padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
Mishima was famously obsessed with and had himself photographed as St. Sebastian
Homoerotic cinema club
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Yeah, it was published in '63 and he wrote it in his early 20s. That he tied it to female homosexuality exclusively was what really raised an eyebrow for me.
IdleRich
IdleRich
Perfect timing. We've just been looking round the knights templar castle in Tomar and there is a hugely impressive church inside with loads of wood panels - we've just been looking at a classic pic of a muscular Sao Sebastiao tied to a post (not a tree this time) as people fire arrows into his torso from point blank range.
Poor bloke.
IdleRich
IdleRich
Another classic is the Jean Genet one with two prisoners blowing smoke to each other through the holes in their cell wall.
en.wikipedia.org
Un chant d'amour - Wikipedia
IdleRich
IdleRich
IdleRich
IdleRich
The perspective seems all wrong with the shooters. When did they really get a handle on that? I'm not sure when the painting is from - the castle basically dates from almost 1000 years ago in its oldest points but they added loads of bits. This church is maybe five or six hundred years old I think (edit - checked and it's actually twelfth century).
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
the sexuality in his films is about as straight as it gets. that naked fight in Eastern Promises is decidedly unerotic.
even his Naked Lunch adaptation (iirc, it's been awhile) almost entirely ignores homoeroticism in favor other Burroughs themes
otoh that body horror does sometimes shades into other kinds of transgressive sexuality. Crash most obviously.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
I always enjoy those kinds of wildly anachronistic Renaissance paintings of Classical and Biblical scenes
i.e. guys in early 1500s dress with a crossbow and what appear to be an English longbow skewering a Roman centurion
that Sebastian is rather androgynous - tho I guess there are two main traditions of depicting him?
one in that vein as more of a beatific, beautiful, idolized youth
the other truer to life - or at least, the story, whether he actually existed historically or not - as unmistakably a man, i.e.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
he really is fascinating as a gay icon
his face doesn't register the pain, that beatific tranquility
which I believe is how martyred saints were commonly portrayed - physical torment ameliorated by God's grace
anyway there's - iirc - a Susan Sontag line about how because of that his beauty is eternally divorced from his suffering
he's both an obvious object of desire - subject of the male gaze - and an almost impossibly neat metaphor for the suffering of the closet
also the penetrative quality of the arrows, another metaphor and one that works on multiple levels
I imagine I'm not saying anything here art historians or semioticians or someone hasn't already dissected somewhere at length
his face doesn't register the pain, that beatific tranquility
which I believe is how martyred saints were commonly portrayed - physical torment ameliorated by God's grace
anyway there's - iirc - a Susan Sontag line about how because of that his beauty is eternally divorced from his suffering
he's both an obvious object of desire - subject of the male gaze - and an almost impossibly neat metaphor for the suffering of the closet
also the penetrative quality of the arrows, another metaphor and one that works on multiple levels
I imagine I'm not saying anything here art historians or semioticians or someone hasn't already dissected somewhere at length
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
but I find it quite interesting, this idea of reaching into the past to discern hidden meaning or to impart new meaning
even in terms of more recent and lowbrow history like 80s action films
because it's so recent that homoeroticism, or any kind of queer sexuality, can be openly shown
that queer people had no option but to develop that means of reading into art
even in terms of more recent and lowbrow history like 80s action films
because it's so recent that homoeroticism, or any kind of queer sexuality, can be openly shown
that queer people had no option but to develop that means of reading into art
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
actually Saint Sebastian very much makes me think another form of idealized male suffering, Dying Gaul
and it is an idealized form, the Gauls being identified with physical prowess, courage, etc - noble savages - to the civilized Greeks + Romans
a kind of inverse to the heroic nudity common in Antiquity - pathetic nudity, as the art scholars have it
it's intended as propaganda - bolstering oneself by depicting a defeated foe as strong, valorous, etc
but it also has that Sebastian duality - beauty of the form combined with vulnerability
not quite the same, the attitude to suffering is stoic rather than beatific but you see what I'm getting at
and it is an idealized form, the Gauls being identified with physical prowess, courage, etc - noble savages - to the civilized Greeks + Romans
a kind of inverse to the heroic nudity common in Antiquity - pathetic nudity, as the art scholars have it
it's intended as propaganda - bolstering oneself by depicting a defeated foe as strong, valorous, etc
but it also has that Sebastian duality - beauty of the form combined with vulnerability
not quite the same, the attitude to suffering is stoic rather than beatific but you see what I'm getting at
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
what is that, Walter Benjamin?
William Gaddis.