by Coma123 » Sat Sep 07, 2002 5:18 am
Hey, I thought this would be the best place for this article. Its mostly to do with the 'desexing' of Austin Powers so a lot isn't relevant. But there is some interesting things towards the end. I'm going to put the whole thing here because its from the New York Times and you need membership to read it, so it would probably be easier for everyone. Anyway I would be interested in opinions on the points about sex in cinema, which in a way is in contrast with the Lesbian Cliche I guess.
Perhaps someone could find an address to write to her on.
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The Desexing of Austin Powers
By JAMIE MALANOWSKI
WHEN you watch the Austin Powers movies, you're supposed to think of James Bond. Not just Bond, of course; you're also supposed to think of the "Our Man Flint" movies and Matt Helm, as well as "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help" and the lesser British invasion movies starring Herman's Hermits and the Dave Clark Five. But it's the Bond movies that in a dozen ways give Austin his DNA.
In both series the British secret service remains the spear tip of the free world's defense. In one, the hero faces the bald, pussycat-stroking archvillian Ernst Stavro Blofeld and the hatchet-faced assassin Rosa Klebb, and in the other he faces the bald, pussycat-stroking madman Dr. Evil and the hatchet-faced assassin Frau Farbissina. A couple of dozen other sets and scenes help draw the parallel.
Now, with the third installment, "Austin Powers in Goldmember," having earned nearly $200 million in its first month of release, the Austin Powers series seems on the verge of emulating the highly profitable Bond series in a far less fortunate way. It's becoming a self-perpetuating brand name whose success seems independent of the quality of the product. The Bond of "Dr. No," "From Russia With Love" and "Goldfinger" was a truly revolutionary character: charming, sexy, ruthless, hedonistic, materialistic a character who spoke to the fantasies and nightmares of his period. He has evolved into comfort food, a reliable tour guide through the latest package of gadgets, girls, puns and stunts. Something very similar seems to be happening, and more quickly, to Austin Powers.
And that's too bad, because Austin Powers is a revolutionary character. It's hard to think of him that way, with his bad teeth and glasses and bearlike chest hair and bubbly silliness, but he is. Or at least has been. The reason is simple: he likes sex. He is an extravagant, exuberant, enthusiastic heterosexual who wants to have sex because he thinks it's fun. Not dark, not dangerous, not perverse, not exploitive, not compulsive, not something that's going to give you a disease, not something that's going to admit a killer into your home.
This makes him a very uncommon character. In Hollywood movies of the last several years, the male character who has managed to complete his baccalaureate and who is interested in sex is a rarity. There are movies like "Gladiator," "The Patriot' and "The Perfect Storm," in which the heroes' minimal romantic interests are compartmentalized in the tiniest of boxes. There are movies like "Spider-Man" and "Pearl Harbor," in which the hero has a definite interest in a girl but turns down the opportunity to have sex with her. There are movies like "Vanilla Sky," in which the hero's interest in sex gets him killed; and movies like "What Women Want," in which the hero's interest in sex is considered a major flaw that needs a radical reconstruction. There is "Shaft," in which the black private detective who's a sex machine with all the chicks has no sex on screen at all. And there is "Cast Away," in which the hero has a girlfriend but spends most of his screen time developing a relationship with a volleyball.
Yes, there are exceptions "About a Boy," for one but overall, there seems to be a prevailing political correctness that says adult male heterosexuality is dangerous, dysfunctional or ludicrous, and is best avoided. Why, even James Bond is labeled by his superiors as a misogynist and a dinosaur. (Female sexuality, on the other hand, from "Erin Brockovich" to "Tadpole," is liberating and empowering.)
Into this environment stepped Austin Powers, whose sexual ardor is on the ludicrous side. But what's different is that in his ludicrousness, Austin isn't desperate or needy or pathetic; he's cheerful, he's happy, he's a life force. One of the brilliant inspirations Mike Myers came up with for the first movie, "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery" (1997), was Austin's having been frozen decades before, enabling him to emerge as a full-blown 60's figure in the 1990's. One of the first things he says upon defrosting, and learning that the cold war is just one of the pillars of his world that have collapsed, is, "That's O.K. as long as people are still having promiscuous sex with many anonymous partners without protection, I'll be sound as a pound."
The line is hugely funny, and just as sobering. Austin is blissfully oblivious to the downsides of sexual liberation that we havelearned in the last decades. But there is also the sense that in seeing Austin, we're seeing a lost innocence about sex, a lost playfulness. Over the course of the film, that playfulness wins out. Austin is teamed up with the beautiful agent Vanessa Kensington (Elizabeth Hurley), a no-nonsense professional who finds Austin's persistent "Do I make you horny, baby?" approaches too gauche for words. But he eventually wins her over, admittedly with the aid of Burt Bacharach's music, the party game Twister and a big bottle of champagne. Soon Vanessa's playing right along with the broad, goofy sex jokes that seem to have tickled everyone short of the Taliban.
Austin is less sexy in his second movie, "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me" (1999), primarily because Dr. Evil has stolen Austin's mojo, the very life force that sparks his libido. But his diminished ardor aside, the movie's approach to sex is different in other ways. Austin's love interest, the American agent Felicity Shagwell (Heather Graham), is every bit as liberated as Austin, but the sex isn't always for fun. She also uses it more cynically, in furtherance of the mission, to plant a homing device on the odious Fat Bastard. It's not that Austin is above having sex with Dr. Evil's henchbabes. But when he has sex with Ivana Humpalot, it's more about the fun. The second movie is weaker in other ways. The joke quotient is lower, and the bathroom humor gets out of control.
The new movie is the weakest of the lot. It features a number of crowd-pleasing cameos by Tom Cruise and Gwyneth Paltrow and other stars, but overall there's a sense that in adding and exploring other characters, Mike Myers is losing touch with what made the Austin Powers character work to begin with. Beyonc Knowles is on hand to supply the eye candy, but Austin has no real relationship with her character, Foxxy Cleopatra. Instead, the movie is about Austin's relationship with his father and his long-lost brother.
Thus Austin joins the rest of this summer's family men: the celibate Peter Parker, who lost his uncle in "Spider-Man"; Anakin Skywalker, who lost his mother in "Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones"; Tom Cruise's divorced cop, who lost his son in "Minority Report"; Chris Rock's street agent, who lost his street-wise brother in "Bad Company"; and the very protective widowed dads played by Mel Gibson and Tom Hanks in "Signs" and "Road to Perdition," respectively.
Mike Myers is going to be able to make these films forever, but he should be careful because the character and the series can still be saved. Like James Bond, Austin Powers was a revolutionary cultural figure, and like James Bond, he's now just part of the pack.
