Ewan's penis (and other things)

[flambeau]

Things that have entertained me lately, for various reasons, in no particular order: Two Lumps; bridge crossings; the sad decline of epic-writing since the mid-90s; Ewan McGregor; a truly driven artist. Also Le Morte d'Arthur, which I am currently rereading. I'd forgotten just how plain wacky it is, and now, of course, I'm seeing them all as anime

Comments

[_inbetween_]

I tend to see whatever the "facts" of the image on screen are and seem to differ in that from you, as it very much throws me out of a fic when bodily details are described that I know differ strongly from the person on screen.

[flambeau]

Well, yeah, if someone says Fraser is blond, I'm going to be confused. But on the other hand, Angel doesn't age, and Boreanaz does. For me, what I see is representation; that representation is obviously canon, but there's still a step between the actor's body and the character's, when I look.

[_inbetween_]

*nods* I know where you are coming from and what you mean. And I could have told you that you are not alone! On the contrary, I do feel that I am very much in an unwanted position of opposition, because of my instinctive reaction - as I said, being thrown out of a fic without wanting to.
It seems that only a little canon is needed and at some point the rest of it becomes a burden to some fanfic writers? I can understand the looks-issue with characters that exist both in books and film, or real people (from biographies, or VIPs) being used. When the source is not even a play but a TV series though, I do not see why the image has to differ.
This is going to haunt me for a while, I know :)

[cathexys]

well, i don't think you're in the unwanted opposition considering that eye colors have become the cliche of fanfic criticism :-)

bodily authenticity is quite often taken as the epitome of canonicity.

and of course there's a spectrum. like, i couldn't do what james does below and simply not care that it's another actor. when i read daniel, i see shanks and not spader. and like zoe below, i do often let my feelings for the actors bleed into my like or dislike for the characters. but i think the thing is that we ought to be *aware* of doing that [and, as i've argued before, i find it problematic to be lectured against RPS where i literally play with a highly constructed image] by people who bodybleed all over the place and thus erase any firm fiction/reality boundary.

[sorry, torch for being all over your lj...anything to not work :-) and i wonder whether ces will give me the "reality" lecture now :-)]

[cesperanza]

Actually, I'm deeply pleased that you said this--deeply because I was trying to formulate something like this during my recent "ass scandal", but couldn't find the words to say it; I have VERY little crossover between actors and characters in my head, and even as you say between actors bodies' and the characters' bodies. I can't entirely explain it either, but I feel it very strongly--so much so, in fact, that I often find it difficult to look at the actors outside their roles (and sometimes in them, depending.)

I thought I was the only one!

[flambeau]

Yay! I feel less alone! And see, we're bonding over those ass pictures in a completely unexpected way. *g*

[elynross]

When killabeez was doing fannish photo-manips more regularly, we used to talk about how you *couldn't* usually use pictures of the actors when they weren't in character because they looked different. Mitch Pileggi's smile is entirely unlike Skinner's smirk, and Peter Wingfield looks very different at cons than Methos probably ever has in his entire life. *g*

[cathexys]

it's *all* about bleedover...and i've been actually wondering a lot about the fact that RPS (at least our corner) had a very clear sense of what was real and what wasn't. and i'm now seeing people RPSing in a way that seems more about what they think is *there* than what we know we're projecting.

i just mentioned in my post (but didn't elaborate) an analogy between new criticism and postmodernism...the new critics believed that there was a true meaning that could be deciphered. if you then write them as gay, if you try to check inch length on poor ewan to get to Obi..there's the sense of "authenticity," of truth to it. and that's a bit troubling to me.

whereas putting JC and justin together in Munich was one of a multitude of possible scenarios, none of them closer or farther away from a truth we knew we could never reach...or sth like this :-)

but then i am not very visual and wouldn't know anyone's eyecolor if it had close ups and really could care less :-)

[flambeau]

Bleedover is really pretty interesting, as a phenomenon. I just dislike it too much to really take a good look at it. *g*

check inch length on poor ewan to get to Obi

Heh. Or really, even check inch length on Ewan to get to Ewan, if you see what I mean.

Authenticity is... a bit of a problem.

And somehow it rolls around to questions of canon in my head now. Like, if I know DH's shoe size, is that canon... and now I'm thinking of the fairly standard practice of making a character's age whatever the actor's age is when no other information is given. Not that there's anything unreasonable about that.

[cathexys]

yup, i think they're all rolled up in one another...that's why for me the RPS folks are almost less problematic, b/c the divide is somehow clearer? JT's canon age is by default his real age...is McKay 38, however??? One is sth where we operate all thew while *knowing* that we're slashing a persona taken from the person...in the second case, the two conflate without any clear awareness or acknowledgment thereof (and it's not that i don't so it...which is why i'm so aware how i'm doing it muxch more *consciously* in RPS!!!)

[flambeau]

Yeah, so La Timberlake can have one canon age and any number of fictional penises, whereas sometimes you get the impression that with a certain view of things, McKay would have just the one canon penis... okay, now I'm officially freaking myself out and I'm going to go sit in a corner for a while and not think of the fictional penises of Justin Timberlake.

[zortified]

I think of the characters as being portrayed "in this instance by [actor]." Which means that, for me, if season two has Bernie Russell suddenly taking over the role after Jim Bonam walks off the set and gets fired -- I'm cool with that. I don't need some kind of weird arm-waving plot device to explain why the character looks different. (I made those names up, by the way

[flambeau]

complaining that this season's Hamlet was shorter and blonder than last season's

Hee! And thank you - that so completely illustrates what I'm getting at. For the duration of this performance, this is what Hamlet looks like. For the duration of DH's contract, this is what McKay looks like. Whoever plays Hamlet probably doesn't normally wear a doublet and hose, and knowing DH's calf measurements doesn't really shed any light on McKay. From where I'm looking, anyway.

And if you thump me for the blue penis, I so get to thump you for Patricia Cornwell.

[zortified]

Anakin came into the room they'd been given, and slammed to a halt and stared

[cathexys]

hastily revising a dozen or more nighttime fantasies beautiful!!! :-) thank you!!!

wasn't there a subset of alien!obi-wan stories way back when???

[glossing]

(Here via cathexys).

Thinking that I clearly don't think like other people about this, I guess.
I posted thoughts very similar to yours recently and was pleasantly surprised to find that I *wasn't* alone in drawing distinctions between actors and their characters.

[flambeau]

Hey, cool! Thanks for the link, and now I have to be thinky about AUs. Sometimes they feel like they're about the bodies somewhere else, but sometimes they really don't - okay, that was more obvious than thinky, but I got sidetracked onto thinking about extreme AUs in anime fandoms, which aren't so much about the body because there is no body, but then, I suppose they could be about a theoretical body, maybe? But sometimes I think people AU a certain view of a character rather than a certain view of the actor's body. And sometimes not. And could I be any more waffly if I tried? *g* But between you and Ces, I now feel a lot more normal! :)