Can We Talk About The Great Gatsby?

Every now and then a movie comes out that I truly want to see, but I just happen to not get around to watching until too long after its release date. Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby came and almost went before I dragged my butt out of my apartment to go see it.

When we walked into the theater, I commented to my boyfriend Sergio that I didn’t think I would review this film. I’d already been tainted by reading other reviews and it’s too late in the run to really change any audience minds.

I said I would only write something if I had something unique or interesting to say about the film.

Boy do I.

The Gay Gatsby - Homoerotic Undertones in an American Classic

Now, I haven’t read the book in several years, so this analysis is taken exclusively from the film. No doubt elements of my hypothesis are present in the book, but I am not suitably equipped to make that assessment.

Let’s dispense with the chitchat.

Jay Gatsby is gay.

F. Scott Fitzgerald was known for his use of color symbolism. Yellow windows. Green light.… Pink suit?

OK maybe that one’s a stereotype. But let me continue. The instant Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) moves in next door, Gatsby has him on his radar. In fact he spends a great deal of time spying on him from an upstairs window.

Nick is the only person in the entire history of this earth to have ever received a personal invitation to one of Gatsby's parties. Now I know what you're going to say - Gatsby is ostensibly trying to use Nick's position as Daisy's cousin to get in with her. And while he does use this connection eventually, in the beginning he mostly just takes Nick out to dinner and tries to convince him to go swimming with him.

Like a spaghetti noodle - straight until wet.

The instant Nick meets the Gatsby he's heard so much about, he is enamored.

He is so unduly impressed with this man he often describes him as a God on Earth despite his massive flaws and his obvious connections with organized crime. He is too blinded by love to notice his faults. Likewise, he vehemently rejects the advances of Myrtle's cousin (he is only convinced to stay with copious amount of liquor) and largely ignores the beautiful and fabulous Jordan Baker, who gives him numerous chances to... show her his Jordan Almonds.

You'd have to be gay to not notice her. Heck, I'm gay and I even notice her.

When Gatsby finally meets Daisy and their long overdue courtship is realized, it is less than steamy. Yes, there is an intimate connection between the two of them, but remember these are old friends who haven't seen each other in years. There is a sex scene in the movie, yes. But it was one of the few scenes that felt like it didn't gel with the narrative, perhaps for the fact that it wasn't included in the book - which is told from Nick's perspective exclusively. There is no textual evidence whatsoever that Jay and Daisy had a sexual relationship.

A man in love? Perhaps, but clearly not with anyone in frame.

Yes, he thinks he loves Daisy. But how does that explain his continuing friendship with Nick, long after he has brought the two together? For a man whose ultimate goal is to reunite with his long lost love, he seems awfully keen to keep her cousin around. His most intimate moments with Daisy - the shirt scene, the tour of his house, dancing in the grand ballroom - all occurred in the presence of one Nick Carraway. Nick, not wanting to be a bother, insisted he let the two tour alone, but Gatsby wouldn't take no for an answer.

Gatsby's plot to win Daisy back? To impress her with his decadent, glittery parties and sense of style.

Thus, I would like to put forward the argument that The Great Gatsby is not only a literary classic about the American Dream and the lengths to which one can go to pursue it, but of the last bastion of sexual repression in the sexually decadent time period of the Roaring Twenties. The film and book are fraught with women finding their sexuality, raucus parties, and adulterous affairs stacked up to the rafters, but the most deep and abiding love in the film is one that can not yet be expressed in carnal measures.

It is found in small places; in the shade of a tree in the garden, in a glance, in a smile, in the nervous adjustment of a cufflink.

And, in closing, I leave you with this.

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Can We Talk About The Terminator?

Hello, literate blog readers! This is the first part of a new Sunday series I'm starting called Can We Talk About? where we can discuss topics away from movie reviews and lists. I don't think you'll ever be able to escape me talking about movies, but this is a more free-range zone where broader topics can be covered.

For instance, how

The Terminator is a Slasher Movie

Warning: This article contains spoilers for a large number of 80's movies and let's face it, you can't get mad. The Statute of Limitations has long since run out on these.

I watched James Cameron's The Terminator (1984) for the first time a couple months ago and found it inexplicably familiar. It was familiar for the obvious fact that I'd heard it quoted in just about every TV show, movie, book, article, and dentistry publication in existence. But beyond that, I realized that the film was laid on a framework very familiar to me - an 80's slasher movie.

Now this is entirely possible, because the slasher boom had been in full force since 1980 and experienced its greatest popularity in the four years following Friday the 13th. And, while the film clearly isn't a full-blooded slasher flick (despite my sensationalist leanings in the title), it hews closely to the established format, but with an extended third act.

Now, I'm not going to just state my case and tell you what to believe. That's not fair to you, for I am certain you are a bright and distinguished individual. I mean, you're reading this blog. Of course you are. For you, dear reader, I have assembled empirical evidence showing The Terminator's roots in my beloved genre.

Note: When talking about killers in general, I will use the pronoun "he" to expedite things though I am well aware that females can and do make absolutely fabulous slasher villains.

The Silent Killer

A key figure in the slasher movies of yore is the mute killer who slays teens without speaking a word. Generally this is done to dehumanize the killer and make him feel more like the pure embodiment of evil. It is also used to increase tension, hide the killer's identity, or to rip off Halloween.

In The Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger's character does speak (see: "I'll be back"), but his entire speaking role is limited to just 16 lines making 17 total sentences. That's actually, believe it or not, less lines than Jason has in the Friday the 13th series (He speaks in the original as a child and in Jason Goes to Hell when possessing the body of a police officer).

He mainly just shoots things.

The Indestructible Villain

Another facet of a slasher villain's evilness is his inability to die. You can stab him, shoot him, drown him, and blow him up yet he still relentlessly chases you down.

The Terminator is much the same way. Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese think they have defeated him with a giant explosion, but their celebratory embrace is interrupted when he rises like a phoenix from the ashes.

And after being supposedly defeated after Kyle's sacrifice of his life, the Terminator exoskeleton - with all his flesh having long since burned away - still implacably hunts down its target.

The Cheesy 80's Score

Even the best of the best horror films have their flaws. Many early slasher movies act as a time capsule for the year they were released, and the scores hold up the least under modern scrutiny. Charles Berstein's compositions from A Nightmare on Elm Street feel more like deep cuts on a Duran Duran album (though I admittedly love both of those things and own the entire score) and the opening for Friday the 13th Part 3 features a now legendary disco version of the theme song.

Just watch this scene from The Terminator and try to tell me it could take place in any year other than 1984. The music in the club is forgivable as a sign of the times, but when it makes the shift into the actual score music, it is clear that the snail trail of 80's kitsch was ineradicable.

Themed Killings

While many slasher villains are out for revenge (Freddy Krueger kills the children of the people who trapped him in a burning building), there are a range of themes available like holidays (the only holiday that doesn't feature a mysterious rash of killings seems to be Arbor Day), anniversaries of your death (Leslie Vernon in Behind the Mask satirized this tendency), or just being bored (Jason in the later sequels).

In The Terminator's case, the victims are all named Sarah Connor. Arnold mows down a whole crop of Sarah Connors in the order they're listed in the phone book because he has orders to eradicate the mother of his greatest enemy, John Connor.

Sex Equals Death

One of the most important rules in the horror universe, as expounded by Randy in Scream: If you have sex, you will die.

Kyle Reese has been sent back in time to save Sarah Connor's life, thus ensuring that her son John is born and can lead the rebels to victory. Unfortunately, he is not told that he is also John Connor's father and once he falls in love with, makes love to, and impregnates Sarah Connor, he's a goner.

To coin a nifty phrase

The Final Girl

This is incontestably the single most consistent element in the entire slasher genre. While a whole slew of nubile hotties might be mowed down beforehand, the one person to escape the bloodbath alive is female. Pretty much always. And if a man survives, it is only because a girl has also managed to stay alive. It's the way of the world, guys. Women are in charge.

A brief pause to reflect on how incredible Jamie Lee Curtis is.

Enter Sarah Connor. She kicks butt, takes names, chews bubblegum, and lives to tell the tale.

Improvised Weaponry

Once it comes down the showdown between the Final Girl and the Killer, it has been a long night for everybody. Often the Final Girl will find herself up a creek without a paddle or, more likely, hiding in a closet without a shotgun. Time to improvise. Ginny (above) went the pitchfork route, but other notables are Alice Hardy in the kitchen with a frying pan (Friday the 13th), and Jamie Lee Curtis giving Michael Myers everything she's got with a knitting needle, an unbent clothes hanger, and Activia yogurt.

The Terminator's resident Final Girl uses a hydraulic press to finally defeat her robotic stalker once and for all.

The Big Finale

Especially in the more supernatural slasher movies, the villain needs to be returned from whence he came and the big setpiece is usually a vital location in the killer's life. For Jason, it's the lake where he drowned. For Freddy it's the boiler room where he killed his children. And many of Michael Myers' climactic showdowns take place in his childhood home.

In The Terminator, the big ending setpiece is, appropriately, a factory full of machinery.

The Spawning of a Huge Franchise

So maybe it's not so big as Jason at his bloatiest, but you get the point.

So does The Terminator have its place in the great slasher pantheon? Well, no. But it is undeniably influenced by one of the most culturally important (for better or for worse) cinematic phenomena of the 1980's.

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