One Night with the King is a film based on the biblical book of Esther. Just to be clear form this beginning, this is not a good film by any stretch of the imagination. An excellent cast and some fine performances is not enough to compensate for a miserable screenplay. This is a pity because Esther is a great story and there is no reason why it should not make a good film. It has a beautiful heroine, Esther, caught in a dangerous exotic situation; she is a Jew, the niece of the sage Mordachai, forced to marry the Persian King, Achasveros (Xerxes). In order to survive she must hide her true identity. There is a villain, Haman, worthy of a James Bond film, with an unstoppable plot to kill lots of people, mainly all the Jews in the world. There is plenty of violence and intrigue to go around; people get hauled off and executed on a regular basis. In the end the Jews are saved so we can now eat, drink and celebrate. (This is story type narrative in all of its glory, which is why it is almost certainly not a historical event.)
Despite all of the film’s flaws it still managed to prove enjoyable. For one thing I am very fond of the book of Esther so seeing it as a film was worth beholding. Also the film, while fairly faithful to the source material, makes a number of interesting interpretive choices. My take on King Achasveros has tended to swing between the story of Esther itself, which portrays him as an easily manipulated fool, who seems to make most of the important decisions in the story while drunk, and the Talmud, which portrays him as being quite intelligent and very much in charge of the situation. I like to think of Achasveros as the sort of person who may be a clown but is a very smart clown; someone somewhere between Henry VIII and Herman Goering. People underestimate him and think they can manipulate him. Really he has everyone where he wants them and controls everything. The Xerxes of the film, played by Luke Goss (The villain in Hellboy II), is a total hunk. He is the sort of man that, regardless of his crown, girls would fall in love with. And the film plays on the idea that Esther is, at least to some extent, in love with him. Hegai is a very minor character in the story, he is simply the chamberlain in charge of the king’s harem, so I never thought much of him. The film turns him into a major character, who is a friend and confidant of Esther. He is also a giant black man, whose situation as the castrated slave of the king is clearly meant to draw parallels to African slavery in America. James Callis (Gaius Baltar in the television show Battlestar Galactica) steals the show as Haman. He actually manages to make Haman scary and intimidating. Admittedly the film goes way over the top with him, having him wear a swastika necklace and having him yell about the connections between the Greeks and their Democracy and the Jews with their one God and their hoped for savior. (The film was made by Christians so I guess they had to stick a christological reference in somewhere.) The climax of the story has Esther reveal her true identity to Achasveros, while both he and Haman are present at a private banquet that she is hosting. Esther does this in order to forestall the decree to kill the Jews, which Haman had Achasveros sign. Achasveros storms out of the room and Haman falls upon Esther and pleads for mercy. Achasveros comes back and thinks that Haman was attacking Esther. He therefore immediately has Haman executed. The film plays this scene out as Haman thinking he has won and that Esther’s gambit has failed. He starts to mock plead with her before turning and assaulting her.
Honorable mention should be made of John Rhys-Davies (Gimli in Lord of the Rings) who plays Mordachai. He is effective as a sage and caring father figure for Esther. Also honorable mention should be made of John Noble (Denethor in Lord of the Rings) as Prince Admatha. In the story Admatha is simply the name of Haman’s father. The film turns him into an early villain who helps bring Haman into power and whom Haman knocks off before too long.
So in the end this is not a good film, but those who are familiar with the story of Esther should at least get a good laugh out of it.
Showing posts with label Henry VIII. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Henry VIII. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Staying in the Haredi World is Good for Your Sex Life
Jewish Philosopher likes to argue that the reason why people leave Orthodox Judaism is because they have sexual desires which they are unable to pursue within the confines of Orthodox Judaism (See here and here). While one can challenge his generalizations about those who leave Orthodoxy, I would like to approach the issue from a different angle. While Jewish Philosopher’s arguments might have at least some grain of truth in many cases, this line of argument can also be turned around and used against those who remain within the Haredi world. One can make a very strong case that there are many people who remain within the Haredi world, in large part, because, by doing so, they are maximizing their opportunities for sex. This might sound counter-intuitive considering how constrictive Jewish law can be when it comes to sex. But consider that, while Orthodox Judaism strongly opposes pre-marital sex and is one of the few societies left in American culture in which there are real consequences for being caught fooling around, particularly for women, it is perfectly normal for Haredim to get married in their early twenties or even in their teens. Not only that but Haredim have a well-developed matchmaking system to help people get married.
In the spirit of Rodney Stark, who analyzes organized religions in terms of economics (People make religious choices based on their rational self-interest, and act so as to maximize their social resources.), I offer a curved model to describe one's sexual opportunities within Orthodox Judaism. We start with the Haredi world, in which one has a statistically high chance for sex. As we move toward the left one undergoes a statistical drop in one's opportunities for sex. This rises slightly once you get to the outer fringes of Modern Orthodoxy, where there is an increased tolerance for pre-marital sexual activity, and rises greatly once you get outside of Orthodox Judaism, where one is no longer beholden to Orthodox sexual mores.
While I do not have any hard statistics to back this theory up, it does confirm to my own anecdotal experience. To give two examples of this. Recently I got into a conversation with a Haredi woman about the television show the Tudors. I have not seen the show, but I was able to fill her in about sixteenth-century English history in general and Henry VIII in particular, which she was quite unfamiliar with. While her Haredi education left her ignorant of English history, it has not stopped her from watching television, even television shows that have graphic sexual content. In another conversation with a Haredi person, we shared our mutual love of Bernard Cornwell, a writer whose high adventure works of historical fiction are filled with blood, violence, and sex. I have previously listened to this person’s iPod, a banned object in his yeshiva, and found it full of secular music, much of it rap music with explicit lyrics.
I do not see these people as hypocrites for bending the rules and doing things that the Haredi world forbids. I would hope that this exposure to secular things, and the recognition of their own weaknesses will, in the long run, make them more tolerant and not lead them into becoming the sort of people who, due to their own insecurities about their lives, suspect everyone else and go around on witch-hunts to ferret out those who fail to live up to community standards. Their actions are not the momentary lapses of a people caught in the heat of the moment nor do they appear to be addicts. The only explanation left is that they are making fully rational decisions to go against Haredi norms; this must be viewed as part of an ideological disagreement. There is nothing wrong with this; it is perfectly normal for people to find the society that they best fit into and remain there despite minor disagreements.
My question to them, though, would be why they remain within the Haredi world. They could easily declare themselves to be Modern Orthodox and live exactly as they do now and no one would think twice about them. On the contrary, they would be viewed as deeply observant Jews. What have they gained by remaining in the Haredi world? Well, the girl, despite being a rebellious teenager, got married at the age of nineteen and now has several children. This past week I got to meet the boy’s fiancé. She is a cute little thing with the same name as a character from the musical Rent. That is not a bad deal for a young man in his early twenties.
(To be continued …)
In the spirit of Rodney Stark, who analyzes organized religions in terms of economics (People make religious choices based on their rational self-interest, and act so as to maximize their social resources.), I offer a curved model to describe one's sexual opportunities within Orthodox Judaism. We start with the Haredi world, in which one has a statistically high chance for sex. As we move toward the left one undergoes a statistical drop in one's opportunities for sex. This rises slightly once you get to the outer fringes of Modern Orthodoxy, where there is an increased tolerance for pre-marital sexual activity, and rises greatly once you get outside of Orthodox Judaism, where one is no longer beholden to Orthodox sexual mores.
While I do not have any hard statistics to back this theory up, it does confirm to my own anecdotal experience. To give two examples of this. Recently I got into a conversation with a Haredi woman about the television show the Tudors. I have not seen the show, but I was able to fill her in about sixteenth-century English history in general and Henry VIII in particular, which she was quite unfamiliar with. While her Haredi education left her ignorant of English history, it has not stopped her from watching television, even television shows that have graphic sexual content. In another conversation with a Haredi person, we shared our mutual love of Bernard Cornwell, a writer whose high adventure works of historical fiction are filled with blood, violence, and sex. I have previously listened to this person’s iPod, a banned object in his yeshiva, and found it full of secular music, much of it rap music with explicit lyrics.
I do not see these people as hypocrites for bending the rules and doing things that the Haredi world forbids. I would hope that this exposure to secular things, and the recognition of their own weaknesses will, in the long run, make them more tolerant and not lead them into becoming the sort of people who, due to their own insecurities about their lives, suspect everyone else and go around on witch-hunts to ferret out those who fail to live up to community standards. Their actions are not the momentary lapses of a people caught in the heat of the moment nor do they appear to be addicts. The only explanation left is that they are making fully rational decisions to go against Haredi norms; this must be viewed as part of an ideological disagreement. There is nothing wrong with this; it is perfectly normal for people to find the society that they best fit into and remain there despite minor disagreements.
My question to them, though, would be why they remain within the Haredi world. They could easily declare themselves to be Modern Orthodox and live exactly as they do now and no one would think twice about them. On the contrary, they would be viewed as deeply observant Jews. What have they gained by remaining in the Haredi world? Well, the girl, despite being a rebellious teenager, got married at the age of nineteen and now has several children. This past week I got to meet the boy’s fiancé. She is a cute little thing with the same name as a character from the musical Rent. That is not a bad deal for a young man in his early twenties.
(To be continued …)
Thursday, July 5, 2007
All the Worlds a Stage in Which the Men are Mere Puppets of the Women Around Them: A Book Review of the Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory
The Constant Princess tells the story of Catherine of Aragon, the youngest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella and wify number one of Henry VIII. (This is the wife which Henry had to make his own church in order to divorce her.) Catherine definitely had an interesting life story and in the hands of a more capable writer, this could have been a worthwhile book. She was originally betrothed to Henry’s older brother Arthur. Soon after she arrived from Spain though, Arthur, one fine day, suddenly dropped dead. (This tended to happen a lot in premodern Europe.) So what to do with this sixteen-year-old Spanish princess sitting in your kingdom with a fat dowry attached to her? Well Henry VII, using impeccable medieval political logic, decided to not send her home and instead decided to have her marry Arthur’s little brother Henry, who was six years younger than her. This required special papal dispensation from the Pope. This becomes important later on because when Henry VIII tried to divorce her he argued that he should have never been given the dispensation to marry Catherine in the first place. (Henry VIII can serve as a wonderful model to us Jews as to how to shop for heterim. I ask my Rav for a heter to marry my brother’s wife. Then I ask the Rav to say that he never should have given me the heter in the first place and that I am free to marry my pregnant mistress. When the Rav refuses to give me the heter to annul his earlier heter, I simply form my own shul make myself my own Rav and give myself all the heterim I want.)
The problem with this book is that it is a feminist fruvel (frum novel). As with Jewish fruvels, all pretenses of plot, narrative, and character are sacrificed for one very noble goal, the declaration of the superiority of the given group over everyone else. In this case, the group in question are women. The whole book is premised on the notion that men are stupid, lecherous and easily manipulated, particularly if they are European, white and Christian. It is the women who are in control of everything. Isabella is the ruler of Castile and Aragon and the commander in chief of its armies. Ferdinand is that nice boy who helps out mainly by staying out of the way. Henry VII is a smelly, patriarchal barbarian who has to constantly fight to suppress the overwhelming desire to rape his daughter in law. The court is run by his mother Margaret, who we are told, placed Henry VII on the throne and for all intents and purposes is the ruler of England. Margaret is a villain of sorts in this story in that she is the primary adversary of Catherine through much of the book but this is also in keeping with the book’s ideology. In this matriarchal world in which men are in essence incapable of putting on their own trousers without some women’s help, it only makes sense that Catherine’s main adversary would be a woman; a man would not have the necessary control over his own circumstances to qualify as a decent villain. The most positive male character in the entire book is Arthur and his main virtues are that he agrees with Catherine that England is completely uncivilized and that he promises to implement all of Catherine’s proposed reforms and make England a more enlightened place. Even he is incapable of having an independent thought. Arthur and Catherine are lovers but when Arthur dies Catherine, acting upon Arthur's dying wish, claims that the marriage was never consummated and that she is still a virgin. Henry VIII is an arrogant clod whose only real talents seem to be jousting and archery. He is incapable of doing anything right and leaves the kingdom to Catherine's very capable hands.
The climax of the book is when Catherine saves England from Scotland. She does this by getting Henry VIII to participate in a campaign against the French. With Henry safely out of the way, Catherine personally leads the English army to war against the Scots and single-handedly crushes them at the battle of Flodden.
I have no objection to writings books with strong female characters that are in control over their own destiny. The moment one starts to write a book simply for the purpose of having strong female characters one has stopped writing literature and has started to write propaganda.
The problem with this book is that it is a feminist fruvel (frum novel). As with Jewish fruvels, all pretenses of plot, narrative, and character are sacrificed for one very noble goal, the declaration of the superiority of the given group over everyone else. In this case, the group in question are women. The whole book is premised on the notion that men are stupid, lecherous and easily manipulated, particularly if they are European, white and Christian. It is the women who are in control of everything. Isabella is the ruler of Castile and Aragon and the commander in chief of its armies. Ferdinand is that nice boy who helps out mainly by staying out of the way. Henry VII is a smelly, patriarchal barbarian who has to constantly fight to suppress the overwhelming desire to rape his daughter in law. The court is run by his mother Margaret, who we are told, placed Henry VII on the throne and for all intents and purposes is the ruler of England. Margaret is a villain of sorts in this story in that she is the primary adversary of Catherine through much of the book but this is also in keeping with the book’s ideology. In this matriarchal world in which men are in essence incapable of putting on their own trousers without some women’s help, it only makes sense that Catherine’s main adversary would be a woman; a man would not have the necessary control over his own circumstances to qualify as a decent villain. The most positive male character in the entire book is Arthur and his main virtues are that he agrees with Catherine that England is completely uncivilized and that he promises to implement all of Catherine’s proposed reforms and make England a more enlightened place. Even he is incapable of having an independent thought. Arthur and Catherine are lovers but when Arthur dies Catherine, acting upon Arthur's dying wish, claims that the marriage was never consummated and that she is still a virgin. Henry VIII is an arrogant clod whose only real talents seem to be jousting and archery. He is incapable of doing anything right and leaves the kingdom to Catherine's very capable hands.
The climax of the book is when Catherine saves England from Scotland. She does this by getting Henry VIII to participate in a campaign against the French. With Henry safely out of the way, Catherine personally leads the English army to war against the Scots and single-handedly crushes them at the battle of Flodden.
I have no objection to writings books with strong female characters that are in control over their own destiny. The moment one starts to write a book simply for the purpose of having strong female characters one has stopped writing literature and has started to write propaganda.
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