New idols is what you acquire while you are busy worrying about the old ones. Apparently Brent Corrigan is about to sneak out of porn; or maybe not. If he does, a quarrel with his business partner about the freshly launched website would not be a convincing reason, even less so now when he could build on his growing fame. To quit porn now would be very very unreasonable. But who said that a 22 year old moody and eccentric diva makes reasonable decisions? But as I said, that is another story.
In the long weeks of silence I grew more and more fascinated by a whole different type of star performer. Like many others I first noticed him and began to be interested in him when he played Mark Antony in HBO’s amazing show Rome. And that fact alone is already a clear indication that the British actor James Purefoy is a very untypical movie star. He managed to sail below the radar of superstardom till the age of 41 (Rome started 2005). In an interview he blamed his own “self destructive” character for not getting some of the major parts he auditioned for – James Bond one of them. Obviously he did not quite want to become part of the Hollywood dream factory; even though British actors like Jude Law, Ralph Fiennes and lately Clive Owen found their way to stardom. The trajectory of his career starting with classical Shakespearean theatre and setting a mark in a long series of British period dramas is wound and peculiar. Counter to his claim of avoiding typical Hollywood material he appeared in “Resident Evil”, an infantile, computer game style zombie movie, in 2002, without further consequences. Ever since I started to observe David Duchovny’s struggle to do anything meaningful after his part as Agent Mulder in “X Files” I am fascinated by the difficult periods highly significant and talented actors sometimes have to go through if they cannot or do not want to be typecast for their whole career. For Duchovny came “Californication”, a witty, naughty and well written show in any sense tailor made and modelled on the body and soul of its main protagonist. For Purefoy came Rome, an ensemble drama dominated by a mostly brilliant British cast, but leaving space for one character slightly outshining the others with his powerful, sexually charged, arrogant presence of audacious and finally tragic debauchery. James Purefoy’s Mark Antony. That no doubt deserves a post of its own I had already planned to write, and another one on NBC’s “The Philanthropist” with Purefoy in the leading part, a significant example for honourable failure.
I would have written those posts if not something would have come in the way that deserves an homage all of its own. I came about the apparently most active fan forum jamespurefoy.proboards.com, hosted by the website jamespurefoy.us calling itself “America’s Home for the Darling James Purefoy”. As an ardent James Spader fan I already had my experiences with one of those proboards, the so called “James Spader Meeting Place”. I do not quite know if they are really all the same, but now that I know two cases I might suspect so.
Those forums are highly maintained, apparently closely knit communities with a very active administration and a table of rules that are carved in marble. Anyone who is not either part of the founding generation or of a meek and humble character is surely up for an interesting time.
Whenever I stumble into such a forum I always have to think about the irony of how the proverbial prediction of the “global village” came true in an almost literal sense. The term was labelled to indicate that telecommunication and new digital media will shrink the global society to the size of a village. And certain segments of web 2.0 outdo themselves in becoming villagers. As if the anarchy and anonymity of the web were unbearable to some they are suspicious of strangers and re-enact the control mechanisms and finally the moral (mostly sexual) censorship of small village communities. In an open medium without any owner there emerge “hosts” who claim to administer the rules of a certain domain. In some of those boards (not the JP forum though) they indulge in the staging of vertical hierarchy, attributing the labels of “gods” to senior members to make the “new member” feel like the paria he is. Web forums become the symbolic space of a re-enactment of aristocratic and authoritarian regimes where the ancestors dominate those who come later, where the owner(s) of the house have absolute power, where basically no democratic mechanism is accepted that rules the outside world.
On the other hand, a fan forum such as this, peopled by adult women who discuss issues about an attractive male actor, is teaming with sexual energy. It would merit studying this particular phenomenon of collective female fandom, adult fandom that differs significantly from teenage frenzy. The women on this forum outdo each other in detailed analysis of the anatomy of the star, they compete in posting significant photos and commenting them with witty and naughty remarks. Actually I liked that and so, even though I had been warned, I tried to enter this community. I could simply not refrain from mentioning a tiny problem I had with the site. And that was its hilarious regime of self-censorship.
The problem starts with a site like that being a performative self-contradiction. The rules are supposed to respect the privacy of the star worshipped. Yet almost every photo and every post on the forum is to a certain extent invading his privacy. The only rule that applies is a strict separation of artistic manifestations and the private person. I am quite sure that no one on the forum is a potential stalker. As a crazy member of fan culture I can well understand why one dissects one’s idol down to the nipple, even though this is one more symptom of the cannibalistic nature of fandom, the Dionysian “tearing apart of the God” I mentioned before. Still, an actor who decides to play his part like Purefoy played Mark Antony, with such brooding sensuality, has to accept the consequences as long is they stay within the symbolic distance of the medium; consequences that might seem both embarrassing and flattering to him if he should bother to notice them.
I always thought the best protection of a star from the erotic zeal of his fans is his blissful ignorance. So the additional emphasis on child protection and “13+ friendliness” on the JP Proboard seems to be nothing but yet another symptom of this particular shame the fan feels for her own madness; for nothing can be more absurd and more self contradicting than the administration of this supposed teen friendliness.
Close ups of nipples, lips and buttocks are anyway not the right material for teens. If the administrators were serious they would have set up a strict and meaningful censorship. Also, Purefoy is not the actor who attracts any significant teen following. He is 45 now, he displays signs of a slightly decadent, intellectual European with a Leftist past. He takes care of a young son. Why should any teen visit a site in his honour? And even if a teen would stumble on the site accidentally he would find nothing that could be more dangerous to his or her premature dirty mind than the tons of free porn he or she can easily find anywhere else. But hey, there is no accidental stumbling as one has to apply for admittance. So why on earth can’t the site be the adult site that it obviously is? Well, it can’t.
What are, finally, the exact mechanisms of teen protection? Well, no frontal nudity. That’s understood. The classic taboo Purefoy broke with grandezza in the famous episode S01e04 of Rome. The countless mentioning of that small scene without permission to post the picture gives an impression of suppressed Victorian libido that is not at all in tune with Purefoy’s own liberal and very relaxed approach to nudity and sex. Still, innuendos can be fun. So let’s accept this. I for one would have done so, even though I would like to know when exactly the bare ass of a man stopped being dangerous to the adolescent mind while his cock still is.
Speaking of ass, or maybe “arse”, as Purefoy would have rather put it, – and he played with the American and the British version of the word in the San Diego episode of “The Philanthropist” – that leads me straight to the nitty gritty of JP Proboard censorship. I do not know if the board censors “arses”, but surely it censors ass. Not the picture of said body part but the WORD! And not only that filthy dirty word but any part of a word those disgusting three letters appear in. As if fearing that the misguided dirty mind of a teenager would see “ass” any time it would read “class” that word appears as “cl***” on the page.
Who will ever be able to explain the American fear of evil words to me? The American culture fears “bad language” more than nude display and for sure more then the display of extreme violence. What is that exactly? A leftover of the Puritan past? Yet with the fear of an evil syllable we enter the new realm of the irrational magic of letters, a realm that reminds me rather of witchcraft than the holy script. And that new magic has been created by some badly programmed semantic filter that does not make a difference between words and syllables, or between the names for certain body parts and their synonyms. If you write that “the cock crows in the morning” this glorious program censors it as “the thingy crows in the morning”. Just to make sure.
The thingy. A very regular word on that board. A British, and may I say rather vulgar expression hijacked for the sake of American teen care. When I read that word I see a middle-aged British woman with the corners of her thin lipped mouth pulled down in contempt as she is referring to some tiny shrivelled up penis. That word as substitute for any, or maybe only some anatomical expressions might not have the power to protect any adolescent soul but for sure it has the power to destroy any adult’s appetite for said anatomy.
Now, a caring morally concerned American housewife and mother who happens to entertain a little crush for a British celebrity in her spare time might find the forced use of “thingy” and the crossing out of one particular syllable a tiny and insignificant prize to be paid for the much higher good of child protection. Yet if that good is so very high, why doesn’t anyone bother to use (or program) a more intelligent software? Because language is a good that does not deserve even the tiniest bit of care? That is a pity, as some people on the forum surely know how to express themselves. It stays a secret why they accept a semantic regime like that. Well, I can’t.
I am one of those odd people who still appreciate the freedom of expression, who love language and think that it has profound aesthetic and poetic qualities, qualities that shape one’s life and personality and should therefore not be manipulated by an idiotic software program.
Therefore my strange encounter with the “thingy” taught me a powerful lesson; how I, a profound lover of both sex and words – by the way, the word “sex”, root of all evil, is not being censored on the board – deeply love those words, “cock” and “cunt” and “ass”. I could never live without them.
Just think back of George Orwell’s 1984, the authoritarian imposition of newspeak. Nowadays everyone laughs about “Big Brother” because we are simply living with him already. It is just amazing to see how this regime has already seeped into every single pore of language and communication, in the internet most of all.
Imagine that one day you would wake up in a world where all the proud, juicy, pulsating “cocks” and “cunts” and all the supple quivering “asses” of this world would have been melted into one big neutral flaccid pool of “thingys”. Wouldn’t this change of naming have an influence on our lives? Wouldn’t it change the perception of our bodies, maybe even our anatomy?
To borrow an example that shows the very hiatus between this forum and the class and style of the object of its affection: “Rome” is a great big carnival of carnal excess and dirty language, produced by decadent Europeans for an American market. In s02e01 Servilia, Ceasar’s former lover and mother of Brutus, shows contempt for Antony’s famous speech at Caesar’s funeral, one of the most famous speeches in theatre and film history the series oddly left out (would have loved to see Purefoy deliver that). She states that any pantomime could have performed that speech. And Antony replies with a glorious expression of scorn, "Lucky it was me then, or you'd be on your knees sucking pantomime cock!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8B5jSLaAPA
some regime of censorship would have forced him to say “sucking pantomime thingy”, not only the rhythm of the line would have been ruined.
Well, I deeply despise any censorship. In my country censorship is associated with the corrupt and reactionary regime of Metternich. And while regimes like China and Iran continue to impose censorship any seemingly trivial regime of self-censorship in a supposedly democratic society should not be treated too lightly. As a means to an ethical end such as the protection of adolescents it is clearly dysfunctional. Still it is spreading and about to become a netiquette that might soon exclude anyone who does not accept it. One does not need to be a theorist of culture to know that the politics of signs and words is not trivial and does have political and existential consequences. If not so, why should the banning of certain words be in the interest of the youth?
And any censorship is simply the restriction of freedom. And freedom to me still is a very very high good.
After I left a comment the administrator sent me a pm informing me that the rules of self censorship should not be discussed in the public section. I asked the administrator of jamespurefoy.proboards.com about the reasons for this regime. And I wrote a funny little text without one dirty word, but lots of words containing ass and thingy. I cannot reproduce it here as her answer to my questions came quickly. She temporarily disabled my account.
UPDATE
This is the funny little text I wrote (actually the plain member of the forum liked it)
Indeed, he has cl***, and he is s***y too. I am sure there are m***es of people out there who share those views. I also love to hear the b***, well rather baritone of his voice. Already when the thingy crows in the morning I am busy ***essing the various qualities and ***ets of this man. What is most charming about his man? His eyes? His lips? His chest? Or maybe those thingys that cannot be named? And when I see him as knight I wish I were his l***. I would even adore him if he rode a wild *** and not a proud horse.
No, I confess, the best thing I ***ociate with him is his daring, uncensored, sensual access to his work as an extraordinary actor; no one can be ***imilated with that excellence; take the way how he decribed the nudity of the Mark Antony scene as a way to show that this man does not give a flying thingy to appear nude in front of a man that is below his cl***.
And this is what the administrator wrote to me:
"If you do not like the rules of this forum you are more than welcome to delete your account and leave. Other wise all Rules and Guidelines are to be followed.
As for your censor complaint concerning words such as "thingy" replacing certain words it is actually built into the Proboards forum.
Also if you have any further complaints you are not to air them on the forum itself as that is not the place for it. You may PM either Norbert or myself.
I have been informed by Norbert that your account was disabled for two days. If you choose to participate after the two day period ends and the same behavior that caused your account to be disabled continues you will be banned from this forum."
Amazing, isn't it? Not even school masters talk to you like that anymore. Farewell to free speech!
And I was right, that idiotic software comes prepackaged. I am (still) lucky on Blogger. I can only hope that some geek community with a love for language will do something about it.
