Daniel Craig, Venus As A Man?
I've started writing a poem about Daniel Craig, in my 'caberet' tradition, like the David Beckham poem. Not sure if it'll come to anything. As the new blonde Bond he's the current icon of masculinity - and the most iconic scene in the film is that where he emerges from the sea in his pale blue trunks, deliberately, ironically, echoing the scene from 'Dr No' where Ursula Andress does the same. Our eyes are invited to crawl all over his superb torso, like all men's eyes crawled over Ursula's in 1962. This is a man who doesn't mind being objectified and ocularly raped, whose masculinity isn't diminished by it, who doesn't need it, but invites it anyway...
Is he a Botticellian Venus-As-A-Man? Or is he Christ, rising from the Jordan, freshly baptised? Whichever it is, that whisper of supra-human power, coupled with the vulnerability of his nakedness - and his wetness (is the water still standing, like tears, in his sapphire eyes? Can he even see us? Could he kill his enemies, like this, dripping like this? With his bare hands?) means we are awed. Awed and desiring and envious.
Most straight women (and most gay men) WANT him.
Most men (gay or straight) want to be LIKE him.
Look at his cute, cruel mouth. We are a little scared by him, and we like that. That's why a significant percentage of the people reading this blog entry will find, if their thoughts wander off into a bower of bliss, if their eyes start sightlessly penetrating the darknesses between these pale blue words, that it might suddenly be replaced by their latest screensaver...
of Daniel Craig, rising from the water.
This is a pre-poem entry. How much of the above was necessary - will be
necessary - to the writing of the poem. Does a blog entry like this clear
the ground - or fertilise the ground - for the poem to grow out of? Have I
just been writing myself into the place where the poem will begin? What
function does this blog have? It is not a purely reflexive instrument. It
is part of the creative process. But how?
Hi Richard,