Dark Shadows -TV Milestones by Harry M. Benshoff

[Nancy]

Talk about a venus flytrap . . .

Benshoff's caption (typo included) reads:  The Night of Dark Shadows one-sheet poster from 1971 suggests that Angelique possess a monstrous and devouring vagina dentata.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I honestly think his analysis of NoDS oversexualizes it. There are things that he comes up with that I doubt many in the audience have ever thought - certainly not those of us who were still only in our early teens when we saw it. And he actually has a whole line of thought devoted to just what men might think about the movie that I think is really out there and most probably nothing Sam Hall or DC ever intended - probably not even subconsciously. But then, when one is writing an academic treatise, I suppose one is bound to come up with some overanalysis here and there in order to justify that what one is writing IS an academic treatise.

I haven't gotten around to reading any of the other sections of the book yet, but I'm certainly curious to see how he's going to analyze the series...

[MsCriseyde]

But then, when one is writing an academic treatise, I suppose one is bound to come up with some overanalysis here and there in order to justify that what one is writing IS an academic treatise.

Bingo. One of the problems with the first "generation" of works about a specific "text" or issue is that they spend a lot of time talking about the fact that no one has talked about that this before and justifying the need to address it. Once they move beyond that, because there's no clearly defined group of scholars and publications dealing with the subject and any peer review necessarily involves "peers" that don't have nearly as much knowledge as is required to judge as adequately as they probably should, a lot of stuff that probably ought to be questioned flies in under the radar.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

The weird thing is that he seems to be almost exclusively viewing NoDS through its poster rather than through the movie itself. Do any of the men involved with Angelique look like they think she's some "monstrous sexual creature" or that they fear her "monstrous and devouring toothed vagina"? Not in the movie that I've seen. Charles and Quentin look to me like they enjoy every amorous second with Ang. And Gabriel and Gerard are even willing to resort to physically fighting to get back in Ang's bed, as it were, after they've been replaced there by Charles and Quentin, respectively. And it doesn't come off to me as if Ang has a "castrating female desire". But if so, not only are men literally fighting to be castrated by her, they keep going back for more and more of the same. But I guess to Benshoff's mind we're supposed to ignore all that and accept his analysis as a correct one.  

[The Doctor and K9]

I think the author's analysis of what was in the mind of the artist that created the poster might be correct. Who knows if the guy even saw the movie? He might have been given some stills to work with and cranked out the poster. Remember, this was a creation of the publicity department, not DCP. The author saw the poster and probably jumped to the conclusion that this line of thinking was in the minds of the director and writers. If you have a preconceived notion, it's often easy to find support for it.

[Gothick]

What strikes me as extraordinary about the imagery of the poster is how the flesh on Angelique's face has partly decayed, but her eye makeup and false eyelashes look as fresh as if they had just been touched up moments before.  I wonder whether there was ever an attempt to show a close-up of the corpse which got cut from the completed film but might have survived in a publicity still?  I have certainly never seen it, if so.

I think overall, given what has been written about the content of the book and the illustrations, I'm just as glad I gave it a big miss...

G.

[David]

Just got my copy, which I'll be reviewing in monster mags & gay publications alike. The author, who has himself written for the gay press, has a chapter that discusses the show's gay fan base.