Stuff I've Learned from Reading
I stole this format from Lindsey Millar, but I like it. Here are some of the weird things I've picked up from what I've been reading lately:
"The Robber/Sanchez must be pure evil and inhuman [to make a joke about the death of Felix Leiter]. James Bond ought to kill them, preferably in a similar way or at least in some fashion equally, if not more, gruesome. Yet when Bond responds to the death of a villain with such nonchalance we laugh or giggle and generally take pleasure not only in the death but the way in which Bond responds to it, namely, with such lightheartedness that he might have just flushed a fish down the toilet instead of dropping a defenseless Blofeld wheelchair and all down a smoke stack." The essay "Don't You Men Know Any Other Way?" by Jacob M. Held from the book James Bond and Philosophy. There are some intriguing essays, although, one of the essays that addresses sexism in Bond films seems to conclude it's nothing to worry one's pretty little head about.
"In horror, the man who does not take care of his teeth is obviously a man who can, and by the end of the movie will, plunder, rape, murder, beat his wife and children, kill within his kin, commit incest, and/or eat human flesh (not to speak of dog- and horsemeat, lizards, and insects), and so on and on." Men, Women, and Chain Saws by Carol J. Clover. I picked it up because of the title. It's very academic, so reading ten pages sometimes took half an hour. Still, she made some points I hadn't expected but found very interesting.
