syncope | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Hey, I haven't gotten my daily six hours of talking about Inception in yet, wanna help me out with that?

Randomly, talking about something else entirely,

stoney321 remarked that Eames was gay.

Anyone else see that in the film? I don't mean slash and how most people reading this want all dudes to gay sex each other (or all the hot ones, whatever), I mean did he come across to you as textually gay?

Now that she said it, I can see it. But within the film as I was reading it, I thought he was just rather eccentric and an actor (which can mean the same thing).

Textually, he has a unique gender identity as he can change that at will. But I meant his sexuality rather than his gender identity.

I am wondering if what so many people are reading as slash vibes might actually be real on his side now.

But Tom Hardy is pretty obsessed with male gender politics and I would actually not be surprised if Eames is the exact reversal of Handsome Bob (you've had to have watched that by now) in that instead of a hype-straight presenting gay man, he's a straight man who because of the nature of his work knows how to be flexible about binaries and really doesn't care what anyone thinks.

Thoughts?

I'm going to hit post before I think at all about how I'm analyzing Tom Hardy's ~art with reflection on how *he'd* perceive things.

All of the totems we know about are gaming related--die, poker chip, chess piece, and top.

I'm sure there's an elaborate theory there. Clearly, it's purposeful.

THIS NEEDS TO GO AWAY, I'M ON THE KINK_MEME TRAWLING FOR A PROMPT!

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

You kind of lost me on the Tom Hardy stuff, because I haven't seen Rock'n'Rolla, but I'm pretty sure I did read Eames as gay. I need to see the movie again (for many reasons) and I had planned to look out for this already, because out of all the fanfic in all the fandoms, even Sherlock Holmes, Eames seems the most natural fit into slash of any character ever (bearing in mind I've never read QaF fic). I definitely read Arthur as canonically queer, though not necessarily gay, and not necessarily having done anything about his boy-lustings. I didn't think as much about Eames at the time, but having thought about him since, yes. I am pretty sure I read him as gay. hmmm. Or probably more homo-leaning bi, because I'm not sure he a) could be doing with labels, or b) could be doing with limiting himself arbitrarily when it came to good times.

interestingly, I have no idea if I'm agreeing or disagreeing with you right now. Not that that matters to my opinion ;)

He might be legitimately gay (he didn't really vibe any particular way with me, except flirty toward Arthur), but then, he didn't really interact with a lot of women who could have given some context for how he relates to ~~him~~ THEM, god, my typos want him to be queer.

I think it's the straight/knows how to be flexible with things. ~HETEROFLEXIBLE~

Tom Hardy has said that they were allowed to play with their characters or something, so there's totally just cause for analyzing Eames with what TH might have brought to him.

Edited 2010-08-03 17:04 (UTC)

I think he's definitely (the character) genderqueer and more subtly queer/bisexual. I think Tom Hardy himself is - maybe more genderqueer than he realizes. At least that's how he comes across.

Short of him actually dating, kissing or having sex with another guy, I don't know what would read as "textually gay" to me. And I'm not saying that just to be political about that, I mean it sincerely. I can see it or not see it with a variety of characters; isn't that the nature of slash goggles, when you get below the tee-hee level of the concept--the ability to see sexuality fluidly, regardless of how 'masculine' or 'feminine' the presentation?

I think he came across as MAYBE gay but definitely a 1930s English luvvie trying to be as upper-class as humanly possible. No one talks like that, darling. Lending credence to the "these characters are ridiculous because they exist only in Cobb's head" theory.

Eames has certainly banged a dude before, though.

Yes, of course. There is a liminal area there when talking about intention and perception and how much of X character's Xness is canon and how much it's about the projected views of the audience.

Part of what I'm saying is that I've seen the film a couple times and while I do see the gender queerness (which I think is direct and obvious), I didn't even think that the flirting with Arthur (which I assume was what people saw as gay? Maybe I'm wrong there) was anything beyond him fucking with the guy in a playful way. Like kitten with yarn rather than with actual invitation.

Often enough, I do tend to fall in the more conservative area wrt to textually interpretation than most of fandom, though.

You're first point is one I was trying to make without saying "is this a all Englishmen seem fey to Americans?" issue. I think there's some element of that happening, probably to. I don't mean that as an insult to anyone reading this, just an observation of inculcated stereotyping.

I do tend to fall in the more conservative area wrt to textually interpretation than most of fandom, though.
I do, too and I interpreted Eames, I think, the same way you did...but at the same time, my interpretation isn't locked in stone so deeply that I couldn't ALSO interpret him as textually gay. I think it's ambiguous. There's nothing there that screams to me "OMG THIS GUY IS *SO* GAY!" and there's nothing that says to me "This man could NEVER be gay, OMG."

(This may come from the fact that neither my father nor his partner read as 'textally gay' to anyone who doesn't know them; I've been fluid on sexuality expression for much longer than I've been in fandom.)

Oh, let's just say that his character in RnR is just about the polar opposite of Eames.

Well there is no actual answer here, so there's no agreeing or disagreeing. I think that's true with opinions on media in general, but in particular with this film.

Interesting on Arthur. He didn't strike me that way at all. But his sexuality really never occurred to me one way or the other while watching the movie, though.

I found him quite amusing because he seemed exactly like a mid-20th century english stage actor. i mean, he could seriously have been alec guinness or noel coward or something. as opposed to, you know, the coded-gay posh english sneer-voice used for every disney villain ever.

Oh! Maybe I phrased that badly. I didn't mean "does he come across to you as a big nelly?" but more "did you think the actor/director/writer intended him to be this way?"

And the expectations of gender normativity and how that plays into stereotyping is a preoccupation of Mr. Hardy. Which is why this topic struck me as so interesting. I suppose I need to step away from his interviews going on about being feminine inside and so on.

Anyway, in light of the actor's views, I think the character is meant to be ambiguous. But I didn't read that while watching the movie.

Yes, this.

You can thank me for this post with one full of gifs and quotes from Tommy himself.

This information about developing the characters is fascinating. I wonder how much of Arthur is JGL then? Totally wacko.

But also this is "evidence" that Tommy is sending the world a message about ~masculinity and his soul.

I think Tom Hardy knows about his gender identity issues. I could pretend to not have watched the vids and read the interviews, but...there's no point.

He's a pretty fascinating guy, something I never thought I'd say about a myspace camera-whoring chav with bad tattoos.

I think the gender queer aspect of the character is a big part of his role in the film. I'm on the fence with the sexuality still.

This is an interesting perspective. I like it especially since I am fond of the movie as an allegory for movies interpretation and this fits into that in a way to make everything even more beautiful.

Ah, ok, then that also makes him switching gender in line with old fashioned thespianism where the men played the women's roles.

He actually doesn't read 100% gay to me (which doesn't mean anything, but whatever), but my entire experience of gay men has been U.S. American or Mexican gay men, so it could be that there are cultural things I'm not picking up on. He could be bisexual, or otherwise queer, but I would totally buy that Eames is just the gayest straight man ever.

TH referred to him as "old money", so it could be just a collection of idiosyncrasies that comes with no one in his family working, ever.

Edited 2010-08-03 17:34 (UTC)

Mmm, yes. I'm picking up what you're laying down. Honestly? I think that Nolan and Co wanted EVERYTHING to be as ambiguous as possible. I think the entire linchpin of the movie is ambiguity, so I would personally see Eames' sexuality as part and parcel of that.

HAHAHAHA Tommy said WHAT? Does he actually say old bean in the movie? He will in the sequel, I promise.

This guy, man. Also, I imagine he's addicted to googling himself...I won't think too much about that.

I KNOW, RIGHT? Needs more shooting breeks.

I have to squelch my urge to friendslock everything almost hourly these days.

being honest, JGL's sexuality occurs to me in every movie I see him in, and I'm not even sure why. But I do always think about it. Possibly because I've seen him play both straight and gay but he often plays characters without love interests at all and so my interest is piqued? Whatever it is, that's my default for him. I read him canonically in love with Dom, the way I read Pilot as canonically in love with Jack in Highway. Though if the movie is read as entirely a dream from start to finish, so everyone in it is in Dom's head, that ads an interesting layer to it, in terms of Dom creating a character who he has a kind of codependant relationship with...

Your last point has actually been a source of a lot of pondering on my part. For me, the big hitch to creating the meta text of the film is trying to figure out who each of the dream characters is to Dom. I'm pretty much now of the opinion that Mal and the kids are completely symbolic and never existed in the real world. Mal is something his subconscious knows he has to put behind him/get over and the kids are his reward for doing so/something he aspires to but can't achieve with Mal lingering around.

Who the other characters are is more difficult. I think Ariadne might be himself--him talking to himself and ultimately solving his problem. The other characters I'm more unsure about. Maybe Arthur actually is his partner, what that means I'm unsure. But he does trust him implicitly and believes that he can do the impossible (the hallway scene, the whole movie really).

I think Eames is flexible, as in, he'd nail anything that stayed still long enough, male, female, goat. I don't think it matters to him.

I'm still vastly amused that THIS is the film that finally broke Tom Hardy into the big leagues, fandom-wise. I thought for sure it would have been Black Hawk Down (which I think suffered from TOO MANY PRETTY BOYS syndrome - plus, this was when LOTR came out & everyone was all focused on Orlando to the exclusion of everyone else in that film), Layer Cake (which no one saw)or RockNRolla (which, again, no one saw).

All the actors in BHW look alike in their field gear, so I'm not surprised that people kind of ignored the movie wrt to fic writing. I think that would be different if the movie came out now, due to the build-in fandom of GK.

Also, idk about no one seeing Layer Cake or RnR. I think if you mean in wider distribution in the US, maybe. In fannish circles? I think quite a few people have seen one or both of the films.

WILL DO.

Director CHRISTOPHER NOLAN was more than a boss to actor TOM HARDY on the set of his latest movie INCEPTION - he was the inspiration for the Brit's sauve thief character.

The Bronson star plays specialist forger Eames alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in Nolan's highly anticipated sci-fi thriller.

And Hardy admits his research for the role was easy - he just mimicked the behaviour of the filmmaker to bring his portrayal to life.

He tells Britain's The Guardian, "I like to flatter myself into believing that the character I played was actually Chris Nolan. I felt he was key to Eames and I latched on to him and his mannerisms."

omg lol

I think you've got a point, Black Hawk Down-wise. There was a small, but prolific fandom when the film came out (actually, I still mod the fic comm on LJ for it, for all the fic that gets posted now), but it waned as people moved on. And it was always very Hoot/Eversmann/Blackburn/Grimes-centric, character-wise. Actor-wise, the same, mostly Eric/Orlando/Josh/Ewan. But I definitely think you're right that if the film had come out after GK, maybe the BHD fandom would have been bigger.

I just don't think anyone SAW Layer Cake or RockNRolla. No one ever talked about either film, and I was floored that there wasn't a comm for One Two/Handsome Bob fic, at least, because, well, it was canon. But, you never know which film or pairing or actor will finally tickle fandom's fancy. Much like last year with the rest of the world discovered Karl and Quinto, this year it's JGL and Tom's turn.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 1 of 2