Have you ever considered piracy?
"Have you ever considered piracy? You'd make a wonderful Dread Pirate Roberts."
--Westley, The Princess Bride.
Pirates of Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest are touted as being Johnny Depp vehicles, as being movies about Captain Jack Sparrow or about Orlando Bloom's painfully honorable blacksmith, Will Turner. I would venture to say that both assertions are true...and yet also untrue.
It's especially easy for female viewers to focus on the "hunks," for women in fandom to focus on the "OMG! Slash!" and highlight that as the thematic base of the films. But to me, from the outset, these have been movies about Elizabeth's experience...seeing this world through her eyes. Elizabeth Swann, the girl who read pirate stories from a very young age and found them so fascinating that she swore allegiance to a small boy simply because she thought *he* was one of her fabled heroes.
TCotBP begins with little Elizabeth hauntingly humming "Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me." If that is not the set-up for these films, I don't know what is. She cleaves to Will, stashes his medallion, because she thinks he's a pirate and loves him for a good 8-10 years after that, operating under the thought that, one day, he's going to turn into her dashing and nefarious hero.
Of course, as the viewer sees him, Will is courtly and honorable, a little doofy. Anything but what Elizabeth thinks he is.
Who is it that rescues her? Literally brings her back to life and unfetters her from the confines of her mundane life in Port Royal? Captain Jack Sparrow. Her heavy, formal dress goes floating away in the sea. He breathes into her, he cuts her corset strings. And from that moment forward, Elizabeth's own descent into piracy is set...and we see that she, too, is not what Will thinks she is. She is not a lady, a "Miss Swann." She craves adventure and has no qualms about shouting "parlay" at Pintel and Ragetti when they find her in the governor's mansion. She faces down Barbossa instead of cowering and fainting like a proper woman ought to. And, indeed, her lack of propriety goes further...when she drinks vile rum with a pirate and generally goes about saving her own ass. (Silly girl...the menfolk are supposed to do that!)
When we see her in Dead Man's Chest, that cheeky, ballsy woman who coshed pirates over the head on Isla de la Muerta is once again fettered, bound in a wedding dress, looking sad and maudlin. Ostensibly, she's depressed because the storm ruined her nuptials and her fiance has gotten arrested. What happened to our budding pirate queen, hmm? Fortunately, the writers remember her...and just when you think Elizabeth is going to sit at home and let the boys do the adventuring, she takes matters into her own hands. She waves a gun in Lord Beckett's face, she ascertains what needs to be done, and her story kicks off, once again, with her beautiful dress lying abandoned and floating away in the sea.
"I'm ready to be married," she wearily tells Jack on the Black Pearl a bit later. "I'm so ready." He doesn't believe her and neither do we! What proper bride runs about in men's trousers on a pirate ship? Is she really chasing down Will? The mystical, magic compass certainly points to...NO. Yo ho, yo ho, Elizabeth is exactly where she wants to be: on the high seas. You can't have it both ways, Lizzie dear...and that's reinforced later on, when she tries to stop Jack, Will, and Norrington from fighting by feigning the vapors and passing out. They don't pay her a bit of attention! Not just because they're too focused on their testosterone-laden posturing, but also because at this point, they know Elizabeth can take care of herself. She's wearing pants, she can handle a sword, and they're not going to fall for the ol' "delicate sensibilities" trick.
Elizabeth is, at that point, one of the title pirates of the Caribbean. Perhaps she's always been.
Back when the first film came out, I automatically drew parallels to Star Wars, to Will as the wide-eyed farm boy from Tattooine, to Elizabeth as the "princess" who is really a ruthless rebel, to Corellian smuggler Han Solo and marauding Jack Sparrow. And that's reinforced in Dead Man's Chest. Elizabeth is Leia sans cinnamon bun coif and closer to her personal pirate roots. She doesn't need the "I think you like me because I'm a scoundrel" talk from Jack because we (and she) know that's why she likes him. They have their tight fit Falcon moment in the first film, while swilling rum and toasting to freedom. Perhaps even earlier, during the sexually charged "easy on the goods, Love," moment after he's saved her.
And in the second film, it's not the Empire who drops her lover into the carbonite. It's Elizabeth herself who makes that choice, who hits that button. It's not "I love you," and "I know," that they exchange. It's Jack noting, with some admiration, "Pirate." Jack acknowledges her embracing who she is, embracing the prophecy of that song. "We're devils and black sheep and really bad eggs." They challenge each other...she insists he'll be tempted to do good, and he insists she'll be tempted to do bad. They are both right. Jack does not hold her betrayal against her. If anything, it reinforces how they are equals, how she is every inch a pirate.
And all the while, poor Will Turner is none-the-wiser. His development is different...it is the path of the farm boy turning into a warrior, but still an honorable one. At the end of Dead Man's Chest, we see him martyrous. Noble, still. He spies Elizabeth and Jack's passionate kiss aboard the Pearl and automatically accepts that he's lost her, that this is what Elizabeth wants...and even turns to comfort her in Tia Dalma's cabin, assuring her that they'll find Jack. Elizabeth's face is wrought with guilt...for cheating on him, but more because she knows what he doesn't: that she consigned Jack to his watery grave.
I am not who you think I am, Will. I never was.
And perhaps Will will find that more heartbreaking, more hard to swallow, than the kiss...because I think he understands her fascination with Jack. He has one, too -- whether you want to read that homoerotically or not. But for her to wholeheartedly betray someone's trust...? That's not how Will operates, how Will sees the world...or his cherished Miss Swann.
That Elizabeth should love Jack is no surprise. Everyone loves Jack Sparrow. They cannot help themselves.
That Elizabeth should love piracy even *more*, however, is a whole different bottle of rum...and exactly what these films seem to be about.
Yo ho.
P.S. This is only tangentially related to the above musings, but the "face" or "maw" of the Kraken is eerily reminiscent of the Sarlacc in Return of the Jedi...and when Jack and Will are bound on the cannibals' island toward the beginning? Absolutely an homage to Luke and Han in the Ewok village.
--Westley, The Princess Bride.
Pirates of Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest are touted as being Johnny Depp vehicles, as being movies about Captain Jack Sparrow or about Orlando Bloom's painfully honorable blacksmith, Will Turner. I would venture to say that both assertions are true...and yet also untrue.
It's especially easy for female viewers to focus on the "hunks," for women in fandom to focus on the "OMG! Slash!" and highlight that as the thematic base of the films. But to me, from the outset, these have been movies about Elizabeth's experience...seeing this world through her eyes. Elizabeth Swann, the girl who read pirate stories from a very young age and found them so fascinating that she swore allegiance to a small boy simply because she thought *he* was one of her fabled heroes.
TCotBP begins with little Elizabeth hauntingly humming "Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me." If that is not the set-up for these films, I don't know what is. She cleaves to Will, stashes his medallion, because she thinks he's a pirate and loves him for a good 8-10 years after that, operating under the thought that, one day, he's going to turn into her dashing and nefarious hero.
Of course, as the viewer sees him, Will is courtly and honorable, a little doofy. Anything but what Elizabeth thinks he is.
Who is it that rescues her? Literally brings her back to life and unfetters her from the confines of her mundane life in Port Royal? Captain Jack Sparrow. Her heavy, formal dress goes floating away in the sea. He breathes into her, he cuts her corset strings. And from that moment forward, Elizabeth's own descent into piracy is set...and we see that she, too, is not what Will thinks she is. She is not a lady, a "Miss Swann." She craves adventure and has no qualms about shouting "parlay" at Pintel and Ragetti when they find her in the governor's mansion. She faces down Barbossa instead of cowering and fainting like a proper woman ought to. And, indeed, her lack of propriety goes further...when she drinks vile rum with a pirate and generally goes about saving her own ass. (Silly girl...the menfolk are supposed to do that!)
When we see her in Dead Man's Chest, that cheeky, ballsy woman who coshed pirates over the head on Isla de la Muerta is once again fettered, bound in a wedding dress, looking sad and maudlin. Ostensibly, she's depressed because the storm ruined her nuptials and her fiance has gotten arrested. What happened to our budding pirate queen, hmm? Fortunately, the writers remember her...and just when you think Elizabeth is going to sit at home and let the boys do the adventuring, she takes matters into her own hands. She waves a gun in Lord Beckett's face, she ascertains what needs to be done, and her story kicks off, once again, with her beautiful dress lying abandoned and floating away in the sea.
"I'm ready to be married," she wearily tells Jack on the Black Pearl a bit later. "I'm so ready." He doesn't believe her and neither do we! What proper bride runs about in men's trousers on a pirate ship? Is she really chasing down Will? The mystical, magic compass certainly points to...NO. Yo ho, yo ho, Elizabeth is exactly where she wants to be: on the high seas. You can't have it both ways, Lizzie dear...and that's reinforced later on, when she tries to stop Jack, Will, and Norrington from fighting by feigning the vapors and passing out. They don't pay her a bit of attention! Not just because they're too focused on their testosterone-laden posturing, but also because at this point, they know Elizabeth can take care of herself. She's wearing pants, she can handle a sword, and they're not going to fall for the ol' "delicate sensibilities" trick.
Elizabeth is, at that point, one of the title pirates of the Caribbean. Perhaps she's always been.
Back when the first film came out, I automatically drew parallels to Star Wars, to Will as the wide-eyed farm boy from Tattooine, to Elizabeth as the "princess" who is really a ruthless rebel, to Corellian smuggler Han Solo and marauding Jack Sparrow. And that's reinforced in Dead Man's Chest. Elizabeth is Leia sans cinnamon bun coif and closer to her personal pirate roots. She doesn't need the "I think you like me because I'm a scoundrel" talk from Jack because we (and she) know that's why she likes him. They have their tight fit Falcon moment in the first film, while swilling rum and toasting to freedom. Perhaps even earlier, during the sexually charged "easy on the goods, Love," moment after he's saved her.
And in the second film, it's not the Empire who drops her lover into the carbonite. It's Elizabeth herself who makes that choice, who hits that button. It's not "I love you," and "I know," that they exchange. It's Jack noting, with some admiration, "Pirate." Jack acknowledges her embracing who she is, embracing the prophecy of that song. "We're devils and black sheep and really bad eggs." They challenge each other...she insists he'll be tempted to do good, and he insists she'll be tempted to do bad. They are both right. Jack does not hold her betrayal against her. If anything, it reinforces how they are equals, how she is every inch a pirate.
And all the while, poor Will Turner is none-the-wiser. His development is different...it is the path of the farm boy turning into a warrior, but still an honorable one. At the end of Dead Man's Chest, we see him martyrous. Noble, still. He spies Elizabeth and Jack's passionate kiss aboard the Pearl and automatically accepts that he's lost her, that this is what Elizabeth wants...and even turns to comfort her in Tia Dalma's cabin, assuring her that they'll find Jack. Elizabeth's face is wrought with guilt...for cheating on him, but more because she knows what he doesn't: that she consigned Jack to his watery grave.
I am not who you think I am, Will. I never was.
And perhaps Will will find that more heartbreaking, more hard to swallow, than the kiss...because I think he understands her fascination with Jack. He has one, too -- whether you want to read that homoerotically or not. But for her to wholeheartedly betray someone's trust...? That's not how Will operates, how Will sees the world...or his cherished Miss Swann.
That Elizabeth should love Jack is no surprise. Everyone loves Jack Sparrow. They cannot help themselves.
That Elizabeth should love piracy even *more*, however, is a whole different bottle of rum...and exactly what these films seem to be about.
Yo ho.
P.S. This is only tangentially related to the above musings, but the "face" or "maw" of the Kraken is eerily reminiscent of the Sarlacc in Return of the Jedi...and when Jack and Will are bound on the cannibals' island toward the beginning? Absolutely an homage to Luke and Han in the Ewok village.