Another Queer Jewish Buddhist

Sunday Morning Short Film: Yossi and Yasmin

This beautiful little Israeli film of remembered queer adolescent longing and desire is sweet and sad, filled with yearning that aches with with the mixture of love and sensuality.

I love the way it tells the story indirectly: what happenened to the young gay boy and his young lesbian friend with their respective love interests, and what happened after the kiss...is left to the imagination. That makes for a good discussion post film, and I'd love to know what you think...

Queering the Icon: Marilyn Monroe, Dean's Scotch and Yasumasa Morimura

The image of Marilyn Monroe standing above the subway grate as a gust a air blows her dress up high is an American cultural icon of the 20th Century. Nicholas Roeg's film, Insignificance, opens with the the filming of this famous scene in The Seven Year Itch re-imagined from the POV of the film crew — and the man under the grating who turned on the fan. Roeg's film, far from camp, is among other things a meditation on the prison of sexism: my favorite scene in that film is when Monroe, with the aid of toys bought at F.A.O Schwarz, explains the theory of relativity to its author, Albert Einstein.

In the ad below, this image is appropriated once again, in the service of selling Dean's Scotch:

Created by a team at Scholz & Friends NRW in Germany, their explanation, at Adsoftheworld.com notes that:

"Dean’s Whisky is especially mild. Which is why it appeals not only to rugged guys. The advertisement’s unusually humorous, feminine look and feel are designed to arouse the interest of a new target group and raise awareness of Dean’s Whisky above and beyond its loyal customer base."

Arouse the interest? Who is this new target base? Is this ad running at gay magazines in Germany? In women's fashion magazines? Inquiring minds want to know.

Scotch is one of the few hard liquors that retains an aura of masculine privilege. This might have the effect of undermining their image with the base customer. This isn't to say that I don't like the ad. I think it's hilarious and playful. The image of a man in a regimental kilt uniform is hardly fey. There is every possibility that the core consumer for this product is secure enough so that if they saw this ad they'd laugh. Then again, because this is a "mild" Scotch, it might not have very much of a base with the traditional Scotch drinker, so that an effort like this won't hurt.

I wonder what Marilyn would make of it though. Or what she'd make of the photographs of Japanese artist Yasumasa Morimura. I first saw an exhibit of his self portraits at the Saatchi Gallery in London: images of the artist in drag as Marilyn, Audrey Hepburn, Garbo, Liza Minelli. You can see the photos on the gallery site, where the question is asked:

"Morimura is more than just art's most famous drag queen. Dealing with issues of cultural and sexual appropriation he is constantly exploring ideas of image consumption, identity and desire: Can Brigitte Bardot be as innocently flirtatious with angular Japanese features? Would Marilyn Monroe be as sexy if she was Japanese - and a man?"

Having lived in Japan where I both enjoyed and endured drag acts where these Western film icons were portrayed by Japanese men, I was less interested in the questions posed above than the questions around Japanese identity and the effect of Hollywood and American cultural dominance on the traditional Japanese sense of beauty. I am curious about what the reaction to images is in the debate/discussion about the feminization of Asian men in the West within the Asian and gay Asian communities.

Within the discussion of constructed femininity, Morimura throws a light on the minstrelsy of Marilyn; how her image was just as much a creation out of the fantasies of men as Thomas D. Rice's blackface Jumpin' Jim Crow was a creation out of the fantasies of white men in the 19th Century of black men. 

Good grief, I hope to God I am not turning into a queer theorist. Ewww.

The Gay-O-Meter

What is the correlation between homophobia and attraction to men in the same person? This ad for a website in New Zealand makes the case that Max Blumenthal so eloquently makes in his book, Republican Gomorrah.

Sex on film...

...perhaps this is what Rep Gohmert was worried about when he spoke out on the House floor against the Hate Crimes Bill:

Yes, that's why I love film festivals. And I have a real soft spot in my heart for Vancouver for a number of reasons.

Manscaping the pubes and advertising

MediaBistro's Agency Spy reports on a TV spot previously posted here for Europride. But after they show that spot they report on a video from Gillette Fusion razors on how to shave your pubes, because, "trimming the bush makes the tree look taller." The target here looks like a young male — teens. Yep, I clearly have the wrong copywriting work at the moment.
 

Of course, because the target is young men, and we don't want to scare them off with the idea that body shaving is queer (especially since they're suggesting shaving your groin as a strategy to deal with self esteem issues about size) you'll note when you go to the Gillette site that there is a woman on the side of every visual  to remind the dudes that they're still straight and that women will find it attractive.

Sunday Morning Cartoon: Is It A Choice?

Advertising and the Mating Call

Recently, a Canadian "dating" website started running an ad campaign that is less about the romance. After all, so many dating websites are really about hookups — this site simply dispenses with any of the romantic imagery and cuts to the chase. Clearly their competition is not e-harmony. Of course, given that Craig's List is free, I'm not sure what the market for this is. I will say the campaign is equal opportunity, without shying away from queer sex. And that in itself is worth comment, even if this is a site I wouldn't want to sign up for.

Then, there was the on site marketing in straight bars....

So much for the art of seduction.

Sunday Morning Cartoon: Cucumber Chronicles

I remember seeing this a few years back in the shorts program at the New Festival. It made me laugh then, and it makes me laugh now, though perhaps with more rueful awareness and compassion for all the ways we try to connect...

How to tell if it's Larry Craig...

...in the next stall. Okay, this ad is really for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and their Dinosaur exhibit. But I can't imagine what the creative team was thinking when they came up with this image to go with the campaign theme: "They're just waiting to be discovered." Well, maybe I can imagine, I just don't want to think about it anymore. Except that Joe reported today that Senator Craig (R-Tearoom) dropped his appeal of his own guilty plea. So there's no escaping the possibility that you might see feet like these in a wide stance inching into a stall near you soon.

Porn for the blind? Now I've heard everything.

Describing itself as a " not-for-profit organization dedicated to producing audio descriptions of sample movie clips from adult web sites" this bizarre little site offers an odd selection based supposedly on requests from, uh, listeners. See, uh, hear for yourself.
 

Thanks to Digicynic.wordpress.com