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At least I saw one of the movies nominated for an Oscar this year. I sat all alone in the theatre to watch The Shape Of Water. I wouldn’t have bothered anyone had I vocalized, “I can’t believe I paid to see this,” as I made my exit, twenty minutes into the freak show, as I had felt like doing. Turned out I stayed and watched the whole thing and I was glad I did.
The only reason I go to any movie these days is to see if there are any men’s issues in it. Something to inspire an article for the Good Men Project. I believe film today is mainly about distraction and programming of the masses, as it always has been – distraction from what love can be and programming the human brain for lust and violence. The cinematic technology for doing so just becomes more and more graphic. I couldn’t smell the slop water mixed with blood and tissue mopped up by the movie’s “cleaning lady” hero, but I imagine somewhere some people are working on such effects for the near future.
One way to counter the distraction would have been to walk out when the portrayal of human loving got ridiculous. Another way was to stay, to stay and see the shape opposite of the one in the picture show.
One of the core themes in The Shape Of Water is communication. The main human character, Elisa, can hear just fine, but cannot talk, due to a mysterious trauma in infancy that has left her with scars on her neck. She expresses herself with sign language which gets translated into movie subtitles. The object of her romantic passion doesn’t talk either. However, there are no subtitles for him or it.
I mean no disrespect for cryptozoological species anywhere. I understand they are only crypto to me. No entity of any kind should be tortured for any reason, but for The Shape Of Water, to preach its, “nobody should be alone in love message,” the way it does, just stinks.
A lonely woman meets adorable, misunderstood creature, is cute in a way but did they have to go all the way? Human beings having sex with other beings used to be bad. Now it is a sign of mutual understanding.
Early on we plainly see how Elisa uses water to masturbate. Did we really need to see that? Wouldn’t the sound of lapping liquid have sufficed? I imagine not seeing this scene in the trailers brought some out to see the show. A similar depiction of male masturbation would have certainly kept The Shape Of Water from playing at the mall.
Although the complex where Elisa is employed mopping up the mess made from secret military experiments is equipped with security cameras, neglected was the area where the most prized experiment was kept. This gives Lisa, plenty of opportunities to get to know, Mr. Something Fishy Is Going On. Elisa’s love interest looks almost exactly what I remember to be, The Creature From The Black Lagoon. I never saw the movie, but I recall having a plastic model of its star. Elisa gets acquainted by feeding it eggs. Hey, she had to start somewhere.
The creature referred to by the bad guys in the movie as “the asset” entertains us with its horrific response to sadistic torture. Sadistic torture can be quite entertaining. It also entertains us with its response to eggs, music and a friendly greeting card.
The Asset is kept in the nude and there are plenty of “full frontal” camera shots. Again, this wouldn’t be a swimmable look in the mainstream if it weren’t for this guy being flat instead of bulging. Elisa eventually explains with her hands, to her friend Zelda, what the creature does to get it on with her as if I really wanted to know.
“The Shape of Water,” does a stunning job of creating the shape of Baltimore, Maryland in 1962. It was a time before cell phones, texting, emojis, and memes, but the what used to be called “telegraphic” communication issues, speak to us today.
I first encountered the phrase, “telegraphic communication,” when I worked as a social worker with parents who had children and adults with speech delays and disorders. Telegrams were how people communicated over long distances before such communication was wireless. The cost was per letter and punctuation mark. The telegraph company in the word “stop” for free to indicate when to pause, when reading the message. My work was in support of children and adults saying more, to be able to express themselves more fully. It used to be this was done with more words.
I recently came across a pile of letters in a shoe box saved by my mother. They were correspondence leading up to my parents’ marriage in 1949. My mother was living in Nebraska, USA. My father was in New Jersey, USA. In one letter my mother apologized for the extravagance of using the telephone to communicate with my father as she rededicated herself to letter writing. We now live in a time where many lovers or would be lovers have access to unlimited voice phone call cell phone plans at a reasonable price. Having such plans, such lovers often are content to still text message and email in the place of talking. The emoji and meme now express what it used to take a good deal of ink to do. Being exposed very frequently to a lover’s face, postures, sighs, smells, and conversation is becoming increasingly unpopular.
“The Shape Of Water,” is about more than a horny woman and an egg-loving monster, but not much more. Movies used to have a lengthy and intense dialog to depict lovers getting to know and understand each other. This movie makes its point that women, people of color, gays, individuals with disabilities and comic book monsters need a little loving now and again. It makes its point that heterosexual white men can be sadistic, uncaring real-life monsters, beyond the healing power of love. So be it. What is missing is intelligent, passionate dialog.
Male communication is often mocked as being a series of grunts, punctuated by a word here and there. It is true that with male brains typically having less space devoted to speech there is a greater incidence of speech disorders with men and a greater societal acceptance of male grunting. That’s too bad.
Face to face conversation can be a messy business as it reacts in real time to voice inflection, facial flushes, body postures and finger-pointing. Conversations can easily wander into unmarked territory and murky waters. They can create personal symbols and hidden meanings for lovers to share and to facilitate ongoing conversation.
“The Shape Of Water,” is predicted to score big at the upcoming Academy Awards. If you watch it you are exposing yourself to all sorts of Illuminati propaganda. However if as a man you watch it, you can use it to celebrate what is not there. What is not there is the language of love embedded in conversation.
After you expose yourself to “The Shape Of Water,” you can go back to The Good Men Project for more exposure to “the conversation no one else is having.”
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Photo: Getty Images