Pirates & gheyism
My Islands & Oceans tutor introduced us to a new journal database today. I've just been on it to see if there's anything useful about Pirates of the Caribbean and I found this: "Yo Ho, A Pirate's Life For Me" - Queer Positionalities, Heteronormativity, and Piracy in Pirates of the Caribbean. A Queer Reading by Heike Steinhoff I don't know if that link will work with a username/password so I'm going to give you the best parts anyway XD
For example, there is the part where the author is talking about the sexual identity of Jack Sparrow, and suggests that the fight in the blacksmith's between him and Will is quite homoerotic: "their first encounter, a spectacular sword-fight, bears homoerotic connotations: the two men's phallic swords almost gently touch each other - and their bodies are exposed to the voyeuristic gaze of the spectator as well as to that of the respective other male character."
We then move on to Will's sexuality, about which the writer makes this judgement: "Moreover, in a reversal of their first encounter, i.e. the sword-fight in which Captain Jack Sparrow spares Will Turner from death, it is Will Turner who saves the pirate's life in the film's last scene. Protectively stepping in front of Captain Jack Sparrow, Will Turner heroically declares his love, proclaiming that this is where he belongs: between the British soldiers and Captain Jack Sparrow. The highly ambivalent and potentially homoerotic relation to Captain Jack Sparrow as well as Will Turner's partly androgynous representation, which results from his outward appearance and voice, increasingly tend to destabilize the notion of a hero who is straight and masculine in all aspects."
If the link works then I recomment the essay, it's equal parts kinda-cool and kinda-hilarious. And yes, I do intend to reference it XD
For example, there is the part where the author is talking about the sexual identity of Jack Sparrow, and suggests that the fight in the blacksmith's between him and Will is quite homoerotic: "their first encounter, a spectacular sword-fight, bears homoerotic connotations: the two men's phallic swords almost gently touch each other - and their bodies are exposed to the voyeuristic gaze of the spectator as well as to that of the respective other male character."
We then move on to Will's sexuality, about which the writer makes this judgement: "Moreover, in a reversal of their first encounter, i.e. the sword-fight in which Captain Jack Sparrow spares Will Turner from death, it is Will Turner who saves the pirate's life in the film's last scene. Protectively stepping in front of Captain Jack Sparrow, Will Turner heroically declares his love, proclaiming that this is where he belongs: between the British soldiers and Captain Jack Sparrow. The highly ambivalent and potentially homoerotic relation to Captain Jack Sparrow as well as Will Turner's partly androgynous representation, which results from his outward appearance and voice, increasingly tend to destabilize the notion of a hero who is straight and masculine in all aspects."
If the link works then I recomment the essay, it's equal parts kinda-cool and kinda-hilarious. And yes, I do intend to reference it XD