Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Curious?

I am neither yellow nor am I George. And while I don't profess to have any particular love for cats,  do think that it's a shame that we have curiosity to blame for their untimely demise. I am a fan of pre-twenty-first century David Letterman, and his alter ego, "Mister Curious." I am not a fan of "Fifty Shades of Grey." That's okay, since the powers that are behind the making this motion picture are probably not concerned about my lack of enthusiasm. It has already made the boatload of money that the makers expected. It's the bandwagon on which I'm not ready to hop.
Not because I'm such a prude. Or maybe that's part of it. A lot has been made of the adaptation of E.L. James' book beyond the film. James started as a writer of "Twilight" fan fiction, and once it became apparent that there was a lot of money to be made from stripping off somebody else's character names and self-publishing her book as this generation's "Lady Chatterly's Lover." or "Portnoy's Complaint," or "Myra Breckenridge." These books raised their own fuss back in the day. So did the movies they made out of them. Fuss-raising seems to have some kind of historical precedent. Racy books and the movies they generate have been around for a long, long time. Why should this particular naughty book be any better or worse than "Tropic of Cancer?"
Well, I could start with the chop about how E.L. James is no Henry Miller. But that would be too harsh. Or maybe not. Henry Miller didn't get his start writing Bonanza fan fiction, but it should be noted that Michael Landon, who played Little Joe on that show also starred in "I Was A Teenage Werewolf." Coincidence? Conspiracy? Or maybe it's just a matter of pushing a jaded public's buttons every so often.
Or maybe it has something to do with the spelling. "Grey?" Who do they think they're fooling? It's an obvious ploy for the Downton Abbey set. Or it could be a veiled reference to Broadway legend Joel Grey who has just recently chosen to open up about his sexuality. That makes sense, doesn't it? And he did play "Billy the Kid" in an episode of Maverick, which was on about the same time as Bonanza. Confused? Maybe, but definitely not curious.

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