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some of you may recall my strange affair with the Phantom of the Opera...
I feel the need to explore, for my own sake if not for anyone else's, this strange obsession which has bound me off and on for well on 13 years now. It has waxed and waned, and I am a different person in many respects from the one who was first struck, but recent events have conspired to raise the specter within me again. The recent milestone achieved by Lloyd Webber's juggernaut reminds me, as well, that this love affair of mine was sparked by something I don't like anymore and have rejected since I was 16 or so.
So why does it still haunt me?
Okay, so it started with ALW's Phantom when I was starting high school. That was about the same time I found the audiobook at the library (read by F. Murray Abraham). So then came Susan Kay's revisionist masterpiece (*cough*) and my teenage angst and fanfiction (though I didn't know that's what it was at the time) and round-robin stories and relationships I still have born of Phantom. I collected all the movie versions. I'm writing a book on one of them now.
So recently I've been going through some of my old stuff, and it's brought back a strange Phantom love. I thought obsession was gone from my adult, more-or-less-responsible life. Some of it is probably nostalgia. Some of it's probably lj with its communities. Some of it is the fact when I'm supposed to be writing "for real," Phantom fiction comes really easily. Or maybe it's the fact I've married a guy who keeps an organ in the basement. I've been rewatching old videos. I bought a Lon Chaney figure. I feel a certain, familiar warmth when I pick up the book or watch Chaney's movie (in new special edition restored version, no less).
But why? Why, when I can't stomach the fanfic, can't listen to the musical, deride most of the forms the story comes in, and should be doing other things? When I, unlike my teenage self, have a life, a partner, my own home, a job, and creative pursuits coming out my ears?
What the hell is this Phantom guy still doing here?
I don't expect all of you to relate immediately to what I'm saying. But I'm sure you've had an obsession or two which has behaved funny later on, like an acid flashback or something. Not that I've ever had one.
I like being obsessive, to a point. I like have something to mull over. But does it have to be so stupid? Why can't it be something I actually like? Why this?
PS--Melly or Moco, you'd better have something to say to me about this.
So why does it still haunt me?
Okay, so it started with ALW's Phantom when I was starting high school. That was about the same time I found the audiobook at the library (read by F. Murray Abraham). So then came Susan Kay's revisionist masterpiece (*cough*) and my teenage angst and fanfiction (though I didn't know that's what it was at the time) and round-robin stories and relationships I still have born of Phantom. I collected all the movie versions. I'm writing a book on one of them now.
So recently I've been going through some of my old stuff, and it's brought back a strange Phantom love. I thought obsession was gone from my adult, more-or-less-responsible life. Some of it is probably nostalgia. Some of it's probably lj with its communities. Some of it is the fact when I'm supposed to be writing "for real," Phantom fiction comes really easily. Or maybe it's the fact I've married a guy who keeps an organ in the basement. I've been rewatching old videos. I bought a Lon Chaney figure. I feel a certain, familiar warmth when I pick up the book or watch Chaney's movie (in new special edition restored version, no less).
But why? Why, when I can't stomach the fanfic, can't listen to the musical, deride most of the forms the story comes in, and should be doing other things? When I, unlike my teenage self, have a life, a partner, my own home, a job, and creative pursuits coming out my ears?
What the hell is this Phantom guy still doing here?
I don't expect all of you to relate immediately to what I'm saying. But I'm sure you've had an obsession or two which has behaved funny later on, like an acid flashback or something. Not that I've ever had one.
I like being obsessive, to a point. I like have something to mull over. But does it have to be so stupid? Why can't it be something I actually like? Why this?
PS--Melly or Moco, you'd better have something to say to me about this.
archetypes
Let me start over.
When we were younger, there was this extended conversation on the Phantom lists about POTO as a religion. If I recall, it became such an intense conversation that it sparked a rather drawn out fanfic fromme about Erik becoming a minor deity. Despite the slightly humorous aspects of those early-era convictions, I do think that there was *something* to it. Erik's story is very archetypal, and this tendency towards the mythic is only increased in the retellings as he becomes less and less a grasshoppery old fart who speaks.... in odd... gasps... like an asthmatic.... and more of a strange, sleek, and powerful figure. Erik is profoundly Dionysian, and the way in which he was "worshipped" by us youngsters was in many respects a parallel to the way that ancient cultures practiced their mystery cults. There was theater and spectacle, there was an intimate myth of personal revelation (ie- Mary Jane-ism) and sexuality, there was a spectre of historicity, and of course there was this over-arching mythic element of sacrifice and re-birth.
When a person (or a culture) grows and changes, the old religions don't precisely die. They mutate. The mystery cults became Christianity, and who knows what Christianity will become. For me, Phantom in no small part gave way to an obsession with mythology itself, and with a more personal and selective mythology. And in this transition, despite the continuation of huge elements of the old, that which is former tends to be derided. Hence Christianity simultaneously co-opted pagan holidays and burned pagan priests. In order to change and evolve (pardon my Hegelism here) we have to incorporate an antithesis to our old ideas, in order to develop a new and potentially stronger idea.
Re: archetypes
What I meant to continue saying was:
Re: archetypes
Who were you on the list, if you don't mind me asking?
Re: archetypes
(Anonymous) 2006-01-15 09:04 pm (UTC)(link)M-
Re: archetypes
Re: archetypes
CONTINUED
So, bringing it back to the personal level -- we started realizing the flaws in Phantom. These flaws seemed glaring and unacceptable, and so the whole thing rather got pushed into a corner. But we had gleaned what was really good from it, and used that in our re-invention of ourselves.
So then, later, the individual or the society seemingly "rediscovers" the old ideas. Hence, the rennaissance and its obsession with Greek mythology. Now that we've gone through our whole rejection phase, we can come back and look at these things and what they originally donated to our world-view is still there, and able to recognize what is good about them. With Phantom, this is kind of funny -- the story highlights the importance of art... which after being integrated into the new, maturing mind, looked at the phantom stories and rejected them for not being artfully executed. heh. So you hate all the versions... but at the same time, the story itself is still appealing, still intriguing -- it formed you, to some degree, and now it owns your attention.
If that makes any sense.
I've had a somewhat similar experience with a number of things from my early youth that I find my mind bringing back to my attention after years of absence and saying "hey -- look at this again -- it's time to reconsider it."
Tolkien was probably the earliest thing my mind regurgitated for my consideration, leading to a temporary reassessment of Orcs, tolkien, and Anglo-Saxon poetry. Recently, much to my horror, I've been re-assessing my relationship to Christian mythology. (I'd been quite ex-Christian for a while, now I'm academically dissecting it. Heh) . . .
Man I missed you!
My modern writing self was catalyzed by reading Forsyth's travesty on the theme, which made me so angry I started writing for pleasure again for the first time in years.
I think this is like your current interest in Christian mythology; you turn the things that formed you into definitions, for or against or around. I think much of academia is like this, as in, personally motivated to some degree. The way someone with a sick parent in their childhood might become a doctor, or practice medical law, or something. They might not get sick themselves, or be a nurse, but they've been shaped.
As I've said to you before, I'm finding also that as I get older I *am* getting past the "rejection" phase where I decided I dind't like my younger self. I was ashamed, in a way, of her and the things she found important because I'd "grown up" and figured out what was REALLY important. Now I'm not sure at all; or rather, I am better reconciled to the things I used to be/like/do, and have come to recognize them as not belonging to a foreign entity I no longer am and must deny, but a phase of myself, an incarnation with much passion about her, which is still quite alive within me. Just as Shadi always will be (hence Ericka, hence Julian, and numerous other of my fictional "aspects").
Just as Erik always will be, as my perception of him is quite divorced from any single interpretation by others; he, himself, has never been rejected by me because in my psyche he has transcended his beginnings and become "mine." He is the figure of what I need him to be, and I suppose he changes as I do.
Which really brings this all back to religion, doesn't it? Is this my myth?
Where's your stance on Phantom, now?
Yep, your myth....
Currently with Phantom.... I still think about it occasionally. I am aware of the way in which it has informed other interests and *was* informed by them (ie--I read about Hephaestos in my myth class, and said to myself, DAMN BUT HE'S A LOT LIKE ERIK! and then decided that may have been partly because various Phantom incarnations were consciously modelled on the myth). . . Every so often I'm tempted to start writing fan-fiction, but generally get distracted before anything more comes of it than an amusing spoken narrative to Moco (along the lines of "Wouldn't it be cool to write a phiction in which..... we should do that. yup. Someday...") . I still like both Leroux and Susan Kay's work, for what it is. (I've turned into an inveterate relativist) I'm less fond of ALW, but then again I always was.
I'm still rather into my orc phase, actually, it's just not as fruitful right now because my circumstances have changed. Orcs are intimately associated with going through hell, so to speak, for me. They are *powerful* archetypes, figures that can withstand death and danger and torment with an amusingly casual approach: "Hmph. Everyone we love is dead... Ack. Well, shit becomes us. Pick up the bones, we're marching out."
Erik tends to be an archetype for angst and ennui and this endless feeling of alienation -- an outsider -- it's something I needed to support me when I was younger and living in my family. It's about being unable to relate to others... I'm invoking it more now that I'm back in school and just feel oddly unseen and isolated all the time. Erik tends to be much more passive, oddly -- or passive aggressive, I suppose (He kills people without letting them see his face, for example... and he's always "escaping" rather than "facing" situations) -- The orcs, on the other hand, are not invisible ("haha! That would be good, yes!") . . . but they are actively threatened and harmed, and somehow withstand that. Erik is also very powerful in that he is *able* to just kill his enemies and move on... they aren't ever really *winning* against him... I'm not sure I'm explaining this well.
Re: Yep, your myth....
I would never consider picking up the orcs as a useful archetype; but I'm not embattled, either. I should look into "invoking" more actively, however, now that I think about it. For my writing, or "career," or whatever.
Actually, in terms of Phantom, I don't relate to much of anyone but the Persian. I realized that in my writing I will write these main characters with all this angst but the one I relate to, the one who's "me" more than anything else, is the concerned observer who is fascinated by the other's struggle. The Mark character, in Rent terms.
If I'm anyone, it's the Persian.
Speaking of whom...
no subject
My Phantom obsession waned for quite a few years. I wasn't living anywhere near the show, I moved on to other things, it just wore out. Then when the movie came out I was amazed by how strong my reaction to it was. I was amazed that seeing it and loathing it reminded me of all the reasons I used to be obsessed. Some of that was getting back into the fandom via LJ communities, and meeting up with various people I used to know online, but mostly it was exploring why the movie made me so damn angry.
I really never listen to the show anymore, and haven't bothered collecting any of the more recent cast albums. I'm more interested in it from the psychological side now, the archetypes, the deeper aspects of the story. I think I still have a strong affection for the show though, and a nostalgia for aspects of the "old days" of the fandom; it so annoyed me to see people singing the praises of the performances in the movie, which were utterly crap compared to so many I've seen on stage. I obviously have enough attachment to it to be able to get enraged over it at times!
no subject
But yes, it's frequently my reaction *against* which provokes other positive feelings of nostalgia. I've internalized the story, the archetypes, and "grown" in my aesthetic requirements, and it's led to the above.
Thanks for listening. =)
no subject
I think having internalized the story and the archetypes has a lot to do with my strong reaction against the film - because Phantom has become a part of me in many ways, seeing people make stupid ass comments about the film almost felt like a personal insult on some level.
Have you interviewed Jessica Harper at all for your book? I love her voice. I looked her up a while ago and discovered she seems to be doing CDs and performances of songs for children now, which I couldn't help feeling was a waste of an amazing voice, though that's pure selfishness of course!
no subject
I have spoken with pretty much everyone else, and Bill Finley especially was sad about her not "using" her talent. He didn't say the kids' stuff was a waste or anything; but that she has such a great voice (which she does) and should be famous.