LECTURE NINE

Terms

Psychiatry has altered its approach to the condition by moving from one which tried to cure the person of homosexuality to one in which there was an attempt to help the person deal with the societal difficulties the person was having rather than treating the orientation as the problem. The American Psychiatric Association’s statement that gay orientation is not a mental illness was probably the final step in the process.

Despite the positions taken by the medical and psychiatric professions a substantial number of people still react with revulsion to the idea that people can be attracted to people of the same sex.. It has even been held that heterosexuals feel less upset by homosexuality in the opposite sex, because they can understand someone being attracted to people to whom they themselves feel attracted.

A number of sexual variations are also known which are seen as deviant (and or criminal). Among these is incest which is generally defined as sex between relatives. However which relatives are involved varies from place to place and time to time.

Another act which is often seen as criminal is prostitution, Definitions are again difficult, but generally it refers to the sale of sexual favors.

Dementia praecox – early dementia a form of mental illness not used any more but something

Relation between food/eating and sex like death and sex

Food and sex (like death and sex are related. Words in English and other languages imply the relationship in words like “eat’, devour etc.

SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER
Joseph Mankiewicz
1959

One story is that author Thomas Lanier Williams (later Tennessee Williams, after the state where his father was born) is famous for his sexual intense plays (Street Car Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tim Roof, etc.) another hold that it was a name given him by fraternity brothers who called him that because of his southern accident.

Williams was close to his sister Rose who was schizophrenic and who had a prefrontal lobotomy performed which incapacitated her. Williams was always concerned that he might become insane as well.

Most of his plays that were made into film were heavily censored to the point where the homosexuality was almost totally purged from the script as happened with Cat on a Hot Tin Roof as well as Suddenly, Last Summer.

As with some of Tennessee Williams' other plays, the plot involves a homosexual man portrayed in a negative light. Williams may have originally used this motif to express his own unresolved shame, while Vidal may have seen it as an opportunity to point out and/or exaggerate and mock the homophobia of 1950s society. In Suddenly Last Summer, the gay man is cast as a faceless pedophile, who comes to a horrific end as a consequence of his own unshown actions..

Williams had a penchant for writing about extreme sexual matters often obsessive.

Originally Suddenly, Last Summer was one act play which is basically in 2 monologues. The movie is enlarged and has subplots and more characters.

The film stars Montgomery Clift who, a few years before had been the victim of a car crash, while leaving a party thrown by Elizabeth Taylor. She found him and saved him from choking to death by pulling two of his teeth out of his throat. His face had to be reconstructed by plastic surgery. Clift and Taylor were close friends until the end of his life. She encouraged him to do Suddenly, Last Summer and took the lead role. Even Eddie Fisher her husband at the time (1959-1964). Took a small part .

He was guilt ridden about his homosexuality and died as a result of an occlusive coronary artery disease, although it was dubbed by one acting teacher “the longest suicide on record”.

It has been held that both Sam Spiegel the producer and Joseph Mankiewicz (the director) treated Clift badly because of his sexual orientation. This aggravated Hepburn so much that she is reported to have spit in each of their faces when her role in the film was completed.

It is also apparently the case however, that Clift was difficult to work with and this antagonized the crew more than his sexual orientation. He was on drugs as a result of the car injury and was also drinking heavily and could not perform for more than a few hours. There may have also been problems in that Hepburn felt that there was more attention being paid to Taylor than to her.

After the film

Names

The decent in the elevator

The garden: like the dawn of time – carnivorous plants

Venus flytrap: Goddess of love and carnivorous

Sexual imagery:

Turtle eggs and the tie to the eating of the birds.

Story about “the devouring nature”

Parallels with Sebastian’s demise. Eaten cannibalized by urchans

Sex/sex-food-eating images

Dueling Oaks/mardi gras ball/ sexual encounter/ shift to 3rd person
Venus flytrap Turtles egg laying, rush to sea, devoured by birds Cabenza de lobo Laughter at the possibility of Sebastian interested in Sebastian wanted to sacrifice himself to some awful terrible god. Involvement with gardener Venable follows son devotedly - obsession. Blondes were next on the menu. Famished for blonds Fed up with the dark ones, famished for blondes Fed up with the dark ones, famished for the light ones That’s the way he talked about people as if they were item on a menu. That one is delicious looking \hat one is appetizing or that one is not appetizing Half starved Nine months to prepare – length of pregnancy Hard delivery Died without Violet with Catherine Sebastian was chaste Violet only one in his life. Violet let husband die alone to be with Sebastian High places are dangerous God is in high place Devouring birds Catherine over men Catherine over women Sebastian dies in high places Venable descends. Catherine erotomania: World devouring her Man with dueling pistols raped her Obscene and violence attacked agardoner Sebastian uses Venable and later Catherine to procure young boys for him. This is what Violet (flower) What is hidden: knowledge of Sebastian’s sexuality Tell the true story: nothing hidden Death and sex – Sebastian to fulfill sacrificial element God as cruel and Music/noise – tin instruments. Money motivates hospital – reference to Williams’ sister LONG MONOLOG BY CATHERINE Starts at dueling oaks Third person (distancing herself foom her) Like being pursied by Siberian wolves Ravenous mouth High above Mediterranean (high place) She touches he pulls away; he couldn’t go on Sebastian got older more problem for him Spider web image – spider web breaking Starts superimposed film when talk is about beach. Followed yb hungry young people Blazing hot white day Sebastian in white (his favorite color) SEBASTIAN FACELESS Calling “pan” (bread) stuff fists in mouths making grins Music with procession Tin cans stryng together, nits of metal Sebastian recognized boys Attempted to correct a human situation Death figure on road Broken stones like an entrance to ancient ruin temple Cut from cabeze de lobo hill to garden Sebastian naked on stones – looked as if they had devoured him – torn and cut parts of him always with hands or time cans and stuffed them in gobbling mouths Catherine goes sane Venable goes mad Film is like analysis: trying to find the repressed element. Does eruption of the repressed become horrorific here? BASIC DRIVES: Life/Death; Food; Sex Notes on SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER