to be completely random

[maderr]

(and if you're curious how I got to this point, I was researching absinthe, which made me feel like looking up laudanum (it makes sense, I swear) and that wiki mentioned Edward Hyde which lead me to see what wiki said about one of my fav books).

It always makes me sad that no one in the entertainment biz gets it right. Kinda like Scarlet Pimpernel. They take an easy out and don't tell the real story, and that's depressing.

I mean, Jekyll is always portrayed as some sniveling, spineless scientist. And what bloody fucking sense does that make, really? He's always timid and shit, which is just depressing. Jekyll was a popular, well-respected guy. I mean the story starts out with a couple of guys who are trouble by his recent behavior. He was cool. He also felt that he shouldn't like certain things, which led him, in typical science geek fashion, to create a potion that would seperate man's good and bad sides.

Here's where it gets cool.

He didn't really succeed, which is a subtly the hollywood-instructed miss, I think. Jekyll wanted a clean split - Jekyll = Good, Hyde = Bad. What he got was Hyde = Bad, Jekyll = Still the same. So Hyde was all evil and poor Jekyll was still a conflicted, now doubly screwed, man.

Also. Hollywood. HYDE IS SMALLER THAN JEKYLL. HE IS NOT SOME LUMBERING BRUTE WHO LIKES TO BREAK THINGS.

And point in fact, not once does Stephenson explicity state what Jekyll likes/does that makes him feel so guilty. Given the era, he probably just liked sex, but theories range. If you wanted to slash it, that's a viable option. Not knowing is partly what made it fun though, and something else the movies and plays (and the fsking musical I will NEVER see) screw up. They alway go from the J/H POV. The book is told from the POV of someone else, which is what made the book a mystery once upon a time. I mean poor Utterson is going WTF, Mate? through the whole thing, and then poor Lanyon basically dies of fright. Always left out. If there's a good movie out there, I'd love to see it.

Ah, well. This fangirl will be silent now.

P.S. You should be grateful I didn't get started on Frankenstein.

Comments

[wobblygoblin.livejournal.com]

M, this post has tremendously creeped me out because for no reason at all tonight I pulled up my original broadway cast recording of Jekyll & Hyde and have since been listening to it nonstop.

(And it is a-MA-zing and P.S. I want to have sex with Jekyll's singing voice.)

[maderr.livejournal.com]

That is rather toward the creepy, I must say.

(if I had sensibiities, that musical would offend them. My sensibilities would be Most Offended)

[wobblygoblin.livejournal.com]

Oh man, it is so very far from the book as to be laughable but if you know that going in then you can actually appreciate the music. And I am not talking about the David Hasselhoff version because even I have my LIMITS.

And Jekyll is not a wimpy jerk! He has two delectable ladies drooling over him. One is even a whore--BONUS! Hyde is very deliciously evil, with an Oops-I've-Just-Come-In-My-Pants gravelly singing voice. No, no, don't thank me. I will include all the songs I have on your next cd.

Here's one of them, which I think illustrates very well Jekyll's deadly curiosity: I Need to Know

(I am totally using this book and its modern pop-culture incarnations as part of my eventual thesis on the evolution of the byronic hero into the modern anti-hero and its replacement of the traditional golden hero. It's a perfect example, like the Phantom. To popularize a character and generate more sympathy, you make him hot! And that eventually starts to translate to tragic or evil equals hot equals deserves your pity or empathy equals secretly redeemable equals why, he's the real hero, has been all along! [Helloooo, Lucifer] w00t! I hereby claim your brain to pick on that happy day in the future.)

[maderr.livejournal.com]

You've mentioned that thesis before, and it sounds positively sexy. I will cry into my pillow at night if you don't let me read the masterpiece when it is finished.

DAMN IT. >_> His voice is not unappealing. I hate you.

[wobblygoblin.livejournal.com]

VUN, TWO, ZREE victims, MAH HA HA!!!

[tygati.livejournal.com]

Holy crap. @.@ This man needs to clone himself and infiltrate pop culture like Yesterday. Why can't voices like that be plastered all over the radio/tv/mediacrap?! x.@

[wobblygoblin.livejournal.com]

Oh man, preachin' to the choir. If you make a petition, I will sign it.

[maderr.livejournal.com]

Me too.

[alixkat.livejournal.com]

That's totally true about making the character hot! That's brilliant. Because if the character wasn't aesthetically pleasing, then everyone wouldn't have the same kind of maternal/come-fuck-me instinct that they (me included, God it's so shameful) with these characters. At the root of it you're lusting after a mad man, who has knowingly murdered people. Um, in real life, that does not a good man make... even if it was done for love and out of tragic circumstances, but making him hot, shouldn't make him redeemable. If they actually had the noseless Phantom, then the tables would undoubtedly turn and we'd all be Raoul freaks... but we're not. I'm actually a Philippe freak, but that's another story altogether.

[alixkat.livejournal.com]

I totally second having sex with Jekyll's singing voice.

[wobblygoblin.livejournal.com]

Amen, sister. *virtual high five*

[rykaine.livejournal.com]

I think we sang a medly of songs from that in chorus one year in high school. I rather enjoyed them--the ones I can recall, anyway. And actually, I think the seniors that year chose This is the Moment or whatever for the senior song.

[alixkat.livejournal.com]

The Jekyll & Hyde musical is pretty sexy... but seriously, it's like anything else of that genre (Phantom of the Opera, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, Dracula, etc.) you always have some ridiculously hot man, embroiled in some love triangle that everyone is yawning over because it's so bloody predictable. It really does a disservice to the real story... I mean, I can only speak from POTO experience because Brit Lit isn't my thing, but the phantom did not look like Gerry Butler: he had no nose (which Lucas claims is some kind of metaphor for not having a penis, but I digress)!!! He was not some ridiculously hot, yet half-deformed man. He was like 50 with no nose and was practically skeletal and slept in a coffin. A-duh. Yeah yeah... I believe in authenticity. It's pretty to look at, it's pretty to think about, but honestly, it really detracts from the tragedy of the story and the depth.

*end rant*

[maderr.livejournal.com]

I love the Phantom novel. It's hella creepy. I am always saddened they leave out 90% of the story in the musical. I generally pretend they're two completely different stories.

I should read that again. *goes to find*

[alixkat.livejournal.com]

You know, I think that the musical is more like the Kay novel than it is the real novel. The real novel is hella creepy... like the scorpion and the grasshopper, etc.; blowing up the opera house; etc. It's a massively fucked-up book and it's totally not this fucking orgy that it is on stage (although pretty to look at). Would you believe that I have not yet seen the movie from start to finish? I have this unnatural fear of seeing it from start to finish because I think my vagina might blow-off and I'll never be able to re-attach it. That and I can't stand Emmy Rossum: she is a dipshit. (And I quote: "It's my job to be thin.") Right.

It's been at least 10 years since I read the novel... it's one of those one-shot deals in my mad little literary world.

[tygati.livejournal.com]

... sniveling? o.o; Apparently I have not seen the same movies that you have... 9.9 Though I know I've seen something with those two... something terribly cheesy from the sixties maybe? *ponders*

[maderr.livejournal.com]

I don't think that's quite the word I wanted. Something like simpering, but with more cowering and less fluttering of the lashes. Fretting?

Bed time? I keep meaning to actually do that...

[tygati.livejournal.com]

But.. I mean... o.o I've always seen him portrayed as a highly respected member of society, maybe a little aloof if anything.... but... hardly any of those things you described. o.o; *weird*

[tygati.livejournal.com]

P.S. Bed? What is this bed you speak of...? ;)