I don't mean to nitpick, Tom, but is this really your plan?

We went to see The Black Pirate tonight. Douglas Fairbanks was quite charming, though the stylized acting of silent films doesn't generally appeal to me. The film was only slightly gay: there was a great moment when Fairbanks traps his pirate friend – who's about to bring some food in to the beautiful captured princess – against the wall, with one arm on each side, and asks the friend if he believes in love at first sight. The audience reaction was massive, which gives further credence to my theory that, in a couple of decades, this period will be identified as the period in which homosexuality became part of American culture, in the sense that feminism is part of American culture – a major, acknowledged, but not uncontested, force.

In which I ramble about four books: ( Read more... )