Avneet Sharma: If Justice League is any indication,
we'll probably see a lot more male characters you like. Cary Grant in that
movie never really gets a handle on Katharine Hepburn... his saying he's in
love with her in the end almost comes as an act of self-defence, a defensive
spell cast, making it seem as if he's got a handle on everything she can apply
onto him (a wild pretence!). For momentarily she is induced into being
grateful, or playing being grateful, that is, as if she was at his mercy, his control:
and this is a predictable routine, required on her part so that she's not just
a phallic woman but a feminine one at source, that gives him a moment where he
knows exactly what he'll have to face with her; he can relax. It's a funny
thing in this movie. I'm sure the idea is that Cary Grant is supposed to
actually need Katharine Hepburn/Susan, for she's the wild, the sex, he's not
going to get in his married life with his due wife. But the movie doesn't play
out this way in actuality. From the start, his upcoming marriage is about a
career of peace and stability, with her (Alice, his determined and stern due
wife) the guardian of it, more than anything else. We never have a sense,
really, other than his questioning about lack of sex and lack of babies (which
is not a big admittance, given that he never in the movie seems one to want to
stick to an act of command more than momentarily), that he wouldn't be content
with that. He's got stability, and she's the formidable shield that'll keep
away all intruders (which is, incidentally, the married life the sex-addict
John Updike wished for and got with his second wife... just by the by.) If this
sounds horrible to you, just imagine you're a Depression age individual
watching a film where the ostensible despised state is someone promised that --
stability, with a fierce shield of a woman protecting it -- rather than a
merry-go-round life with an unpredictable nutter, who's a source of instability
to the guarantee that any act you initiate will go as planned (sound like
Depression life, anyone?)... any act, including ensuring that one step you take
follows another as planned, rather than it being subverted to your somehow
falling on your ass, and who can only be waylaid, or perceived as perhaps being
somewhat waylaid/managed, if you've got a quip ready each and every time she
interrupts your nervous system's plans for initiated synapse to actually follow
through with its ostensibly inevitable predetermined follow through.
About Justice
League... yeah, this spot Cary Grant finds himself in is basically where each
character other than Superman is with Wonder Woman. It's the idea behind there
being so many male members of the team... the load can get distributed, so
Aquaman can feel the relief after he gets subverted against course by her in
knowing he's not due for another round for awhile... now's for Cyborg to feel
not like a spy but a caught-out perv, and impossible-to-catch Flash to feel
like an infant swaddled in arms, however ostensibly gleeful about it, and Batman
to feel like a leader who's stuck in dated ways so has to relent to ....
I will say, though,
that the extended scene where Cary Grant finds himself at dinner is something
Susan leads him to that is an empowering treat for him: he's constantly interrupting
people's talk to get up and chase after that dog... who's his lead to the lost
dinosaur bone. Amidst the matron at the table and the ostensibly patriarchal
big-game hunter, he never loses the ability to keep in mind his original
purpose, which is abstract to this Alice-in-Wonderland turnabout in his life,
and can be imagined vicariously enjoying his ability to so readily unsettle his
fellow dinner guests' expectations of him... play the part of Susan, for
awhile, in a sense. Susan set this up, but he can pretend he's in on it too.
Two wild agents, rationally causing what amounts to disturbed expectations,
chaos, for others.
So maybe the end
would be more satisfying is if somehow an ideal could be constructed. His due
wife Alice would remain with him as a shield, a protection against inanity and
intrusion, and Susan would be equipped as a weapon, something he could unleash
against others if his shield failed him and he found himself amongst domestic
types -- mothers and fathers -- and domestic situations he has no business as
an adult falling back into. She's great for that kind of dire emergency...
absolute chaos for use and cover. As an analogy, Susan is first caught site of
what the war will soon offer Americans... humiliating, un-manning adult reliance
on the like of welfare and parental support to survive, has to meet with what
war will confront it with in its requiring the instant subversion of
estimations of men as assured dependents, into their surely being something
else entirely -- warriors who can ride the war wind.
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