happy dagger

This is the DEI draft/rehearsal for the original Gladiator movie. It was never meant to see daylight, and should have been left on the cutting room floor. The movie’s only authentic moment occurs with Derek Jacobi’s few lines an hour in. It’s a good thing I didn’t have to pay to see it.

Please...just save your money and rewatch Roxanne on Amazon Prime or something. This film does not work at any level unless you're looking for a study in how political correctness can infect an attempt at Art and turn it into a grotesque laughing stock. Yes, it is not Cyrano who is finally the disfigured character who cannot woo, but the film itself as it trips and stumbles at eloquence, causing us to laugh out loud...not with, but at it, and fails ultimately in its suit of us, the viewing audience. It doesn't help to have been misled as to the fact that this was going to be a musical, but the artistic choice turns out to be just another misstep in a film that we shall shortly pass by for $3 in the Walmart discount bin. Were I to engage the film as a serious critic I'd be nodding to Oscar Wilde in observing that "one must have a heart of stone not to laugh at the [spoiler alert] death of Cyrano." As it stands, you're more likely to yield soothingly to the film's soporific effects. We've all been on dates like this: yeah, sorry...just "not feeling a connection."

As we all know, science fiction, when it is done well, reflects social and political tensions back to the culture in disguised forms so that we take them in and metabolize them without really knowing what it is that we are consuming. In Jurassic World, we are transported into the perilous mindscape of radical feminism where, in accordance with the tradition, we can expect deep masculinity to be made a laughingstock while feminist tropes of asexual reproduction and cooperative strategy will reign supreme. Such is the subtext of Jurassic world as indeed male figures are portrayed via well worn 1960s cliches of evil villain, heartless businessman, myopic scientist, irresponsible corporate crusader, bumbling intellect/philosopher at the one extreme, or as clever, fashionably dressed boy-toys on the other. If the film were doing no other work than entertainment, we might just enjoy our popcorn and soda and think nothing more of it. But the film is active in its subliminal messaging and portrayal of a vision of a new world order where females now wield all that masculine values and gifts ever brought to bear while retaining all feminine values as intact as they were in 1950. Truly, the women (and dinosaurs) of Jurassic World are independent, fully autonomous entities who can reproduce without the need of men and will thus ensure the survival of the species, while men are invited to consider a new role reversal as male Barbie dolls dressed up for the entertainment and amusement of fully actualized apex females. The film realizes the promises made by feminists of the 1970s--yes, you *can* have it all--work, family, children, etc.--at no cost to yourselves or your families. And having absorbed what has been built and achieved by the disciplines of masculinity, you can now simply do away with the scaffolding and render men as, at best, irrelevant and, at worst, extinct. Films like this are to be faulted for reselling a tired, second-hand feminist portrayal of women long since proven false, but are even more dangerous for how they portray men--and there are a lot of little boys in the theater who love dinosaurs, but have no idea what their subconscious minds are in for. In Jurassic World, we have to learn to live with this new order, and are invited to admire the new form of cooperative hunting technique where the apex dinosaur is taken down by an indirect skewering. In fact, there is little to admire in this new order, as no problems are actually solved, helpful structures are undermined, and children are presented with yet another layer of confusion as regards sex and gender. Good thing everyone can fly off to...where was it again? Looking forward to the Trans-Jurassic World sequel. Bring it on, Hollywood.