Arts
michigandaily.com — The Michigan Daily
18 — Wednesday, December 9, 2020
This article is a part of the Daily
Arts “Canceled” b-side. For a full
look at our b-side pieces exploring
this theme, visit our site.
Season four of Netflix’s “The
Crown” opens with a lunchtime
conversation
at
Buckingham
Palace. Queen Elizabeth II (Olivia
Colman, “The Favourite”) sits at
the end of a long table stacked with
food and flower arrangements as
she inquires about her eldest child:
“No Charles?” she asks. The Queen
is surrounded by other members
of her family — husband Philip
(Tobias
Menzies,
“Outlander”),
sister Margaret (Helena Bonham
Carter,
“The
King’s
Speech”),
daughter Anne (Erin Doherty,
“Call the Midwife”) and in-law
Lord Mountbatten (Charles Dance,
“Game of Thrones”) — but Charles
(Josh
O’Connor,
“God’s
Own
Country”) is notably absent.
The group proceeds to gossip
over the Prince’s personal life,
reviewing a list of women whom
he may hold in contention for
marriage. It’s 1977, and the pressure
for the heir apparent to find a bride
is reaching a tipping point.
There
was
one
woman
photographed by the newspapers in
a bathing costume, says the Queen,
and another that Anne describes
as a “heck of a horsewoman.” Then
there is Camilla Parker-Bowles
(Emerald Fennell, “Killing Eve”),
who is already married but still
mysteriously close to the Prince.
“Oh, he’s not still seeing her,
surely,” the Queen says. “After all
the lengths we went to,” referring
to her concerted efforts to keep
the Prince and her monarchy away
from unwanted scandal.
“No, none of these,” says Lord
Mountbatten, who was famously
close with his nephew. The latest
acquaintance is Sarah Spencer
(Isobel Eadie), elder sister of a
woman
named
Diana
(Emma
Corrin,
“Misbehaviour”).
The
camera cuts to a car driving down
a wooded countryside far outside of
London — Charles is at the wheel,
on his way to the Spencer estate.
He’s on his way to meet Diana
Spencer.
Much of the following nine
episodes centers on the infamous
story of this relationship — of the
teenager
who
married
Prince
Charles in a crinkled masterpiece
of a taffeta ballgown when she was
only 19 and he was 31. Show creator
Peter Morgan tells a complex
narrative of two faulted individuals
bound to a marriage that was
broken from the start. The season
follows Diana’s personal battle
with bulimia and depression that
is exacerbated by a lack of support
from her new in-laws. On top of
this, she faces explosions of jealousy
from
Charles
whenever
her
presence takes too much attention
away from him and battles with her
own dejection as it becomes clear
that the Prince’s relationship with
Camilla never truly ended.
“Camilla is who I want!” Charles
screams at Diana toward the end
of the final episode. “That is where
my loyalties lie,” he says. She looks
at him blankly, heartbroken and
unsurprised at the same time.
These conversations are of course
dramaticized inferences of what
really happened behind the scenes
of this crumbling relationship, but
Morgan contextualizes this fiction
in the backdrop of history from
the penultimate decade of the 20th
century. Diana and Charles fight
as Britain reckons with a growing
resentment toward the monarchy
while unemployment skyrockets
under the leadership of Margaret
Thatcher. This is the formula that
has worked so well for Morgan’s
first three seasons of what is
one of Netflix’s most successful
shows to date. Characters based
on the Royals we know as public
figures combat intimate personal
turmoil as they navigate the public
struggles written about in our
history textbooks. Up until now,
no one seemed to be bothered
about where the facts ended and
the fiction began. But as the show’s
setting quickly approaches present
day, the tension between these two
is hard to ignore.
Morgan’s
depiction
of
the
now-deceased Princess and the
still-alive future King of England
ignited a new wave of hatred for
the faults of Prince Charles and his
family. Critics have been quick to
point to Morgan’s shortcomings in
the show’s depiction of reality —
that “The Crown” only shows one
unfortunate side of Charles, that it
fails to emphasize Diana’s role in
the marriage’s failure and that it
might destroy the efforts of Charles
and his now-wife Camilla in the
last quarter century to separate
themselves from the hostility of the
1980s.
Perhaps this is true; the TikTok
teens and Twitter trolls don’t seem
too enthusiastic about forgiveness.
One especially funny video started
with a woman looking in the
mirror as she melodramatically
told Charles, “You better count
your days!” The TikTok accrued
2.2
million
views
and
was
shared over 40 thousand times.
Music Talks: Metalcore
“Music Talks” is a series in which
Daily Music Writers give their takes
on the biggest releases in new music.
However, this time, we picked a
release that’s not exactly new, and
not exactly big, but allows some
of our writers to introduce other
writers to a genre they normally
wouldn’t listen to. From picking best
and worst tracks to asking what
makes a genre tick, the Music beat
is here to give praise and to give shit
to music worth talking about.
I discovered the Australian
metalcore quintet Thornhill on
a YouTube comments section
I will never find again. Their
full-length
debut,
‘The
Dark
Pool,’ immediately struck me as
an album worth sharing, both
entrenched in genre but also
universally fascinating for any
appreciator of music. Thornhill’s
label, UNFD, is a hotbed for fresh
and zany ideas in metal. It provides
an interesting lens to discuss the
band in the larger context of what
metal is and where it’s going —
here’s what we had to say about
The Dark Pool.
—Anish Tamhaney, Daily Film
Beat Editor
This interview has been lightly
edited for clarity and concision.
Tamhaney: So I’d love to
start off by just hearing — what
are
your
one-to-two-word
thoughts
about
‘The
Dark
Pool’?
Drew Gadbois, Daily Arts
Writer: Heavy melody.
Jason Zhang, Daily Arts
Writer: Surprisingly lyrical.
Kai Bartol, Daily Arts Writer:
Exhilarating.
Nora
Lewis,
Daily
Arts
Writer: This is kind of broad, but
I think unexpected.
Sam Cantie, Daily Music Beat
Editor: Stressed out, in a sci-fi
world.
Julianna Morano, Managing
Arts Editor: I wrote down — like
a continual beating.
Q: I would call this album
comfortably experimental, and I
think that aligns with what a lot
of you were talking about with it
being a little bit heavy and wild,
but also lyrical and melodic. Does
anyone want to expand on that or
talk about that dichotomy?
Gadbois: I think I’m gonna
be the odd one out here, but I
didn’t think it actually was that
experimental. I think I had a slight
knowledge of metalcore to begin
with, so like, having that prior
knowledge, I think it allowed me to
have a little better context behind
it. There was a way they used
melody that felt very unique. They
built melody around a heavy pulse
and it adds a lot of momentum,
but it didn’t necessarily push you
away.
Zhang:
Yeah,
I
was
just
surprised by how much of it was
more of creating a soundscape,
and them really playing around
in what I would say is a mellower
field. And then they would use
juxtaposition, and they would go
into a more intense driving melody
and beat and then return back to
more of a mellow zone. That made
it continually interesting to listen
to.
Lewis: Yeah, I agree. I feel
like that prevented it from losing
intensity at harsher moments. It
prevented it from being sort of
watered down.
Morano: I think something
that I’m not accustomed to is that
there’s not a lot of build-up up to
intensity. It was kind of, on or off,
sort of. And anytime there was a
moment of silence, I was bracing
myself because I knew it was
going to end quickly, and I didn’t
realize that I liked that until I was
listening to this.
Tamhaney: Yeah, that makes
sense. Because I think especially
a lot of the breakdowns on this
album kind of come out of thin air,
like you said. But I definitely agree
with what a lot of you are saying:
The pacing of this album, it feels
really organic. And I think that
really does just go back to melody,
because it just feels like the
melody writes itself, and it writes
this whole album. And they don’t
really stick to any structure or any
kind of formula, it happens in this
natural way.
Cantie: I think I appreciated
that
it
wasn’t
extremely
experimental, like I could tell
that you were trying to give us
something that incorporated more
melody to ground those who have
never listened to metal before.
I think something I was left
thinking about is the relationship
of metalcore to anger, because
I feel like I have a complicated
relationship with anger, and I
don’t get angry, ever. It got me
thinking about the ways in which
women get angry. So I might be
opening us up to something like,
too big to talk about, but I’m sort
of wondering whether metalcore
is extremely, like, male-dominated
in “listening-ship”? Is that a word?
Probably not. But I think I’m just
most astonished by the anger
component of metalcore.
Gadbois: That’s a really good
point, and I think this goes beyond
just deathcore, but what I’ve kind
of noticed, with more aggressive
genres in general, like industrial
and stuff like that, a lot of the
more upcoming female artists are
representing a female anger and
recapturing anger as something
that can be female-driven. I think
it’s a really interesting topic,
and I think it is becoming more
diversified.
Tamhaney:
Yeah,
a
great
example that I’ve been into lately
is Spirit Box, they’re another
metalcore
band
fronted
by
Courtney LaPlante. And she’s
incredible. I think she’s an
example of exactly what you’re
saying, of transforming what
anger can look like or what it can
sound like, even.
Q: Let’s get into some specifics
on this album. Are there any
standout tracks or moments that
you want to talk about that really
stuck with you?
Bartol: There was one part of
“In My Skin” that I had to write
down because I loved it a lot. The
main vocals that you’re hearing
were very melodic, and very
normal, but then they dubbed
the words with the vocalists
screaming the same words, and I
loved the feeling of tension created
between the melodic vocals and
the screaming going on in the
back.
Morano: Wait Kai, I think
same. I rewound that part: I think
that one seemed to exhibit more of
a build up. And then an outro with
just a repeating lyric, and that was
something else that listening to
this and really liking that song
made me realize that I do, like —
because it was such an unfamiliar
musical experience, it made me
think in more meta terms about
my own listening habits and what
I like. But yes, Kai!
DAILY ARTS WRITERS
Daily Arts Writers
UNFD
Reconsidering monolithic
masculinity: On Brando
This article is a part of the Daily
Arts “Canceled” b-side. For a full
look at our b-side pieces exploring
this theme, visit our site.
The
clickbait-y
corners
of the internet are rife with
dubious articles about closeted
stars
of
Hollywood’s
past,
salacious stories about long-
dead
icons
of
film:
Greta
Garbo, Montgomery Clift, Joan
Crawford,
Marlon
Brando.
These stories share an unsettling
subtext: the intimation that non-
heterosexuality reflects poorly
on these men and women or
that their illustrious careers and
contributions to the history of
film are somehow diminished
by their sexualities. One such
article,
posted
on
Medium
and written under the ironic
pretense of celebrating Pride
Month, is particularly deplorable
for its homophobia and tabloid-
style headlines (one of which
calls Montgomery Clift “a fussy
and hard to please bisexual”).
While 21st century celebrity
coming-out announcements may
be met with more praise than
condemnation, we need not look
far into the past to find ridicule
of Golden Age icons that borders
on “cancellation.”
I adore Tennessee Williams,
and Elia Kazan’s film adaptation
of “A Streetcar Named Desire”
will always be one of my favorite
films.
Accordingly,
Marlon
Brando,
who
so
brilliantly
inhabits
the
role
of
the
emotionally volcanic, brutish
and sweaty Stanley Kowalski,
is one of my favorite actors.
Which is why I remember a
number of articles published
in February 2018. It all began
with an unfiltered interview
with legendary music producer
Quincy Jones in Vulture, in
which he remarked of Brando
that,
“He’d
fuck
anything.
Anything! He’d fuck a mailbox.
James Baldwin. Richard Pryor.
Marvin Gaye.” This “allegation”
which supposedly “sent the
internet into a frenzy,” according
to
TMZ,
was
corroborated
by comedian Pryor’s widow
Jennifer Lee Pryor. “It was the
’70s! Drugs were still good,
especially
Quaaludes,”
Pryor
said. “If you did enough cocaine,
you’d fuck a radiator and send it
flowers in the morning.”
This story was widely reported
by the likes of the Guardian, USA
Today and the entertainment
glossies. Pryor’s daughter Rain
and Brando’s son Miko both
denied Jones’s claims, adding
fuel to the fire and longevity to
the story. There is no dearth of
Brando smut on the internet,
which all begs the question, who
cares? In an unsigned opinion
article from South African news
broadcaster eNCA responding
to the February 2018 Brando
brouhaha, the author accurately
noted that “in the feeding
frenzy
which
has
followed
Jones’s interview, we have also
learned (once again) how deep
the roots of heteronormativity
and
homophobia
still
run.”
With
particular
disdain
for
Jennifer Lee Pryor’s statements
about Quaaludes and cocaine,
the author wrote that “We are
asked to understand any sex
between Pryor and Brando as the
consequence of drugs, not as an
aspect of the men’s exploration
of being human. In fact, both
men are compared to objects,
thus domesticating the threat
their human sexual interaction
poses to heteronormativity.”
Jennifer
Lee
Pryor’s
dehumanizing
aside,
the
media obsession with Jones’s
claims reflects a belief that
homosexuality
is
aberrant.
That there is something “dirty”
about
the
secret
that
has
been exposed. This is no new
phenomenon. In the 1950s, the
tabloid
Confidential
“called
out celebrities who were in the
closet, in rehab or having marital
problems,” purportedly to “show
the real image of America,”
said journalist Henry Scott,
an image hidden by the films
these very celebrities created.
But glorifying Confidential as
breaking barriers and fighting
Hollywood idealism hides the
ugly truth: It was a mechanism
for “cancel culture,” that innate
human drive to excommunicate
that which we perceive to be
harmful to our society. In 1955,
agent Henry Willson “learned
that Confidential was planning
to out Rock Hudson, who still
was one of his clients,” said
Tab Hunter, a former client of
Willson, “so he cut a deal with
them to keep Rock out of their
pages, feeding them dirt on me
instead.” The gossip magazine
suggested
that
Hunter
had
attended a “gay orgy,” leaving
Hunter fearing for his career.
It took a cover story in another
entertainment
publication,
in
which he was celebrated alongside
Natalie Wood, to blunt the impact
of the Confidential story.
ROSS LONDON
Daily Arts Writer
NETFLIX
Did ‘The Crown’ really
cancel the royal family?
ZOE PHILLIPS
Senior Arts Editor
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
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