Beowulf

I finally saw the Beowulf film. On reflection I decided the story, although it had bothered me somehow at the time, was actually really interesting, very much in the spirit of the original, but doing interesting things too. And that the filming had some iconic moments, and many moments that were notably 3d but not particularly interesting in any other way, and otherwise was rather perfunctory.

For instance, as in the opening scene, depicting a roistering mead hall. But they seemed to glide around the hall showing each appropriate thing "drunken people, check, vomiting, check, persuing swedish wench, check, heaving bosoms but nothing inappropriate, check". But no real sense of majesty or exuberance or chaos — or even decadence — was particularly evoked.

This dichotomy was explained nicely when I looked the film up on wikipedia, and discovered it had been co-written by Neil Gaiman, but directed by someone other than Neil Gaiman.

( spoilers )

Bisexual kisses

The backstory

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jun/24/asa.advertising

Heinz showed an advert where the mother of a family was replaced by a (male) New York deli sandwich maker. At the end, the husband is running of to work, and the sandwich maker says "Hey, aren't you forgetting something" in a humorously New York gruff way, and the husband gives him a little kiss. ( The digressions )

The point

The advert was removed when several people complained it was inappropriate for kids. (Presumably because it showed a gay kiss, although this wasn't actually stated in the article I read.) (People wishing to complain about that, someone linked to contact details here )

However, it's not showing an actual gay couple. Several people verbalised what was nagging me, atreic: "so I find it very nudge-nudge-wink-wink men kissing that's _funny_, and I'm quite glad the damn thing has been pulled.",

foreverdirt summed it up "If it hadn't been for Heinz's actions, I would be torn between quiet cheer that the ad features a same-sex kiss that isn't treated with disgust, and equally quiet fuming about how sexist and heteronormative the ad is. However, I am much, much more offended by the ad being pulled for featuring a same-sex kiss than I am by the ad itself -- it's not that the ad was a great leap forward, but the reasons that it was pulled are a great leap back."

It's a joke about gay kisses, rather than portraying gay kisses as normal. Which could be nasty, but on reflection, I think can be a positive thing.

It's not a nasty joke. There seems a sequence of societal acceptance that starts with jokes because they show [thing that makes people uncomfortable], and have a good marketing reason for showing it, without being as much of a leap as actually showing [thing] positively would be.

I've often thought this about bisexuality, which seemed to lag a number of years behind gay in getting any tv acceptence. Gay portrayal seems to have gone through the sequence -- there's obviously a long way to go, but I think it started with jokes about gay people, and now there are every so often normal gay characters on TV. TV acceptance of Bi seems to be just starting: it's generally only shown where it's funny. But I think that, counter-intuitively, it is a step on the way to becoming accepted.

( Gratuitous quote from Jonathan–Ross-kissing fantasy author[1] )