that such a feeling consciousness ‘is not sensuous’, but he protests too much, betraying how deeply resistant modern moralists are to the aesthetic moment in modern life. For Mead social feelings can only be located in ‘mind’, not in the feelings of the heart or the sensations of the body. These are best left not to social theorists and philosophers, but to aesthetes.

The surface, or form, of a material object is a magnet, a vacuum cleaner that sucks the feeling viewer into meaning. For thinkers who do concern themselves with feeling consciousness, these surfaces, in their beauty, sublimity, or ugly banality, are themselves the principal objects of fascination. They resist the interplay between surface and depth, how aesthetic surfaces allow transitions to social meaning.

With icons, the signifier (an idea) is made material (a thing). The signified is no longer only in the mind, something thought of, but something experienced, something felt, in the heart and the body. The idea becomes an object in time and space, a thing. More precisely, it seems to be a thing. For, as aesthetic shapes, things are the middles of semiotic process. Insofar as the thing becomes invested with social meaning, it becomes archtypical. As something, it is transformed into a signifier, setting off a semiosis that subsumes every thing into meaning and every meaning into thing.

The Status of the Material

The theory of iconic consciousness poses itself resolutely against the materialism that continues to pervade modern thought, in the highest realms and in the everyday. Materialism reduces materiality to things, ignoring the aesthetic construction of material surfaces and their experience via feeling consciousness. This reduction is deeply rooted in the relentless utilitarianism of everyday life, which insists on the concrete, on the practical, efficient, and useful. The counterparts in theoretical reflection to such everyday consciousness are concepts such as realism, practice, information, utility, cost

and benefit, cognition and truth. It is not easy to dislodge such deeply misguided yet socially productive beliefs, but the effort must be made.

Even as we are ruthlessly critical of materialism, however, we should learn to be energetically enthusiastic about materiality. For the 20th century, understanding nonmaterial structures of meaning was an extraordinary accomplishment. Resisting the hegemony of modern practical consciousness, Durkheim initiated the project of analyti- cally separating meaning from social structure. To give culture its autonomy is to learn to recognize, with Ricoeur, the yearnings of the soul, and, with Dilthey, the continuing vitality of the spirit (Dilthey, 1976; Durkheim, 1911; Ricoeur, 1976). Today, at the beginning of the 21st century, we must try to understand how meaning, soul, and spirit manifest themselves through materiality.

Saussure rightly insisted that the sound of language, in itself, carries no meaning. How sound connects with concepts is arbitrary. Pure sound is only a signified; its meaning is determined by internally organized signifiers, self-regulating relations of concepts. But this insight should not obscure the significance of sound. Words, after all, are sounds of meaning. Phonetics matters. It also has autonomy. The science that Jacobson called poetics concerns the internal sounds and rhythms of speaking and hear- ing, and how they affect the construal of meaning. We must be able not only to think but to hear and feel speech – to make music.1 Otherwise, we would not have these rather ugly sense organs sticking out on either side of our head!

There is more than mind. The meanings of the things we see are invisible to the naked eye, but the visual is not unimportant for that. Can we ignore the sensuousness of sight, the patterns of line, curve, and symmetry, the shadings of light and dark, the vividness of color? The textures of touch, the odors of smell, the compulsions of taste? The evolution of the humanoid brain’s neo-cortex enabled extended memory and reflexive thought, the ability to think and interpret that set off the human race. But the other mid- and hind- brains remain, and so does the autonomic system. We retain our more primitive capaci- ties, though these five senses may, in some part, be less developed in human beings. We are human, but, as Nietzsche suggests, we are also ‘all too human’.

After inventing the realist philosophy of science, Rom Harre ́ has turned his back upon it, condemning its materialism as a reduction that overlooks the invisible strands of meaning that mark not only science but even the supposed materialism of economic life (Harre ́, 2002).2 Harre ́ calls ‘stuff’ the objects that occupy space and time, denying, now, that such merely material things can act in an independent way. Every piece of stuff belongs to a category, ‘an ephemeral attribute of a flow of symbolic interactions among active people competent in the conventions of a certain cultural milieu’. A material object ‘is transformed from a piece of stuff into a social object’, Harre ́ asserts, only ‘by its embedment in a narrative’. It is by such ‘narrative binding’ that ‘bits of coloured cloth become flags [and] clothes become uniforms’.

All this is deeply true, providing new and powerful ammunition against the obses- sively practical, realist consciousness of modern thought and times. Still, I wonder whether these materialities are, in fact, merely what Rom Harre ́ calls ‘affordances’ that ‘constrain the uses to which such things can be put in the local narratives’? The sensuous surface of things seems more important than simply a means to the end of meaning. Is it not the sensuous surface of stuff that allows us to see, hear, and touch their narrative

bindings? For Harre ́, the geography of the Nile valley was merely an ‘indirect source’ of Pharonic social order. It could not be the direct source, he insists, because cultural structures have autonomy. I would suggest, to the contrary, that it was the overflowing physicality of the Nile that allowed the complex metaphysics of Pharonic Egypt to be sensuously experienced. Culture gives material things ‘magic powers’, Harre ́ believes, which are ‘not an effect of the physical properties of the thing’. Yet is not materiality at the center of enchantment? Is it not the ‘illusion’ that physical things do, in fact, have character and agency that makes their symbolic power seem magical and extraordinary rather than real and mundane? Stuff matters. What would Mozart’s opera have been without its magic flute? Without seeing it, hearing it, knowing it was always there?

To recover the material is not to recover the thing-in-itself, but, rather, the texture of a thing’s aesthetic surface, for it is through aesthetic surface that things are experienced. The philosophical case against idealism has it that there is a something implacable about a chair. We cannot wish the chair away or walk through it. It exists in time and space. But is it not this particular chair we see, touch, and feel, and that remains in our minds as a materiality? The chair is not a chair as such. It is a particularly formed chair.

The Status of the Aesthetic

The theory of iconic consciousness recovers the aesthetic within everyday life, against the notion that art either is, or must be, radically separated if rationality or morality is to be sustained. That it must be separated is famously taken to have been Kant’s argument about the normative structure of modernity: when we are in the world of the beautiful or the sublime, we can sustain neither the distance nor the disinterest demanded by objectivity.3 Universalism, whether in scientific or moral criticism, depends on the view from nowhere (Nagel, 1987). The empirical possibility for sustaining such distantiation is undermined if actors ‘fall’ into the objects they observe (because they feel them) if, when they face putatively separated objects, actors feel as if they are not separated from them, but that the objects are becoming subjectified themselves.

Weber made Kant historical with his argument for disenchantment. Under the conditions of moral, religious, and technological rationalization, every value sphere, including the aesthetic, is sliced and diced, cast out on its own. Magic has forsaken the modern world. But if there is iconic consciousness, then, while totemism may have been transformed and radically pluralized, it has hardly been effaced. Bits of stuff still seem magical, and not only because they are placed inside of stories. The material surfaces of things are experienced aesthetically. It is materiality that allows feeling consciousness to be connected to things.

The argument for feeling consciousness, for a cultural materiality, creates middle ground between Derrida and the romantic early Marx, who wistfully spoke of the ‘sensuous object’ overcoming the materialism that marked alienation in capitalist society. Attacking the philosophy of presence, Derrida pointed to absence, demoting the visible and material to the status of signifieds linked to invisible signifiers. But if presence can indeed be known only in relation to absence, how else can absence be known except by experiencing presence? In Bill Brown’s thing philosophy, he protests Derrida’s absence, arguing on behalf of a ‘sensuous or metaphysical presence’. Martin

Seel likewise insists on the importance of ‘appearing’. If poststructuralism demands contextualization, Seel writes, then the aesthetic creates decontextualization, an effect of appearance (Brown, 2001; Seel, 2005).

These briefs for an aesthetics of things are powerful, but they are also one-sided. They develop not just an argument for aesthetic recovery but for aesthetic redemption, not just for the aesthetic but for aestheticism. They demand not just for the aesthetic surface to be given full citizenship alongside the moral depth, but for the aesthetic as an alternative vision. In doing so, they paradoxically reinstate the separate spheres argument they are so fervently fighting against. Standing firmly on the ground of this division, Martin Jay (2003) warns against bringing the aesthetic back into everyday life. Haunted, like every Habermasian exponent of critical theory, by the specters of Heidegger and Nazism, Jay associates aesthetic consciousness with reaction and irrationality.

Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht is Jay’s perfect foil. Severely rejecting Kant and joyfully embracing Heidegger, Gumbrecht condemns ‘meaning effects’ as ratiocinative and conceptual. He champions ‘presence effects’, not only because they reveal the granular texture of materiality, but because they provoke a ‘crisis’ vis-a`-vis the ugly and routine banality of the modern world. To experience the aesthetic corporeality of things allows ‘intimate’ feelings that are normally ‘inaccessible to us’. Reconnected to the ‘ground’ of earth, we experience the ‘unconcealment of Being’, beyond doing and having. For Gumbrecht, the aesthetic is a defamiliarization process. It is Proust’s hypnotically arresting Madeline, the awesome gates to Shinto temples, the shockingly ‘beautiful run, pitch, throw, or jump’ that creates the ‘moment of intensity’ in the midst of a game, the ‘special feeling’ that allows us to step outside a merely instrumental or ‘interested’ position (Gumbrecht, 2006a, 2006b).

These contemporary longings are, contra Jay, not dangerous. Gumbrecht and his fellow postmodern aesthetes carefully acknowledge the competing worlds of democracy, law, and the morally abstract. The problem is empirical, not moral. Even as surface and depth must be analytically separated, they need also to be empirically intertwined. Presence and absence may inform antagonistic philosophical perspectives, but they are not antithetical in the empirical sense. The thrills and fears experienced by feeling consciousness are not the product of aesthetic surface alone; they are informed by the meaning structures that lie beneath. Gumbrecht asks whether the aesthetic is ‘a switch between different actual frames’ or ‘a switch towards the awareness of a pre-existing frame’s character’. We would answer that it is the latter: it is conscious awareness that changes, not the actual frame. Aesthetic experience is always there, even when we don’t focus upon it. So is the moral experience that it conceals and makes visible at the same time, even if we are not morally self-conscious in any way.

It is the purpose of art to make the aesthetic dimension explicit, to bring it into our conscious minds so that we experience it knowingly and reflect upon it. The availability of such specifically ‘aesthetic’ experience is limited. Not everybody can stand before Giacometti’s Standing Woman and know what they are seeing. It takes an artistic edu- cation. But if the experience of art is limited, the surface experience of aesthetic things is not. Men, or boys for that matter, don’t need an artistic education to skillfully rank passing women on the proverbial ten-point scale. Nor do modern women have any problem evaluating the hotness of some guy.

Alexander 15

In both everyday aesthetics and high art there is the same interplay of the unique and the general, the contingent and the a priori. Surfaces are specific and idiosyncratic in their object reference. We see this fashion model, not some other one. That we see this ‘hotty’ and that ‘babe’, and not any others, is, of course, the very point of such desig- nations. At the same time, such aesthetic representations are generic, connecting us to shared meanings, to culture structures. This model is a specific type of fashion model, a version, a specification of the more general form; so are the sexy man and woman particular examples of their species.

An object’s aesthetic power inserts the general into the specific, making the abstract concrete in a compelling and original way. In high culture, this is the challenge for the artist. In the world of the everyday, it is the challenge for the designer, and also for the lay person, the bricoleur who assembles his or her objects, laying them out or putting them on, as in DIY, or ‘do it yourself’.

Consider the following conversation between two women who encounter each other on the street outside a salon:

‘I love the way you’ve done your hair.’ ‘I like this new style, don’t you?’ ‘You’ve done a great job with it.’ ‘I found a new product.’

‘Where did you find it?’ ‘In Elle, and there it was, in the front window of the salon.’ ‘Well, your hair looks good. That product’s special. I’ve never seen that color in your

hair. You look amazing!’ If the artist gets the combination right, his object becomes great art. It can be hung in

any home or museum, anywhere, at any time. It has achieved a ‘surplus of meaning’; uniquely compelling in the here and now, it can also be compelling in the later and faraway.4 When the designer and lay person get it right, their surface assemblages draw us into the discourse of society. It is not just the form that excites, but the experiences of meaning that forms carry.5

The Status of the Moral

It is difficult to get surface and depth right, to embrace aesthetic sensation without antagonism to structured meaning, to give culture its autonomy without sloughing off material form. If aestheticism exhibits the first fallacy, moralism manifests the second.

Emile Durkheim was the founding father, with Max Weber, of cultural social science, though, as we have seen, he sharply disagreed with the German thinker’s idea that a radical epistemological break marked the transition from tradition to modernity. Durkheim devoted his major cultural work, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1911), to examining the symbolic classifications and rituals of ancient totemic religion, but he avowed this research offered profound insights into the secular symbolic forces of the present day. Symbols of the sacred-good and profane-evil, he asserted, continue to structure modern life, providing the moral glue that informs collective rituals and sustains social solidarity.

As I have mentioned earlier in this essay, these late-Durkheimian ideas inspired the outpouring of social semiotic and cultural-sociological research that increasingly marked 20th-century intellectual life. Only rarely, however, has this line of thinking reached into the realm of material things. The reasons have been, in some part, the topic of this essay. They have to do with the empirical and philosophical ambiguities of materialism and ideality, and, indeed, of the very notion of modernity itself. These ambiguities and lim- itations were manifest in Durkheim’s own writings. He generally resisted exploring the relation between ‘religion’ and ‘material’ life. He tended to write off primitive economic activity as nonsocial and the modern as egotistical. Almost always, he wanted to get beyond what he regarded as the merely visible, material shell of things to the invisible, the spiritual and moral kernel underneath.

This makes it all the more important to recover a brief moment in Durkheim’s later writing that can be read in a strikingly different way. At one of the axial points in Elementary Forms, while addressing the origins of mana – the spiritual force mani- fested in sacred totems – Durkheim becomes remarkably interested in the totem as material form. He takes notice of how the wooden surfaces of totems are formed and shaped, observing that ‘totemism places figurative representations in the first rank of the things it considers sacred’ (1911: 190). When he describes ‘what the totem amounts to’, he emphasizes ‘the tangible form in which that intangible substance [mana] is represented’ (p. 201). Throughout this discussion, Durkheim writes of ‘material sub- stances’ (p. 204) and ‘tangible intermediaries’ (p. 232). Because morality is abstract, and can be ‘imagined only with difficulty’, we can ‘comprehend’ spiritual feelings ‘only in connection with a concrete object’ (p. 232). Material culture is particularly marked in totemism. When the Crow people affirm that they ‘are crows’, it is because they believe that mana has the ‘outward form of the crow’ (p. 201). It is only this outward form of the totem that ‘is available to the senses’ (p. 222). They ‘attach themselves’ to this ‘concrete object’, and display it everywhere, ‘engraved on the cult implements, on the sides of the rocks, on shields’ (p. 222).

In these passages on totemism, Durkheim opens the door to culture in its material form. ‘Emblematizing’ is easier, he writes, when symbols are ‘inscribed on things that are durable’ (p. 232). The transfer between moral depth and material surface ‘is much more complete and more pronounced’, he suggests, ‘whenever the symbol is something simple [and] well-defined’ (p. 222). Durable, simple, and well-defined – this is as close as Durkheim gets to exploring the aesthetic construction of surface, the material texture of feeling that allows deep meaning structures to be experienced in a sensuous way. While Durkheim is clearly aware of feeling consciousness and aesthetic surface, it is also clear that he has little understanding of how they actually work. He has opened the door, but he has barely stepped inside.

If Durkheim had stepped inside, he would have discovered that philosophers of aesthetics had already decorated the room. In 1835, when Alexander Baumgarten created this new branch of philosophy, he defined it as ‘a science of how things are to be known by the senses’ (cited in Guyer, 2005: 3). In the preceding decades there had been increasing excitement about the artistic, as not only the realm of the beautiful but the sublime. The notion of the sublime had been around since the Roman Longinus, and in the 17th century Boileau applied it to the lofty style of rhetoric and poetry. British

Alexander 17

thinkers, however, took the idea in a new direction, emphasizing the wild, the emotive, and the darkly transcendental as an antidote to the suffocating restrictions of French neoclassicism.6 This expansion triggered a new interest in the sensuous pleasures pro- vided by contact with forms. For Shaftesbury, ‘the beautiful, the fair, the comely, were never in the matter but in the art and design, never in the body itself but in the form of forming power’ (Cooper, 1999, cited in Guyer, 2005: 11). For Hutcheson, the experience of form is ‘justly called a Sense’ because ‘pleasure is different from any Knowledge of Principles, Proportions, Causes, or the Usefulness of the Object’ (1973, cited in Guyer, 2005: 23).

It was vital for these new aesthetic philosophers to connect sensible form to moral depth. They argued that aesthetic feeling is binary and that ‘beautiful’ and ‘sublime’ provide sensual homologies with moral ideas. In fact, these aesthetic sensibilities are often presented as moral expressions themselves. Forms are beautiful when lines, shapes, colors, and light are pleasing and attractive, the ‘qualities in bodies’, as Burke writes, that ‘cause love, or some passion similar to it’ (1990: 83). The aesthetic sense of the beautiful, in other words, calls out moral feelings for the sacred-good. Its moral antithesis, the evil-profane, is animated by the aesthetic sublime, which Burke describes as ‘whatever [is] fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain, and danger [or] is in any sort terrible’ (p. 36). The beautiful is about romance and sympathy, the sublime about tragedy and deceit. The beautiful is small, quiet, soft, round, and propor- tionate; the sublime is vast, loud, hard, angular, and unbalanced.7 Every moral binary is attached to a pairing in aesthetic life.

With his critical investigations at the end of the 18th century, Kant is supposed to have straightened all this aesthetic sentimentality out, to have separated sharply, and once and for all, the sense of form from the substantive commitments of reason and morality, finally giving to each independent sphere what it is due. What Kant actually seems to have done, however, is quite different. He defined the aesthetic in such a distinctive and particular manner that it could be closely rewound with the rational and moral again.8

Kant does, of course, emphasize that what pleases the senses is pure form, that shapes signify nothing by themselves, that the ‘determining ground is the feeling of the subject and not a concept of an object’ (2000: section 17:116). If this were not the case, if forms were actually dependent on a determinate concept, then the significance of the aesthetic, its independent function, would be greatly reduced. Then, the meaning of the artistic object could be known before it was experienced, and the very point of experiencing would be lost. It is precisely because it is not, in fact, regulated by a determinate concept that the aesthetic imagination involves free play.

But to freely experience forms as pleasurable, Kant is at pains also to suggest, is to recall the self-determining autonomy that distinguishes judgments of a different, more rational and moral kind. For this reason, aesthetic judgment actually allows us to expe- rience core features of these other domains, and in a powerful manner that they could never have articulated themselves. It is the quality of avoiding determination by rational thought or moral understanding, not absolute dissociation from them, that makes an experience aesthetic, the very freedom from a priori determination that, subsequent to the aesthetic experience, allows greater conceptual and moral development in turn. In Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, Kant puts the connection very simply:

‘The entire use of the beautiful arts is that they present moral propositions of reason in their full glory and powerfully support them’ (cited in Guyer, 2005: 181).

The aesthetic-cum-moral binary of beautiful and sublime has continued to inform the philosophy of aesthetics pretty much up to the present day.9 True, as Arthur Danto emphatically suggests, the emergence of such 20th-century practices as abstract, surreal, pop, banal, conceptual, and performative art has demonstrated that beautiful and sublime do not capture the extraordinary range of possible aesthetic products.10 Yet, contra Danto, these binary categories continue to provide the fundamental categories of sensu- ous experience, as either homologies or antinomies of moral evaluation, even as the referents of that experience radically change.11

What is more challenging to this understanding of high art is the status of the aesthetic everyday. How can morality and rationality be connected with the aesthetic amidst the conventions and typifications that mark mundane experience, where there is neither the free play of sensuous interpretation nor the ascetic autonomy of self-determination?

I have addressed this question in earlier sections of this essay, and other writings as well (see Alexander, 2008). The challenge I would like to address here, however, is whether an answer can be provided in the context of aesthetic philosophy itself. One might, for example, have recourse to Schopenhauer’s (1966) anti-Kantian brief for con- templation over reason, his stoic suggestion that only a ‘will-less knowing’ can slough off the burdens of reason and individuality that distort and alienate the modern world.

Yet, while Schopenhauer is certainly right to suggest that an aesthetic attitude can permeate modern life, his world-rejecting aestheticism misses how central aesthetic experience is to everyday moral and cognitive modes. We do not need to give up on self, reason, morality, or society to gain access to mundane sensuous experience. It is already there. Everyday experience is iconic, which means that self, reason, morality, and society are continuously defined in aesthetic, deeply experiential ways.12

For a powerful example of just how this trick is turned, we can, in fact, return to Kant, not to his systematic late treatise but to Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime, the precritical work he published 25 years before. Kant here confronts the aesthetic as, in his words, an ‘observer’ rather than a ‘philosopher’. In a casual and lively style that addresses aesthetic representations of such everyday matters as sex, gender, nation, civilization, and race, the essay reveals how conventional morality is enabled by aesthetic experience and legitimated by the binary discourse of the beautiful and the sublime. Rather than analyzing how the sensual surface elides moral depth, this early Kantian discourse exemplifies it, and sometimes in altogether disturbing ways.

As in the later work, in this youthful writing Kant also pays homage to sense expe- rience as independent and significant, asserting ‘it does not matter so much what the understanding comprehends, but what the feeling senses’ (1960: 72, emphasis added). Confronting Edmund Burke, whose Philosophical Enquiry had appeared only a few years before, Kant declares his ambition, in the very first sentence of Observations, to relate the binaries of aesthetic experience to actors’ subjective ‘dispositions to be moved’ rather than to ‘the nature of external things’ (p. 45). His topic is to be ‘the feeling of the sublime and that of the beautiful’ (p. 46), not the nature of beautiful or sublime objects themselves.

Alexander 19

At first, Kant seems faithful to this promise: ‘The sight of a mountain whose snow-covered peak rises about the clouds, the description of a raging storm, or Milton’s portrayal of the infernal kingdom’, he writes, ‘arouse enjoyment but with horror; on the other hand, the sight of flower-strewn meadows, valleys with winding brooks and covered with grazing flocks, the description of Elysium, or Homer’s portrayal of the girdle of Venus, also occasion a pleasant sensation but one that is joyous and smiling’ (p. 47, emphasis added). In this passage, active constructions of everyday sense percep- tion trigger artistic portrayals of that experience, which make use of the categories of beautiful and sublime. Immediately after this, however, Kant loses his way, presenting beautiful and sublime as actual characteristics of objects themselves. He discovers the structural qualities of the aesthetic and connects them to moral forms, but he does so in an essentializing way.

Tall oaks and lonely shadows in a sacred grove are sublime; flower beds, low hedges and trees trimmed in figures are beautiful. Night is sublime, day is beautiful [and] the shining day stimulates busy fervor and a feeling of gaiety. The sublime moves, the beautiful charms. The mien of a man who is undergoing the full feeling of the sublime is earnest, sometimes rigid and astonished. On the other hand the lively sensation of the beautiful proclaims itself through shining cheerfulness in the eyes, through smiling features, and often through audible mirth. (p. 47, emphasis added)

The moral connection is maintained, but the autonomy of its aesthetic construction has disappeared. Aesthetic form is reduced to a reflection of moral quality. ‘Sublime attributes stimulate esteem’, Kant writes, ‘but beautiful ones, love’ (p. 51). ‘Friendship has mainly the character of the sublime’, he maintains, while ‘love between the sexes, that of the beautiful’ (p. 52). The aesthetic surface now has the effect simply of natur- alizing moral qualities. It allows them to be experienced sensuously, to be felt as if they were physical, real, and true: ‘Dark coloring and black eyes are more closely related to the sublime, blue eyes and blonde coloring to the beautiful’ (p. 54).

What’s so interesting about this reduction of the aesthetic to the moral is that it provides a classical demonstration of essentialism, of how surface and depth are inter- twined in everyday social life, not only in Kant’s times but in our own today. The ideal- typical representation of this everyday essentialism – and from our contemporary point of view, its moral and political nadir – is the confident manner in which Kant employs surface/depth to reproduce the gender and racial stereotypes of his day. He waxes elo- quently about how the moral qualities of women allow them to be ‘known by the mark of the beautiful’ – ‘her figure in general is finer, her features more delicate and gentler, and her mien more engaging and more expressive’ (p. 76, emphasis added). The binary qualities of the aesthetic, in other words, are here discovered as ingrained moral quali- ties. Women, Kant writes, naturally ‘prefer the beautiful to the useful’, a ‘strong inborn feeling for all that is beautiful’. From ‘very early they have a modest manner about them- selves [and] know how to give themselves a fine demeanor ... at an age when our well- bred male youth is still unruly, clumsy, and confused’ (p. 77). Affirming that ‘the moral composition makes itself discernible in the mien or facial features’, Kant declares ‘she whose features show qualities of beauty is agreeable’ and ‘in her face she portrays a tender feeling and a benevolent heart’ (p. 87, original emphasis). That women are thought beautiful is not due to aesthetic and moral convention. They are beautiful because they are, well, women! Kant jokes that if a woman goes against her nature, trying to appropriate the ‘diligent, fundamental, and deep understanding’ of men, then she ‘might as well even have a beard’ (p. 78).

But there is something serious at stake. If the physical is a sure sign of the moral underneath, then not only gender but racial profiling is naturally the order of the day. Kant makes the extraordinary claim that, outside of Europe, the ability to identify the beautiful with the feminine does get lost. ‘If we examine the relations of the sexes in [other] parts of the world’, he declares, ‘we find that the European alone has found the secret of decorating with so many flowers the sensual charm’. In contrast with the European man’s ‘very decorous’ construction of women, ‘the inhabitant of the Orient is of a very false taste’. Because he has ‘no sense of the morally beautiful’, the Oriental ‘thrives on all sorts of amorous grotesqueries’. Kant asks: ‘In the land of the black, what better can one expect?’ (pp. 112–13).

This simple question reveals the normative risk in the interpenetration of aesthetic surface and moral depth. On the one hand, as critical thinkers we must beware of assuming that a ‘look’ naturally expresses anything. On the other hand, even if we now clearly understood that it does not, iconic consciousness inevitably makes it seem that way.

The Status of the Real

It has been in order to confront this moral and political ambiguity that modern critical thinkers have asserted the primacy of the real. One way of combating the moralistic fallacy, on the one hand, and the aesthetic fallacy, on the other, has been to declare that icons are neither. It is to say that they are real. This is not Kant’s modernity but an empiricist one, a prototypically modern alternative to moralism and aestheticism that begins with Locke and reaches its take-off point in the 19th century, with the birth of photography and the emergence and simultaneous self-critique of capitalism in its indus- trial form. The dialectical relationship between surface and depth is here supplanted not by disbalance but by displacement. Scientific truth can be substituted for moral and aes- thetic claims. Neither is now necessary, for we now have access to the thing in itself. It is this realist claim that lurks beneath Peirce’s theory of iconic as compared with symbolic meaning and, in the 20th century, the persistent claim for the denotative rather than con- notative status, not only of photography but film, as in Andre ́ Bazin’s argument that the ‘ontology’ of cinema is realism (Peirce, 1931–58).13

It was in much the same spirit that Marx argued for the fetishistic character of commodities in capitalist societies. The product is not valued for its use but for the possessive desire it stimulates, a desire fed by wish-fulfilling fantasy and hope. Fetishism camouflages the ‘real’ meaning of commodities, Marx insisted, a meaning which is actually exchange value and, more deeply, the exploitative relations of production.

Only after critical social science discovers this reality can a new economy be established that will produce goods only according to their use value. In the last two decades these claims have been empirically confronted by powerful investigations

Alexander 21

demonstrating how capitalism actually sustains ‘decommodification’, for example: Kopytoff’s (1986) demonstration of singularization; Miller’s (1987, 1998) research on shopping as gift-giving; Campbell’s (1987) historical archeology linking consumerism to romanticism and hedonism; and the ethnographies of Czikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton (1981: 55–89), and Woodward (2003), documenting the noninstru- mental meanings that attach to things in the home.

The Status of the Spiritual

This realist critique of surface/depth has the unintended effect of seeming to give credence to materialism as an anti-aesthetic and anti-moral form, whether through social realism, social engineering, or socialism. A more far-reaching strain of this critical tradition attacks the very orientation to the material object itself. The repulsion for ‘indulgent’ materialism, for putting faith in to external objects, for ‘mindless’ consump- tion or, indeed, for consumption tout court has permeated the axial age civilizations, motivating a demand for world-withdrawal, whether in an ascetic or a mystical form. The claim is that man loses himself when he makes idols, that humans must seek the divine not in material forms but in the abstract spirit, the only pathway by which they will find the divine, not outside, but within themselves.

To make the iconic the enemy of the spirit is to engage not in iconicism but in iconoclasm, the breaking of idols, a practice that extends from the ancient Jews to the Puritans who made the modern world. William Mitchell has suggested that it was Charles de Brosse’s Du Culte des dieux fetiches that introduced the horror of the fetish into Western accounts of primitive totem religion. Totemism was ‘more ancient than idolatry properly so called’, De Brosse asserted, because it was the most ‘savage and coarse, worshipping stones, vegetables, and animals’. Fetish-worshippers were people in whom ‘the memory of Divine Revelations’ had been ‘entirely extinguished.’ (Mitchell, 1986: 190, 193). How far is this from the anti-consumption movement today?

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