Sharks Are Legendary

Sharks are Legendary

Re-writing the Epic of the Fair has been a long time coming, and now that I've gotten through the Elfstones and the wars of the Good Old King I'm getting into murkier waters, as it were. The Sahuagin are very iconic D&D creatures, and even though I made them less scaly and more elfy in the original Aria, taking them out of the D&D cosmology has required some fun research.

For example, Nanaue of Hawaii which is a tragedy about the son of the shark god who basically becomes a serial murderer after he is foolishly fed meat. The interesting idea is that he might have been a less murderous person had he remained vegetarian.

Another tale tells of a beauty who won the heart of the shark god when she was cast into the sea and he swallowed up the enemies of her tribe for love of her.

There is yet another tale where the son of the shark god steals the fish from the fishermen, and that is why they don't tell where they go to fish anymore.

There is an exception, of course, there always is in myth and legend.

The Maori have a charming tale of star crossed lovers, the man cursed with shark form by her angry father, only able to become a man once a month on the new moon by leave of the spirit of the sea. The spirit of the sea ruined her wedding to another with a great wave and her lover in shark form saved the wedding party from the sea. The father saw the error of his ways, lifted the curse, and there were many children born with the mark of the shark man.

On the whole, a Pacific shark myth has a few distinct features. There is always a beautiful woman, there is usually a wily, sexy shark god who takes her to wife and there is oft times a child who bears the mark of a shark. The child is always male and often leaves the company of humans to be with his wild father, suggesting that the shark has totemic significance to pacific peoples as a male symbol of virility and strength.

Interestingly, the shark is never a woman and there seem to be no tales of the whale shark or other of the benign breeds.

Review: The Famous Joe Project

Famous Joe Project is a special treat for me because I usually hate gay cinema.  The films commonly fall into farce comedy and attempt to blend in a kind of hyperbolic straight-on-gay oppression story to insist upon their own gravitas as an afterthought.

FJP does not do this in any great measure.  The acting is proper acting, the lead doesn’t have to speak a word in the opening sequence, he says it all with his face- the character is young and impressionable and experiencing a fearful kind of hope- he doesn’t believe that he’s beautiful but he’s also so happy to hear someone saying it to him.

This kind of honest portrayal of the darker internal gay experience is persistent through the film, from awkward and uncomfortable sexual encounters with partners the lead has to convince himself he’s into to getting involved with beautiful men with exploitative agendas and serious personality disorders.  

The mother in this coming out story is not a plain dealing villain but a dynamic character who is effective on and profoundly affected by the transformations of the lead.  We see not just the ogre of a wicked boyfriend but we also get a glimpse of his own suffering with personality disorder and his life choices.

  Gay cinema desperately needs more honest and considered storytelling of this kind instead of the Greek play approach filled with one dimensional stock characters and escapism prevalent in gay film.

The film’s concluding segments depart from the earlier portion which vaguely resembles a sort of documentary approach to Party Monster and delivers the lead into normalcy from a fantastic, otherworldly experience, a statement both about coming out and about growing up in general.

I deeply enjoyed and strongly recommend this film.