Went to see the new Spielberg-Kubrick movie last night. Found it enthralling. It’s rare to see a contemporary movie which is almost all metaphor – deeply affecting, primal metaphor. And is there anything more primal than maternal love and the attempt to replicate it elsewhere in our lives? The movie was clearly Kubrick’s in this respect. In its fathomless skepticism about the purity of human love, its dark exploration of the most banal but deepest cruelty – which is only possible, of course, within the family – and in its ambivalent view of redemption which is at the same time a kind of death, it clearly reflected Kubric’s late gloom. It was only slightly marred by a little too much Spielbergian treacle; but the Kaminski cinematography – those amazing underwater scenes of spiritual struggle – made up for any minor sentimentalism. The kid does even better than he did in the wonderful “Sixth Sense,” which is saying something. He is both uplifting and creepy, which is a perfect adjunct to the story of Pinocchio, on which the movie is clearly based and which remains a leitmotif throughout. I guess I always saw Pinocchio as a gay fable: the story of young boy who is told he is not a real boy, and who rebels in search of normality. How much gayer can you get? The Disney version was imbued with hostility to such difference. In an almost comic piece of Freudianism, the symbol of Pinocchio’s deformity is his growing nose. He joins the circus-theater to escape; he ends up in Boys’ Town, where no females are allowed, and which is almost a gay fantasy island. All of it ends in tears, of course, as Disney’s deep Puritanism won the day. But A.I. is more ambivalent. It is saying that perhaps whether the boy is real or not is not as relevant as whether he struggles to achieve his dreams. That struggle is the ultimate realness. And the content of the boy’s dream is straight from Freud: the return to mother. Even if she is not his ‘real’ mother; and even if he has to lose himself in order to find her.
THEY ALSO SERVED III: Another fascinating email, which largely speaks for itself: “I’m a gay veteran – I served in the US army for seven years, mostly as an infantry NCO. My service straddled the critical year of 1993. Ironically, that was the year I was selected as the Soldier of the Year for the First Armored Division and shortly thereafter I went to work for the division’s commanding general as his driver/bodyguard. While I imagine some people guessed that I was gay, I had no problems and was honorably discharged in 95. From my perspective you are right on except for one thing: Your comment that the unit cohesion is the one non-prejudicial argument. There is prejudice there, as well as a large measure of elitism. The argument assumes that the dumb people at the bottom (the enlisted ranks) are so hopelessly bigoted that they would not be able to get along in the same way as college kids and the upper ranks who often find themselves working among openly gay civilians do. Being similarly elitist, the media seems to have fallen for this, but my experience is that it’s backwards. The more junior personnel tend to be younger, but because they are junior, their voices are never heard. Instead, Congress and the media listened, and continues to listen to senior officers and NCOs and especially to retirees who are out of touch with the bulk of the enlisted force who have grown up with different attitudes not dissimilar from other Americans of their generation. I’m not saying dropping the ban would have no problems. Nor am I saying there is no prejudice in the ranks – the death of PFC Winchell shows there is. I am saying, however, that the openly expressed bias of senior leaders fuels this. This elitist abrogation of the duty to lead and to set a positive example is a major contributor to the climate that exists. And their projection of this bias onto others is the major hurdle to overcome.”
HAPPY FOURTH: I’m sorry to say I’m taking the rest of this week off. I need a vacation. I haven’t had a week off since last October, when we started this crazy project. I won’t promise not to write a thing – I may well get too ticked off for that. But the Dish will be very low-calorie till next week. Our redesign is also imminent – and we’ll use the week off to put on the finishing touches.
The Dish 