#silver screen commentary

[angel-gidget]

★ ☆ Silver Screen OTPs:  P e r c y  ┼  M a r g u e r i t e

[angel-gidget]

While I love the sentiment of writing material about female protagonists accomplishing things in decades known for "man's world" media, I can get impatient with some cliches I see.

Yes, the 30's and 40's were filled with movies that had an all-male cast. And yes, there were a lot of people in the 50's who thought a woman's place was demurely cleaning and cooking in the kitchen. And yes, sexual assault has been disturbingly used as a pickup line in romance stories since the dawn of the pulp novel.

But there have ALWAYS been a large number of people who have known those tropes are bullshit. In every decade. And they had different ways of responding to that aspect of the culture.

Maureen O'Sullivan's Jane, for example, responds with the most delightful deadpan sarcasm. At some point, I should make her a distinct set of gif sets showing this. But there's so many lovely examples.

In Jane's introduction in Tarzan the Ape Man, the safari crew are worried about her being a drag on the trip, unable to defend herself. So they hand her a rifle and ask her how she shoots. She outshoots every one of their target records and sweetly replies "Like an angel."

And while I have to search, I remember one of the 1930's serials containing lines with the sass dialed to 11 like "Oh, Tarzan! I'm so glad you kidnapped me and violently dragged me to your cave to have your wicked way with me among this wild and dangerous bunch of jungle animals."

She says as Tarzan waits on her hand and foot, in their furry den he built with his own hands, bringing her fresh-squeezed organic fruit juice like the devoted boyfriend he is.

Now the weird and actually misogynistic thing is that IS how the TRAILER for the movies goes. It shows Jane being dragged around screaming by Tarzan and does the whole spiel. But the film itself? Clearly made by saner individuals. In 1932.

[angel-gidget]

I haven't got much to say in defense of The Scarlet Pimpernel except that sometimes you have to be allowed to like things that are a little terrible.

Not that it's all-around terrible. It's a classic movie with stellar acting, nice cinematography, lovely costumes, and incredibly witty one-liners. But the sub-plot stuff and various character behaviors are kinda terrible.

The female lead literally swoons when she's overcome by emotion. The romantic tension between estranged husband is wife is drawn over the course of about two years when it could have been solved by a little communication in, like, two minutes.

But sometimes you just wanna bask in the melodrama. Plot devices are just that, devices, to allow you to enjoy the emotional push and pull of the characters in their circumstances.

Circumstances like falling in love with your husband's vigilante alter ego without realizing they're the same person. Or realizing your wife has not been the evil traitor you thought for the past year, and realizing she still loves you and even supports your secret superheroing but you can't tell her bc REASONS.

If writers get a little lazy about how they get there every once in a while, it don't hurt nobody.

(On a slightly tangential note, I have decided on a tag for my classic cinema thoughts. It's gonna be the Silver Screen Commentary tag)

[angel-gidget]

This trip down nostaliga lane has now reminded me of other characters and media I enjoyed that don’t technically fit the boundaries I set for myself on this gifset set.

I’m thinking of ships that are in color, thought I was attempting to go literal with the “silver screen” theme. Said theme also implies movies, not TV shows, but I did have a few classic nick-at-night type things I grew up with and now I’m thinking of them.

I’m considering going back through my recent gifsets and re-titling them something more broad. Like “List of Cinematic Lovers” or “Vintage Valentines”