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Oct. 31st, 2009 10:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
adiva_calandiaF-list poll:
Scorsese's Coppola's (oh my god how did I get that wrong) Bram Stoker's Dracula. The scene where Monica Bellucci and the other brides of Dracula are all over Keanu Reeves as Jonathan Harker. Is Harker consenting or not?
(I would ask about Dracula in general, but I, er, have never read the book. I know, I know, I'm a terrible vampire fan.)
(I would ask about Dracula in general, but I, er, have never read the book. I know, I know, I'm a terrible vampire fan.)
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Obligatory.
Date: 2009-11-01 02:26 am (UTC)Re: Obligatory.
Date: 2009-11-01 02:40 am (UTC)Re: Obligatory.
Date: 2009-11-01 02:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-01 03:10 am (UTC)(And if I were more focused, I feel like I could write something about how that scene does a nice job of turning the traditionally dubcon vampire trope on its ear--sexy man performs penetrative act (biting) on sexy female who is both repulsed and attracted--but I am not more focused and I am contemplating alcohol of some sort.)
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Date: 2009-11-01 03:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-01 03:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-01 08:40 am (UTC)(Also, that movie is hilarious.)
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Date: 2009-11-01 10:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-01 07:43 pm (UTC)And that, apparently, is Stoker's thought on yaoi!)
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Date: 2009-11-01 09:05 pm (UTC)Also, the book is reeeeally different from what I've seen of that movie. ALL the men in the book except Dracula are pretty much simpering pansies, in a very Victorian way. You know, the sort who are unwaveringly faithful to their loves, who will step up and be Manly Men in their defense, but are still prone to fainting spells and fits of hysterical angst.
It's an awesome fucking book, actually, if you can deal with the fact that the POV changes every chapter, being told as a different character's personal diary throughout the entire book. That took me a while to get used to, but it's one of my favourite all-time books. I just hate how my favourite character (Arthur) ALWAYS gets cut. For some reason adaptations like to view him as a disposable extra and have Lucy and Mina both going after Jonathan... or morph the two of them into a single character, arbitrarily picking whether to call her Lucy or Mina.
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Date: 2009-11-01 10:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-02 01:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-02 01:43 am (UTC)That's kinda where I come down on this one. I have not seen any of the movies, but in the books it's verrry clear what Harker's thoughts
on yaoiare at the time, and it's all pretty "I say! vampiric sexytime magic!"(I actually like Harker a lot. *pats him*)
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Date: 2009-11-02 05:17 pm (UTC)VERY good point. I will take this to my roomie who was arguing that he was into it. (All three of us who were debating this agreed that no matter what, Harker definitely withdraws consent about halfway through when Monica Bellucci is like "Here are my fangs! There is your cock!" and Keanu Reeves is like "OH MY GOD WTF GTFO," so the debate is now just "Was he into it at the beginning?")
I've been meaning to read it! Epistolary style doesn't bother me; I confess to having trouble with general Victorian writing style sometimes, though.
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Date: 2009-11-02 05:42 pm (UTC)...I think I have to see this movie now. XD
In the book, though, Jonathan thinks he's dreaming. He wakes up in the middle of the night with three freaky chicks standing over him apparently intent on having their way with him, but the Count shows up and shoos them away (he gives them a live kid in a sack, if memory serves... or something equally "WTF??"-inducing). Jonathan falls asleep again and wakes up the next morning in his own room and, since the story is being told from his POV at that point, there's no really good way to know EXACTLY what happened. As he tells it, the impression you get as the reader is that being almost gang-raped by feral undead females is one of the unintended consequences of pretending to be Belle in Beauty and the Beast and breaking into locked places in the castle and falling asleep there after being specifically warned not to do so. If there was ever any willingness expressed on his part, it was because in addition to being under the control of vampire magic, he didn't think what was happening was real anyway.
As the reader, you also get the impression that Jonathan is by no accounts the brightest crayon in the box. I'd call him a mauve or a periwinkle in terms of intellectual aptitude. A lot of his narration goes along the lines of "Well, I knew this was a bad idea, but I did it anyway, because hrr de durrr oh look a vampire D:"
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Date: 2009-11-02 05:48 pm (UTC)LOL, for reals.
I like him, too. But I tend to think of him as something like a singularly stupid spaniel puppy. Mina and Van Helsing seem to be the only people around who are truly capable of Dealing With This Shit without pauses for lengthy trauma and angst.
You know, relatively speaking. This being a Victorian novel and all.
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Date: 2009-11-02 09:30 pm (UTC)*cracking up*