The revolution will not be televised (2/12/02)
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Zebra Lounge. [Kari Skogland, 2001.]
Fatal Attraction squared: severely upscale suburban marrieds Cameron Daddo/Brandy Ledford, admitting to themselves that the carbonation has fizzed out of their lovelife, decide after a rare burst of spontaneity which leads them into a porno shop [and which could have led the plot in a much more interesting direction, but never mind] that they might do well to try to step out a little, and place an ad in a swinging-singles magazine. This leads straightaway to an encounter in the eponymous Zebra Lounge with seasoned swingers Stephen Baldwin/Kristy Swanson, a couple of nights of sizzling passion [not graphically depicted], a predictably unsuccessful attempt to terminate the involvement, and, as these evil twins created by their giving in to the promptings of unbridled lust begin to pop up unbidden at every turn, the gradually swelling nightmare realization that the deviant liason cannot be constrained, that the zipper has busted, that [out out damned spot] the spreading stain of moral transgression cannot be localized, and that [like that first puff on a joint which leads inexorably to heroin addiction] these avatars of the Id unchained will now be poking their protrubances into every orifice that Daddo/Ledford have so foolishly exposed to the corruption of oxidation.
Thus, e.g., Baldwin/Swanson dog Daddo to his place of business [a large and unusually sterile glass brick; home, presumably, to many hundreds of corporate robots], where while she hoses the feckless executive-aspirant senseless in the elevator her other half gleefully whacks Daddo’s hated principal rival for the position of vice-president of marketing. — Not the happiest illustration of the wages of sin, since this actually looks like a great idea. But you grasp the principle.
Of course, since the burden of the scenario is so obviously that one slip from the straight and narrow path must lead directly to perdition, all this can only end in righteous gunfire and a solemn oath never to pop a boner again. But, unfortunately, as so often happens in the inherently subversive medium of motion pictures, this moral is undermined by the visual subtext, which conveys the vivid apprehension that Baldwin/Swanson are much more magnetic and interesting than Daddo/Ledford; which leads you to conclude that the latter probably deserve the dullness of their lives, because they aren’t anywhere near as cool as their purported nemeses. [After all though you may not know exactly who Kristy Swanson steps out with in real life, it sure as hell isn’t a vice-president of marketing.]
Moreover even if you think about it in noncinematic terms it doesn’t make sense: why kill Baldwin/Swanson? Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to reform them? Give them two-point-three children of their own? Embroil them in corporate politics? Drop them into Volvos, and take them out to the golf course?
The only conclusion you can draw is that this is supposed to be impossible; which is to say that the impulses Baldwin/Swanson represent cannot be controlled or domesticated; which leads us, presently, to an endorsement of the strategy Saint Matthew seems to approve when he says that “there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingsom of heaven’s sake.” And a discussion, no doubt, of the relative merits of aversion therapy [wouldn’t it be
interesting, after all, to be the one who gets to plant the electrodes in the subject’s wiener and push the button that gives him an electric shock whenever he becomes aroused?] and chemical castration — though I’m sure the dedicated scientists at Bob Jones University are hard at work on the exploration of these and other alternatives. [Well, maybe not that hard.]
Oh, this is ridiculous. — Get thee behind me Satan. — But first get down on thy knees and take thy teeth out. — And let’s make sure the cameras are rolling.
____________Everybody was kung fu fighting (1/29/02)
