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Billy Budd, Russell Brand, and the Dark Corners of Male Desire – Episode 122

In this episode, Dara goes on a deep dive into Peter Ustinov’s 1962 film of Herman Melville’s Billy Budd. He recalls being struck by Terence Stamp’s remarkable performance and beauty when he first saw it over 25 years ago. A naval setting provides the battleground for innocence vs evil, but what was most memorable to Dara was the gay subtext and the grim denouement that it provoked.

Staying on that theme, Dara looks at other film iterations of thwarted male desire and especially the depiction of closeted lust. He wonders about the relationship between violence and the inability to consummate desire. Speaking further to that theme he references a recent NY Times article that contained an observation that was chilling in its nakedness.

Dara argues that the recent allegations made against Russell Brand are hardly surprising – not specifically about Brand, but rather that yet another man in a position of power and influence has allegedly abused his status at the expense of sexual victims. He also refers to the death of Barry Bennell, a convicted child abuser from the world of English football and asks how many blind eyes have to be turned for sexual predators to thrive. Not for the first time, he rails against the dire implications of the relentless objectification of women, the violence in porn, and the disproportionate and confused emphasis of female sexual utility.

To bring the episode to a less confronting conclusion, Dara reads in full the very particular prose of Bosley Crowther’s 61-year-old review of Billy Budd.

NY Times article on one woman’s experience of male sexual aggression (paywall): https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/15/style/modern-love-pinned-under-the-bodies-of-men.html

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