So what happened last night?
I saw John friggin’ Carter of Mars. The way I’d always envisioned it!
Edgar Rice Burroughs is most famous for creating Tarzan. But his lesser known creation, John Carter of Mars, was the basis for . . . well, practically most adventure science fiction. Wikipedia calls the genre “planetary romance,” and that about fits. Certainly it’s a major part of the origins of “space opera.” So when you think of Avatar, Star Wars (before it sucked), Buck Rogers, Babylon 5, I could go on . . . they all contain nods to or outright stealing of elements that first appeared in the Burroughs Mars (Barsoom, to its native inhabitants) series. The series dealt with flying ships, space travel, war, honor, science run amok, genetic experiments, you name it!
The influence of the Barsoom series is quite vast, and is one of the original serial pulp fiction series. The first three books, A Princess of Mars, The Gods of Mars, and The Warlord of Mars are all in the public domain, so I reread them just a few short months ago.
So. Awesome.
I had so much fun reading them. They have everything you would expect from pulp fiction. Beautiful women. Dangerous creatures. Exotic locales. Sword fighting. Mayhem. Adventure. Took me back to when my mother introduced me to them when I was in the seventh grade. They were the absolute perfect books for a young teenage boy! (Or a thirty year old boy. Whatever.)
I mean, just look at some of the covers to these books from the different editions!
The Frank Frazetta cover to A Princess of Mars.
The Chessman of Mars . . . the original sci-fi gladitorial arena.
Another Frazetta cover, this one for The Swords of Mars.
Frankenstein's moster, Martian-style. Synthetic Men of Mars cover by Whelan.
More recently there have been a comic series adaptation of A Princess of Mars. You can see the influence of the previous cover artists here.
Turok Makto from James Cameron's Avatar, anybody? (Also, note the big green humanoid, vs. the big blue humanoids from Avatar.)
And this one's just sheer awesomeness. Ancient ruins. Flying ships. Monsters. Giant four-armed sword wielding humanoids. And all under the gaze of Mars' two moons. What's not to like!?!
You cannot tell me you don’t recognize some images that have been picked up again and again in science fiction book covers, movie posters, comic books, etc. All created in response to the Barsoom series.
So last night the new John Carter trailer premiered. Here it is:
I loved it. Absolutely loved it. The way it envisioned the things I had been imagining since I was in junior high, channeling the best pulp fiction artists and some (arguably) of their best pulp fiction art . . .
Of course, my experience with Mr. George Lucas the Devil has made me wary of this upcoming John Carter movie, even though it is written and directed by the guy who did Finding Nemo and WALL-E, both of which won academy awards because they were so good. In particular, I’m not sure about the casting of the Martian princess Dejah Thoris. Don’t get me wrong, Lynn Collins is a fine looking woman, but Dejah Thoris is the science fiction equivalent of Helen of Troy from The Iliad, the face that launched a thousand ships. Quite literally by the end of The Warlord of Mars, John Carter has embroiled the entire planet in a war just because he wants to get his wife back from kidnappers! Then again, I had the same reservations about Diane Kruger’s beauty in Troy, and that turned out okay. Maybe it’s unrealistic of me to think we could actually find a woman who was so pretty she starts wars. Still, Collins just doesn’t seem . . . right.
But in the trailer, when John Carter says “yes, ma’am,” oh, it sold me. That’s exactly what Carter would say. He’s a gentleman soldier. Civil War veteran. Yes, he fought on the side of the confederates, but I’m sure that was due to the philosophical disagreement about state’s rights and the federal government.
Okay, I’m going to stop my random ranting about this.
But I think my inner child took a breath last night.
It felt good.
7 comments:
If Skyrim hadn't already resuscitated my inner-child then this would have. Hands down.
Carl, I am going to need to invoke your title of Open-minded Chauvinist and call you on a major, major, major oversight.
At least one of those images you claim as evidence that the book was perfect for a young teenage boy is in fact pornographic. Yeah, I'm talking about the one with a man and woman writhing together, both nearly naked, and the woman apparently topless, with only tattoos on her breasts to act as clothing.
I kept re-reading this post, trying to find evidence that you were being sarcastic in your praise of those covers, but I can't find any evidence to support my theory that you're being sarcastic.
How is your praise of such a pornographic image of a woman consistent with your belief that women shouldn't wear bikinis? I get that it's an illustration, but it's a vivid, detailed illustration.
I know a lot of feminists who'd look at your censure of women for wearing that kind of clothing, compare it to your insistence that an image like that is evidence that a book is perfect for a young boy and that it can even bring back your inner child - and then, those feminists would take that inconsistency as evidence that you perceive women's bodies as belonging to men and that you only take issue with women in scanty clothing when they dress that way outside of the bounds you want to allow. I'm tempted to draw such a conclusion myself, but I'm hoping I'm wrong, and that this post was really, really ironic.
Emily, I'm not being sarcastic. I think the covers of a pulp fiction story are a very different medium than choosing to wear a bikini in our hypersexualized society when you have other options to wear (and you, in particular, do avail yourself of those options), and I don't think I'm being inconsistent.
First, I can't even tell which one you think is the one where they're writhing together. None of these, in my opinion, has an overt sex (as in, the act of sex) theme.
Second, on Barsoom, everybody is half-naked. Armor? Who needs it. I'll defend my woman across the length and breadth of the planet with a sword and a sword alone. Because on Barsoom, men are men! And, if you read the later books, the women are women! (I particularly liked A Fighting Man of Mars, where the beautiful, yet arrogant, noblewoman is nothing but a damsel in distress and a jerk about it, too, and the self-reliant, fighting, witty slave girl is the one who is actually worthy of our hero.) Nudity on Barsoom is more of a cultural thing than anything else. The nudity will obviously not be present in the Pixar movie, haha.
Third, nudity itself isn't sexual. I'm not turned on by the naked women in The Gods Must be Crazy movies, because they're not presented as objects of desire. Context matters, and in the Barsoom novels, the nudity isn't treated as overtly sexual. More exotic than anything. Not erotic. Sure, lots of pulp fiction is overtly sexual. But Burroughs is not. I'm more offended, for example, by Princess Lei's metal bikini, because she's the only one in the room that is wearing something like that. It's clearly trying to be more exploitative. (Though, I suppose Jabba is naked, but . . . . *shivers* THAT DOESN'T COUNT!!)
Carl, I'm sorry, but your answers essentially amount to the assumption that viewing women in that kind of clothing is only wrong when you're not in control - when it's a woman making the choice in public, rather than you making the decision to consume (in the sense of consumerism) an image of the woman. Ya haven't convinced me.
Emily, at what point do I give up my control? When I attend a beach? What if I were to go live among the Africans that are depicted in The Gods Must Be Crazy?
At what point does the same outfit become provocative, and when does it not?
If you were suddenly transported to a planet where everybody was naked, and had to live among the inhabitants, would you continue to wear full pantsuits for the rest of your life? (Let's assume, for the moment, that religious garments don't figure into the picture?) If I were suddenly then transported to that same planet ten years later, would you be embarrassed to see me?
If you can explain to me the difference between exotic "immodesty" (which I don't automatically find offensive) and erotic "immodesty," (which I am at least wary of in 100% of the situations not involving a husband and wife), then I think we're getting somewhere. But I fail to see why my decision to consume something . . . holy crap. We're arguing about authorial intent again!
What does it mean for you to wear a bikini? Is it the same intention as when Dejah Thoris wears one? There. That's the heart of the matter.
Emily, comment #57.
http://www.feministmormonhousewives.org/?p=7433
I feel like we should resume this conversation via google chat or some other medium where we can ask each other, "Wait, are you saying _____?" and explain, "Sort of. I am saying ____, but I'm not saying ____."
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