Much has been made about how Sofia Coppola’s “The Beguiled” is a feminist reimagining of a 1971 Clint Eastwood movie that was itself an adaptation of Thomas P. Cullinan’s Southern Gothic novel, “A Painted Devil.” But the well-crafted remake turns out to be less about feminism and the female perspective than about the sacrifice of the individual – male or female – to the survival of the group. ...
Read More
It may be the hottest trend today – the so-called strongman as leader. The United States, Russia, Turkey, Syria, the Philippines and North Korea are all led by men who achieved power by being tough on terrorists and other criminals; by vowing to take back or keep their countries for their countrymen, particularly when it comes to jobs; and, most important, by playing on the fear, ignorance and selfishness of their constituents. ...
Read More
The controversy over the faceoff between “Fearless Girl” and “Charging Bull” on Wall Street has raised all sorts of psychosexual and political implications.
Some have seen the 4-foot-girl – hands on hips, chest puffed like a sail heading into the wind – as a symbol of feminist ideals. Apparently, that’s what sponsor State Street Global Advisors, which wants to encourage more women in the boardroom, had in mind. ...
Read More
The painting shows a young black man in a coffin, his face a blur of color in the manner of Abstract Expressionist art – and violent death.
The departed, then, is not just someone who has succumbed to the ills that the flesh is heir to. Emmett Till was just 14 years old when he was lynched by two white men for flirting with the wife of one of them. “Open Casket, “ on view at the Whitney Biennial, is Dana Schutz’s 2016 painting of a mutilated Till in the open casket his mother, Mamie Till Bradley, insisted on. The work has drawn protests and condemnation from black artists and writers, who question the right of a white woman to appropriate a searing moment in black history. ...
Read More
A new exhibit at the Japan Society considers a moment in Edo culture (17th through early-19th century Japan) when the wakashū, or beautiful youth, held sway as companions for men and even women.
The New York Times has written about this from the viewpoint of our current transgender controversies, which makes sense since the show, through June 11, is titled “A Third Gender: Beautiful Youths in Japanese Prints.” But I’m more interested in the parallels to ancient Greece and what such practices say about morality seen through the scrim of history. ...
Read More
There is such an abysmal spectrum of disrespect and insensitivity these days – from Housing Secretary Ben Carson ignorantly calling slaves “immigrants” to the vicious attacks on Jewish cemeteries – that it’s hard to know what to write about first. Certainly, there’s no shortage of blog material screaming for fresh outrage. But today’s ire must be reserved for Marines United sharing nude photos of women and lewd, derogatory comments on Facebook.
As someone who writes homoerotic novels, I appreciate a nude – especially a male nude – as much as the next person. And I have little interest in what consenting adults do in private. ...
Read More
When I interviewed historian David Starkey about his new documentary and book “The Six Wives of Henry VIII” in 2001, I asked him about the downfall of the most bewitching of the wives, Anne Boleyn (No. 2) How did such a smart Rules Girl lose her head?
Starkey’s response was a shrewd one: What’s attractive in a mistress is often annoying in a wife.
I thought of that as I watched President Donald J. Trump back on the stump as if it were 2020. (God, if only it were.) Not that Trump is any Anne Boleyn. If anything, his outsize ego, multiple wives and sybaritic cruelty are much more reminiscent of Henry. But The Donald is an Anne in this regard: They have proved better at the pursuit than the prize. ...
Read More