dreamer_easy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dreamer_easy) wrote2005-09-16 09:50 am
dreamer_easy) wrote2005-09-16 09:50 am
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Pseudolus
Better-informed movie-goers pointed out that A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum was inspired by the Roman playwright Plautus, so I grabbed a copy of Pseudolus, which I'm reading with much enjoyment. (There are numerous very funny breaks of the fourth wall; Pseudolus declines to explain his non-existent plan to his young master since "plays are long enough as it is".)
Now, it's tempting to excuse the sexism of Funny Thing on the grounds that it's accurate to the period, so I've got an eye out for where the play and the movie are similar or different. IIRC - and I'm no expert on classical drama! - only men were allowed to participate in the theatre; there are no speaking female roles in Pseudolus, and the audience would have been entirely male. The gaze, as they say, is very much male. Now, the film has a few female roles, but the gaze is just the same: the brain-dead girlfriend and the pecking, prudish wife are there for male viewers to enjoy, familiar characters from sitcoms et al of the sixties and seventies. Another difference is the attitude to sex slavery - in both texts it's taken for granted as part of Roman life, which is fair enough, but the play is a whole lot less positive and jolly about it, with the pimp bullying his courtesans and threatening to put them out on the street if they're insufficiently lucrative.
Back to the sofa, where Frank, Tim, and the rest of the play await...
Now, it's tempting to excuse the sexism of Funny Thing on the grounds that it's accurate to the period, so I've got an eye out for where the play and the movie are similar or different. IIRC - and I'm no expert on classical drama! - only men were allowed to participate in the theatre; there are no speaking female roles in Pseudolus, and the audience would have been entirely male. The gaze, as they say, is very much male. Now, the film has a few female roles, but the gaze is just the same: the brain-dead girlfriend and the pecking, prudish wife are there for male viewers to enjoy, familiar characters from sitcoms et al of the sixties and seventies. Another difference is the attitude to sex slavery - in both texts it's taken for granted as part of Roman life, which is fair enough, but the play is a whole lot less positive and jolly about it, with the pimp bullying his courtesans and threatening to put them out on the street if they're insufficiently lucrative.
Back to the sofa, where Frank, Tim, and the rest of the play await...
no subject
I can see how someone without my strict childhood training would blanch in horror, though. I had a similar reaction when recently re-watching old Wonder Woman episodes (excuse me, she makes the tea for all the men, and they chuckle about how Diana Prince certainly isn't beauty pageant material?)
On the other hand, when I come against rampant sexism & destructive attitudes towards women in the Classics, I get quite irate about it!
Now have to admit I have been studying Ancient Rome for nearly 10 years and have never read Plautus. Will have to track Psuedolus down myself. Personally, I think there's a thesis in the 1960's pop culture obsession with Ancient Rome (Vestal Virgins and eunuchs really got them excited), but I have a thesis of my own to finish first. :)
Cheers,
Tansy
no subject
There's an all-too-familiar character in the movie: a fat, sexually aggressive woman. Jackie Chan, Blackadder, and many more have faced such horror!
The word "virgin" is thrown around liberally in the film, as though titillating in and of itself, which I suppose it must have been! It's interesting to compare the slave girl's reaction to being sold in the play (she weeps) and in the movie ("Take me!!!").