i canât talk shit about the pirates of the caribbean films as if elizabeth swann becoming pirate king didnât hand my entire ass to me and make me the gay i am today
these 2 looks basically defined my sexuality and iâm not afraid to admit it
things pirates of the caribbean got right:
1. will and elizabethâs love story
2. elizabeth becoming pirate king
3. avoiding sexualizing elizabeth or the other female pirate characters in the first 3 films by allowing them to wear period-accurate pirate outfits that arenât tailored to be revealing and impractical for âsex appealâ just because theyâre women
4. hans zimmerâs entire score but especially the iconic âheâs a pirateâ main theme
5. When the movie came out, morally-gray characters like Jack were actually not really a thing yet in pop culture, and itâs not Piratesâ fault that there are a ton of stupid shitty copycats out there.
6. I run a corseting panel at cons and literally use Elizabethâs lace-up scene as a video clip of what historical corseting was actually like, because the only thing they got wrong in this scene is that tightlacing wouldnât be a thing for about another 200 years (and you couldnât tightlace with the corset style Elizabeth is wearing anyway). Itâs one of the most accurate corseting scenes Iâve ever seen.
7. Willâs hat.
8. That scene with all the pirates on the gallows where that little boy starts singing Hoist the Colours? Yeah, thatâs fucking legendary. The rest of AWE was kind of a trash fire, but that scene gave me goosebumps.
9. Thereâs this great shot in the first one where they really drive home the class differences inherent in this time period by having the governor talking about progress and civilization to Elizabeth in their carriage, and then they cut to a shot outside the carriage where a beggar gets splashed by mud from the wheel. Itâs a perfect way to underline that everything is not, in fact, a nice little upper-class fairytale, and to give some weight to Willâs storyline, because he has a lot more in common with that beggar than with the governor.
10. For its time, the CGI was fucking amazing.
11. And letâs not forget the work of the makeup department, which had to actually invent new ways of putting on makeup for this movie.
12. The governorâs death scene. Holy shit.
13. They could have gone with a Jack/Will/Elizabeth love triangle, but they didnât. There are some hints Jack is in love (or at least in lust) with Elizabeth, but he recognizes that she loves Will, and thatâs that.
14. Youâve got to admit that wedding was unique.
15. The introduction of fantasy elements to historical fiction outside of Tolkein-esque fantasy, and how it contributed to and expanded the Fantasy Media boom weâre still enjoying today.
1. They had a woman of colour play a goddess.
2. They had a woman pirate right in the first film, when the tradition is to only show male ones (hell, the PotC ride at Disney had a wench auction scene until recently). And it was a female pirate of colour at that!
3. Elizabeth may not have known how to fight in the first film, but she wasnât helpless either. Her first instinct was to fight, but she also had the brains to recognize when it was best to hide instead. Plus when given the chance she stabbed Barbosa that one time.
4. Elizabethâs lack of fighting ability was not simply because she was a woman, it was clear it was due to her societal circumstances, since we saw other women of different socioeconomic backgrounds being able to fight (and when given the opportunity to learn Elizabeth took to fighting like a duck on water).
5. The Hoist the Colours scene where we see pirates of multiple ethnicities and their varying flags, reminding us that pirates came in all shapes and sizes and werenât just white men.
6. One of the Pirate Lords being yet ANOTHER woman of colour. She may not have had much of a speaking role if memory serves, but even her presence is already a big deal.
7. The pirates accepting their King is a woman without much fuss.
Pirates is amazing I will not here a bad word
Davy Jones CGI is legendary and a ton better than some of the stuff done today đ
Iâm pretty sure that female Chinese pirate was a nod to a real, documented female pirate king who was Chinese and had a whole fleet of ships at her disposal but I canât remember her name rn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ching_Shih
My favorite part about the Bretheren Court voting wasnât that they were against Elizabeth for becoming King as a woman and newcomer. They were pissed at Jack for being a chaotic neutral who broke the decades long tradition of an egotistical stalemate by voting for someone besides himself.
Also, the deleted scenes from Black Pearl and At Worldâs End that divulge more of Jackâs troubled past, like how he was branded as a pirate by the East Indian Trading Company because he stole a ship full of slaves and freed them.
