Ubalblog

[  Mood: Sleepy ]
[  Currently: Listening to Top Chef DC podcast ]
So Tony Curtis has died. And many in the media were lauding his ground breaking turn in Some Like It Hot because he dressed like a woman.

Meet you in the ladies in ten.

Sure this movie was funny, it’s a screwball comedy, it is supposed to be funny. And yes, Tony claims that he banged Marilyn, after anyone who could have disproved it has passed away. And yes, in a "ground breaking move, gender bending move", he dressed as a woman, but let’s be blunt, the British have been doing it for years. As have the Canadians.

Psst! – The one in the dress is a dude!

And really, Tony’s character of Joe ends up with Sugar (played by Marilyn Monroe). That’s not exactly challenging one’s masculinity. It’s Jack Lemmon’s character of Jerry who it is implied will remain in a relationship with a man. So he’s the one who should have gotten the laurels for Some Like It Hot

But not a lot of the media has turned to Curtis’ groundbreaking role of the slave Antonius in Sparticus. This one had him doing the famous snails and oysters scene with Sir Lawrence Olivier that ended up, for the most part, on the cutting room floor. The implied homosexuality and rape of slave was too lascivious for 1960. Yet it’s restoration 30 years later symbolizes how far we have come. (And how repressed our culture was in 1960 – I mean Tony is wearing shorts in the shot. In Ancient Rome, and on HBO today, he would be as naked as the day he was born.)

Yes, master, I like gun shows.

It is for this that I will remember Tony. Yes, Some Like it Hot showed off his comedic side, and he looked good in that dress (although not as good as Jack Lemmon), but it was Sparticus where he pushed at boundaries. He wasn’t afraid to do that scene in a time in which America was so firmly in the closet that the door was locked and boarded up. And there was a chair wedged under the doorknob.