Colin, then Mark wrote:
COLIN WIGHT wrote:
>
> Thelma and Louise I think John.
>
> Still, a pyrrhic victory at best, and not one they were around to
savour.
>
I think you have to subscribe to a bit of romanticism to read such things
as "victories". And few of us are romantic these days...anyone seen the
recent film version of Romeo and Juliet? I think its quite a clever film;
my favourite postmodern reading of Shakespeare so far! And its possible
to read the film as a deromanticising of something that has become a
cliche. Actually its a really interesting film to talk about but thats
not why I'm writing...it would be pointless for me to continue if nobody
else had seen it... [end bit from Mark Holloway]
To Colin: but there's nothing wrong with pyrrhic victories, are there,
other than the large losses involved?
To Mark: I don't know why we have to be romantic to read Thelma and Louise
or Princess de Cleeves (sp?) as victories with quotation marks around the
word "victories." By "romantic" do you mean "purely self-absorbed", sort
of like "The sorrows of young Werther"? If that's what you mean, then I
respectfully disagree. We cannot exercise our will-to-power over people
unless to a certain extent they are willing partners in the power game.
Now I don't want to make out like I'm some huge big fan of Thelma and
Louise as a movie, but what happens to them at the end is that they are
unquestionably trapped. There are only two possibilities: over the cliff
or back into the arms of a system that will, without a doubt, completely
screw them. And "the system" for a variety of reasons really *wants* them
back. The willing and even sometimes grateful cooperation of the objects
of power's exercise is often aspired to by power's functionaries. Makes
for a better functioning of power, and perhaps a better conscience too, I
don't know. Thus, the primary sheriff chasing T&L (the preacher from
"Dawn 'til Dusk" and "The Bad Lieutenant") "understands" T&L and wants to
bring them in alive, and is "sympathetic" to them.
But if they allowed themselves to get caught they would wind up back in a
psycho-criminal discipo-reformatory system of justice, where the near-rape
of Gina Davis's character is redescribed as something that's her fault,
where the creep husband is probably made out to be a victim of a "selfish"
and trampy wife, and so on. Now there they are in that concrete situation,
with a very tough decision to make. They decide to go over the cliff. That
decision isn't crazy. Nor is it self-absorbed; nor, finally, do I see how
it is romantic. It seems like a legitimate and even particularly effective
way to thwart power's moves, to transcend its self-satisfied checkmate by
knocking the pieces over. I mean, I remember being pretty shocked when I
saw the movie and they "kept going" at the end.
--John
COLIN WIGHT wrote:
>
> Thelma and Louise I think John.
>
> Still, a pyrrhic victory at best, and not one they were around to
savour.
>
I think you have to subscribe to a bit of romanticism to read such things
as "victories". And few of us are romantic these days...anyone seen the
recent film version of Romeo and Juliet? I think its quite a clever film;
my favourite postmodern reading of Shakespeare so far! And its possible
to read the film as a deromanticising of something that has become a
cliche. Actually its a really interesting film to talk about but thats
not why I'm writing...it would be pointless for me to continue if nobody
else had seen it... [end bit from Mark Holloway]
To Colin: but there's nothing wrong with pyrrhic victories, are there,
other than the large losses involved?
To Mark: I don't know why we have to be romantic to read Thelma and Louise
or Princess de Cleeves (sp?) as victories with quotation marks around the
word "victories." By "romantic" do you mean "purely self-absorbed", sort
of like "The sorrows of young Werther"? If that's what you mean, then I
respectfully disagree. We cannot exercise our will-to-power over people
unless to a certain extent they are willing partners in the power game.
Now I don't want to make out like I'm some huge big fan of Thelma and
Louise as a movie, but what happens to them at the end is that they are
unquestionably trapped. There are only two possibilities: over the cliff
or back into the arms of a system that will, without a doubt, completely
screw them. And "the system" for a variety of reasons really *wants* them
back. The willing and even sometimes grateful cooperation of the objects
of power's exercise is often aspired to by power's functionaries. Makes
for a better functioning of power, and perhaps a better conscience too, I
don't know. Thus, the primary sheriff chasing T&L (the preacher from
"Dawn 'til Dusk" and "The Bad Lieutenant") "understands" T&L and wants to
bring them in alive, and is "sympathetic" to them.
But if they allowed themselves to get caught they would wind up back in a
psycho-criminal discipo-reformatory system of justice, where the near-rape
of Gina Davis's character is redescribed as something that's her fault,
where the creep husband is probably made out to be a victim of a "selfish"
and trampy wife, and so on. Now there they are in that concrete situation,
with a very tough decision to make. They decide to go over the cliff. That
decision isn't crazy. Nor is it self-absorbed; nor, finally, do I see how
it is romantic. It seems like a legitimate and even particularly effective
way to thwart power's moves, to transcend its self-satisfied checkmate by
knocking the pieces over. I mean, I remember being pretty shocked when I
saw the movie and they "kept going" at the end.
--John