Nice Looking Men

Buster Keaton, silent film star extraordinaire, has some of the creepiest eyes in the whole human race. He is still beautiful. 

Fritz Lang, "Master of Darkness", of Metropolis fame. He's on the list of Awesome People From Austria. Lang emigrated to the US in 1934 for pretty obvious reasons and helped found American film noir. Apparently he was a right bastard to work with and was known to rock a monocle, reinforcing the "evil German with a monocle" stereotype. Sigh. 

I first heard of Paul Robeson when I was feverishly collecting as many versions of the USSR's national anthem as I could possibly find (shut up). He recorded the definitive English version, which you can see here. I immediately discovered several things:

1. He was black. From the date and accent of the recording I had assumed he was some rotund British man, so that came as a bit of a surprise. 

2.  He was one of the most incredible people ever. Son of an escaped slave, he worked his way through Columbia Law School while playing pro football, singing, and acting. He was a lifelong advocate against racism, anti-Semitism, economic oppression, and social injustice. His rich baritone voice was one of the first to bring the spiritual to a concert audience. Seriously, I can't even begin to do justice to his achievements without writing a whole article. 

3. He was a FOX. 

4. He got utterly and supremely screwed over. His blatant socialist sympathies, as well as his support of Stalinism in theory at a time when America didn't completely know about Stalinism in practice, not to mention his race, drew the government's ire. He was forbidden to travel. He was blacklisted. His recordings, film footage, and nearly all official records of him were destroyed.  In short, they did their best to erase him from history. (Does this remind you of anything, comrade?)

I am still angry for his sake. 

Bawwwwww! *ruffles hair* This is Joel Grey. He played the MC in the original Broadway production of Cabaret. It's kind of hard to imagine that this adorkable guy is also...

He's climbin' in your nightmares. Snatchin' your ladies up. Tryin' to seduce them with a nasal German accent OH GOD I CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE MAKE IT GO AWAY *hides under sofa*

Let's not end on that note.

You know what? I don't even care. Julie Andrews is magnificent, and you can keep your little gender categories. "Nice Looking People" doesn't have the same ring. I'm a fan of the women-in-male-evening-dress look, but a thoughtful deconstruction of that thought doesn't belong here. I think Halberstam's 'Female Masculinity' is the definitive work on the subject, especially concerning FTM drag in the early 20th century. 

This particular picture is rather amusing--she played a failed soprano who pretends to be a man in drag in Victor/Victoria. 

That's all, folks. The next episode, when it happens, will contain more than your daily average dose of creepers. Huzzah!