help please! hopefully fun this time
Hi flist.
I'm writing an essay about disappointment. It's not a scholarly essay - because that would be ridiculous - more a pop/cultural assembly around this theme. (It's for Janek's residency. He is doing a project about disappointment. I thought it would be way more fun to follow the theme than to write a standard artist bio/description text, though I will do that later as very little good writing exists about him, and he's brilliant).
So I thought I'd bring together the world's greatest disappointments (in history, culture, pop culture, whatever) and expand them thematically. It's actually quite hard to come up with them, because issues like unexpected failure, disaster, and treachery keep coming up - which are all strongly related. But the specific quality of disappointment I think is where the expectation/hope of the opposite is so strong that there is a hint of irony to the disaster.
Here's what I've come up with so far. All thoughts and suggestions much appreciated!
1) Beagle 2. It's funny as directly after thinking of this, I thought of Tim Henman, as they're both the archetypal British disappointment - and then the second google hit is a Telegraph item called 'Beagle is Henman in space'. Not so original after all, are you Mia? I hated the 'humble British' stuff that came up after this. It wasn't 'very British', as though getting it wrong was something charming and unique that could conceivably add to the appeal of the British National Character (TM). It's just a fuckup. Not the end of the world - I'm also not, you know, so into success at all costs in some fascist way - it was just this attempt to tie this disappointment to some cringeworthy, comfortable field of reference.
2) 'Et tu, Brute?' Yes, I know I said pure treachery isn't quite what I'm looking for, but it's this highly personal treachery - your closest friend, the last person you'd expect - that I think makes it qualify as one of the most famous disappointments of all time.
3) People who are 'a disappointment' to their parents. Disappointment as a personal ontology. This I think is a good sub-category.
King of Swamp Castle: One day, lad, all this will be yours.Prince Herbert: What, the curtains?King: No, not the curtains, lad.I built this kingdom up from nothing. When I started, all I had was swamp. Other kings said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show 'em! It sank into the swamp, so I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. I built a third one. It burned down, fell over, and then it sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up! And that's what you're going to get, lad - the strongest castle on these islands. [ok, this isn't really related. I just love this little speech].
King: Listen, lad, in twenty minutes you're going to be married to a girl whose father owns the biggest - tracts of open land in Britain.Prince Herbert: But I don't want land.King: Listen, Alice--Prince Herbert: Herbert.King: Herbert. We built this castle on a bloody swamp, we need all the land we can get!Prince Herbert: But I don't like her.King: Don't like her? What's wrong with her?! She's beautiful, she's rich, she's got huge [Gestures to his chest] tracts of land.People who are disappointments usually share one or all of the following characteristics: of royal/noble birth, child of an alpha male, sickly, effeminate, gay, or sexually deviant, often having a younger sibling who has everything the parents want but who can't inherit or lead. Disappointment children tend to fade away or die young (if they are good people), or turn twisted and evil (sexual deviancy can come in here), often coming to a showdown with the healthy hetero sibling. In history, I can think of Prince Edward Tudor, who died of an ear abscess as a child but was always a bit pathetic, and gave way to his more robust sisters. In film, I can think of Commodus from Gladiator, and then my brain mists over a bit. Mmm. Commodus incest. Hot! So you have to take over for me. This is a homophobic/patriarchal trope, right? More suggestions of disappointment children here please.
Oh, I just thought of Faramir and Boromir. They don't really fit my formula (but I'm sure it exists anyway); but Faramir is definitely a disappointment. And everyone in LOTR is gay.
OK, I have to go now, but will continue this post later with further examples (it's turning into a way of working on the draft itself). Please, please, give me your examples!
Oh and I had another but I don't know the film. It's an old 1950s Hollywood ancient egypt film. A beautiful, scheming woman marries an old pharoah. I think she may have plotted to kill him so she can be queen. Obviously, because she's a scheming whore, she deserves to die, and at the funeral she gets trapped in the pyramid. It has some really complicated design. She didn't realise that it's the queen's role to accompany the body into the chamber in the depths of the pyramid and die there, with a bunch of monks who have had their tongues cut out. The monk explains this to her as the great stone doors close. She freaks out, but there's nothing she can do. I saw it as a kid and it's remained as a nightmare sequence ever since. Can anyone remember what this film is?
I'm writing an essay about disappointment. It's not a scholarly essay - because that would be ridiculous - more a pop/cultural assembly around this theme. (It's for Janek's residency. He is doing a project about disappointment. I thought it would be way more fun to follow the theme than to write a standard artist bio/description text, though I will do that later as very little good writing exists about him, and he's brilliant).
So I thought I'd bring together the world's greatest disappointments (in history, culture, pop culture, whatever) and expand them thematically. It's actually quite hard to come up with them, because issues like unexpected failure, disaster, and treachery keep coming up - which are all strongly related. But the specific quality of disappointment I think is where the expectation/hope of the opposite is so strong that there is a hint of irony to the disaster.
Here's what I've come up with so far. All thoughts and suggestions much appreciated!
1) Beagle 2. It's funny as directly after thinking of this, I thought of Tim Henman, as they're both the archetypal British disappointment - and then the second google hit is a Telegraph item called 'Beagle is Henman in space'. Not so original after all, are you Mia? I hated the 'humble British' stuff that came up after this. It wasn't 'very British', as though getting it wrong was something charming and unique that could conceivably add to the appeal of the British National Character (TM). It's just a fuckup. Not the end of the world - I'm also not, you know, so into success at all costs in some fascist way - it was just this attempt to tie this disappointment to some cringeworthy, comfortable field of reference.
2) 'Et tu, Brute?' Yes, I know I said pure treachery isn't quite what I'm looking for, but it's this highly personal treachery - your closest friend, the last person you'd expect - that I think makes it qualify as one of the most famous disappointments of all time.
3) People who are 'a disappointment' to their parents. Disappointment as a personal ontology. This I think is a good sub-category.
King of Swamp Castle: One day, lad, all this will be yours.Prince Herbert: What, the curtains?King: No, not the curtains, lad.I built this kingdom up from nothing. When I started, all I had was swamp. Other kings said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show 'em! It sank into the swamp, so I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. I built a third one. It burned down, fell over, and then it sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up! And that's what you're going to get, lad - the strongest castle on these islands. [ok, this isn't really related. I just love this little speech].
King: Listen, lad, in twenty minutes you're going to be married to a girl whose father owns the biggest - tracts of open land in Britain.Prince Herbert: But I don't want land.King: Listen, Alice--Prince Herbert: Herbert.King: Herbert. We built this castle on a bloody swamp, we need all the land we can get!Prince Herbert: But I don't like her.King: Don't like her? What's wrong with her?! She's beautiful, she's rich, she's got huge [Gestures to his chest] tracts of land.People who are disappointments usually share one or all of the following characteristics: of royal/noble birth, child of an alpha male, sickly, effeminate, gay, or sexually deviant, often having a younger sibling who has everything the parents want but who can't inherit or lead. Disappointment children tend to fade away or die young (if they are good people), or turn twisted and evil (sexual deviancy can come in here), often coming to a showdown with the healthy hetero sibling. In history, I can think of Prince Edward Tudor, who died of an ear abscess as a child but was always a bit pathetic, and gave way to his more robust sisters. In film, I can think of Commodus from Gladiator, and then my brain mists over a bit. Mmm. Commodus incest. Hot! So you have to take over for me. This is a homophobic/patriarchal trope, right? More suggestions of disappointment children here please.
Oh, I just thought of Faramir and Boromir. They don't really fit my formula (but I'm sure it exists anyway); but Faramir is definitely a disappointment. And everyone in LOTR is gay.
OK, I have to go now, but will continue this post later with further examples (it's turning into a way of working on the draft itself). Please, please, give me your examples!
Oh and I had another but I don't know the film. It's an old 1950s Hollywood ancient egypt film. A beautiful, scheming woman marries an old pharoah. I think she may have plotted to kill him so she can be queen. Obviously, because she's a scheming whore, she deserves to die, and at the funeral she gets trapped in the pyramid. It has some really complicated design. She didn't realise that it's the queen's role to accompany the body into the chamber in the depths of the pyramid and die there, with a bunch of monks who have had their tongues cut out. The monk explains this to her as the great stone doors close. She freaks out, but there's nothing she can do. I saw it as a kid and it's remained as a nightmare sequence ever since. Can anyone remember what this film is?