Well-done and sensitive, but it’s hard to place blame on Lynch I think. It’s called aging poorly.
Watch the “7-year Itch” with the Eyen character leering at Marilyn, or perhaps one of the “Charlie’s Angels”, when Drew Barrymore’s character gets her ass slapped - it’s not funny to me at all. I love “Verigo” but when James Stewart tells Kim Novak to dye her hair blonde, she protests and he says “Why should you care?” - the inherent misogyny is so overwhelming it’s stunning. It doesn’t make it a bad film at all but it suddenly makes it very dated, and throws you out of the “suspension of disbelief”. It’s like Mickey Rooney playing a Japanese caricature in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, breathtakingly awful.
I saw “Eraserhead” around 1980/81 in LA which had a lot of arthouse theatres at the time with long foldout lists of movies I loved to mark with highlighters for “must see” and out on the back of my door in my room at Caltech. The followed Lynch ever since, and talked with Dennis Hopper over his and an artist I worked with drunk afternoon of Champagne with friends in Venice about his being the “hero” in Blue Velvet. Then I saw it, so twisted.
I wouldn’t feel so bad, I think. It’s just that it makes the movies and TV shows very dated because we understand the trans delusion better today than at any time in history, as we understand misogyny, and racism better. His work is still astonishingly beautiful, like a living Ed Ruscha painting to me.
I really appreciate this perspective.You make a great point about how we currently have the most complete understanding of transgenderism, even more so than in 2017 and certainly more so than in 1991. I didn't mean to imply that I'm no longer a David Lynch fan, or that I can no longer support his work because of this one disagreement; that isn't the case at all and I certainly don't believe in cancelling artists and creators for every minor infraction. I'll be a David Lynch fan until the day I die, and I have hope that he saw the madness of transgenderism in the final years and months before his death. Either way, I'll always love him.
That’s great. I didn’t feel you wouldn’t be a fan, but it’s terrible to see something beautiful suddenly change, ever so slightly. After all a thing of beauty is supposed to be a joy forever.
"Mulholland Drive" blew me away. I had only seen "The Elephant Man" and "Dune" of his work before that, and I could tell he was speaking metaphorically about something, I just didn't understand the concept of "the casting couch" in Hollywood back then. Very well written article, with a lot of keen insights, thank you.
As you continue your retrospective. There were other problems with the show. Full disclosure, I was/am a big fan despite the flaws. After the storyline made it clear that Leland was the sexual abuser and ultimate murderer of his daughter. All the presentations of Laura Palmers made sense as the victim of familial sexual abuse.
But then, that was completely undone by granting Leland the Get Out Of Jail Free card…it really wasn’t HIM, he was possessed by the evil Bob. A coworker at the time was a victim of familial sexual abuse and she schooled me on how extremely disappointed she was that David Lynch fudged on such an important issue.
For her, he was making the argument that predators are really responsible for their evil. Food for thought.
If you haven't seen it, I'd recommend watching the spin-off film "Fire Walk with Me". It depicts Leland's inner turmoil in greater detail and plays it much more ambiguously whether or not he's really being "possessed" by Bob or if he's conscious of what he's doing. Lynch says that many victims of child sexual abuse have told him that the film felt very accurate to their own experiences.
Very interesting and extremely well written. Quite a leap to the recent episode of Waterloo Road where the grandmother with dementia sees only her grandson dressed as a pornsick schoolgirl. And is considered a transphobe in her realistic view of the world.
I also encountered a blast-from-the-past trans character recently.
First I noticed that the gloriously irreverent and staunchly un-PC English comedy show “Little Britain” had been put back on iPlayer (the BBC’s on-demand platform). To my surprise, there were no content warnings at all - not on the programme page, the episode page or in the video. I read somewhere that they’ve cut some scenes from the show - no idea which ones but episodes from season 3 (broadcast in 2005) featured several scenes with the trans character Emily Howard. I say trans but the off-voice refers to him as a transvestite.
This is a surprising move from the BBC given that they’re all-in for trans ideology. However it’s apparent from ripxnutmeg’s article on the glinner substack, that it’s 1 step forward and 3 steps back with the BBC.
Well-done and sensitive, but it’s hard to place blame on Lynch I think. It’s called aging poorly.
Watch the “7-year Itch” with the Eyen character leering at Marilyn, or perhaps one of the “Charlie’s Angels”, when Drew Barrymore’s character gets her ass slapped - it’s not funny to me at all. I love “Verigo” but when James Stewart tells Kim Novak to dye her hair blonde, she protests and he says “Why should you care?” - the inherent misogyny is so overwhelming it’s stunning. It doesn’t make it a bad film at all but it suddenly makes it very dated, and throws you out of the “suspension of disbelief”. It’s like Mickey Rooney playing a Japanese caricature in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, breathtakingly awful.
I saw “Eraserhead” around 1980/81 in LA which had a lot of arthouse theatres at the time with long foldout lists of movies I loved to mark with highlighters for “must see” and out on the back of my door in my room at Caltech. The followed Lynch ever since, and talked with Dennis Hopper over his and an artist I worked with drunk afternoon of Champagne with friends in Venice about his being the “hero” in Blue Velvet. Then I saw it, so twisted.
I wouldn’t feel so bad, I think. It’s just that it makes the movies and TV shows very dated because we understand the trans delusion better today than at any time in history, as we understand misogyny, and racism better. His work is still astonishingly beautiful, like a living Ed Ruscha painting to me.
I really appreciate this perspective.You make a great point about how we currently have the most complete understanding of transgenderism, even more so than in 2017 and certainly more so than in 1991. I didn't mean to imply that I'm no longer a David Lynch fan, or that I can no longer support his work because of this one disagreement; that isn't the case at all and I certainly don't believe in cancelling artists and creators for every minor infraction. I'll be a David Lynch fan until the day I die, and I have hope that he saw the madness of transgenderism in the final years and months before his death. Either way, I'll always love him.
That’s great. I didn’t feel you wouldn’t be a fan, but it’s terrible to see something beautiful suddenly change, ever so slightly. After all a thing of beauty is supposed to be a joy forever.
"Mulholland Drive" blew me away. I had only seen "The Elephant Man" and "Dune" of his work before that, and I could tell he was speaking metaphorically about something, I just didn't understand the concept of "the casting couch" in Hollywood back then. Very well written article, with a lot of keen insights, thank you.
I don't think "Vertigo" is dated in the way you describe. I think we are meant to recognise Scotty's behaviour as controlling and emotionally abusive.
As you continue your retrospective. There were other problems with the show. Full disclosure, I was/am a big fan despite the flaws. After the storyline made it clear that Leland was the sexual abuser and ultimate murderer of his daughter. All the presentations of Laura Palmers made sense as the victim of familial sexual abuse.
But then, that was completely undone by granting Leland the Get Out Of Jail Free card…it really wasn’t HIM, he was possessed by the evil Bob. A coworker at the time was a victim of familial sexual abuse and she schooled me on how extremely disappointed she was that David Lynch fudged on such an important issue.
For her, he was making the argument that predators are really responsible for their evil. Food for thought.
If you haven't seen it, I'd recommend watching the spin-off film "Fire Walk with Me". It depicts Leland's inner turmoil in greater detail and plays it much more ambiguously whether or not he's really being "possessed" by Bob or if he's conscious of what he's doing. Lynch says that many victims of child sexual abuse have told him that the film felt very accurate to their own experiences.
Very interesting and extremely well written. Quite a leap to the recent episode of Waterloo Road where the grandmother with dementia sees only her grandson dressed as a pornsick schoolgirl. And is considered a transphobe in her realistic view of the world.
(This is kind of related!)
I also encountered a blast-from-the-past trans character recently.
First I noticed that the gloriously irreverent and staunchly un-PC English comedy show “Little Britain” had been put back on iPlayer (the BBC’s on-demand platform). To my surprise, there were no content warnings at all - not on the programme page, the episode page or in the video. I read somewhere that they’ve cut some scenes from the show - no idea which ones but episodes from season 3 (broadcast in 2005) featured several scenes with the trans character Emily Howard. I say trans but the off-voice refers to him as a transvestite.
This is a surprising move from the BBC given that they’re all-in for trans ideology. However it’s apparent from ripxnutmeg’s article on the glinner substack, that it’s 1 step forward and 3 steps back with the BBC.
Great piece, Kitty! Very engaging and thought provoking.
Thank you, Jenny!
In fairness, David Duchovny has a more persuasively androgynous face than probably any actor of his generation.