Also in Watchmen: Major continuity issues, since taking off your glasses prior to a sex scene also seems to remove 35 pounds and give you more muscles (if you're male, anyway).
I actually have no memory that there was a sex scene in 300 at all.
The sex scene with Nite Owl and Silk Spectre in Watchmen, though, is supposed to be kind of pathetic (in the sense of pathos as well as in the sense of laughable). Dan Dreiburg's central tragedy in the story (I think all the characters in Watchmen are tragic - just gonna declare that bias right now) is that he is addicted to the Nite Owl persona. Dreiburg is indecisive, flabby, dull, and spends his time reminiscing with the first Nite Owl, to the exclusion of "normal" socialization (Hollis says, "If you ever have a hot date or something, you don't have to come by", and Dreiburg responds as if that's not even a possibility). Nite Owl, though, is dynamic and empowered. This expresses in Dreiberg's impotence (which is a lot more clearly referenced in the comics than in the film). Dreiburg can't get it up, even for Laurie Jupiter, who he's lusted after forever. He has to be Nite Owl in order to complete the act. He is, in effect, a hero fetishist. As such, he's expressing out some of the difficulties that plagued the original Minutemen in the story (Hollis' book, talking about what drove the Minutemen to become masked heroes, says "They said we were fascists, and some of us were. They said we were perverts, and some of us were."), carrying them into the second generation of heroes.
Anyway, when I read the comic, the failed sex scene and the realized sex scene crystallized the character for me, so I was pleased to see them make it into the movie. The purpose there isn't titillation - you're supposed to feel sorry for these folks. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but that's what I think.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2009-03-13 02:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-13 05:59 pm (UTC)The sex scene with Nite Owl and Silk Spectre in Watchmen, though, is supposed to be kind of pathetic (in the sense of pathos as well as in the sense of laughable). Dan Dreiburg's central tragedy in the story (I think all the characters in Watchmen are tragic - just gonna declare that bias right now) is that he is addicted to the Nite Owl persona. Dreiburg is indecisive, flabby, dull, and spends his time reminiscing with the first Nite Owl, to the exclusion of "normal" socialization (Hollis says, "If you ever have a hot date or something, you don't have to come by", and Dreiburg responds as if that's not even a possibility). Nite Owl, though, is dynamic and empowered. This expresses in Dreiberg's impotence (which is a lot more clearly referenced in the comics than in the film). Dreiburg can't get it up, even for Laurie Jupiter, who he's lusted after forever. He has to be Nite Owl in order to complete the act. He is, in effect, a hero fetishist. As such, he's expressing out some of the difficulties that plagued the original Minutemen in the story (Hollis' book, talking about what drove the Minutemen to become masked heroes, says "They said we were fascists, and some of us were. They said we were perverts, and some of us were."), carrying them into the second generation of heroes.
Anyway, when I read the comic, the failed sex scene and the realized sex scene crystallized the character for me, so I was pleased to see them make it into the movie. The purpose there isn't titillation - you're supposed to feel sorry for these folks. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but that's what I think.