To Play the Crying Game

by Molly Ivors

In the thrilling conclusion of Neil Jordan's freaked-out 90's phenom The Crying  Game, the actual woman, Jude, played by Miranda Richardson, becomes the enforcer for the eeeeevil terrorist IRA, and must take out Our Hero, played by Stephen Rea when he attempts to step away from the organization. Unfortunately for her, his heart has already gone another direction, toward Peace and Love and Dil, the light-skinned black boy so effeminate that he passes as a woman. Of course, as Elaine Showalter pointed out lo these many years ago, it's a narrative necessity that Jude end up crazy or tamed or dead. And so girly Dil has to be dressed in boys' clothes and learn to use his gun in order to protect the hapless Fergus. It sure is a good thing Freud has been discredited! Whew!

I can't think what brought this film to mind this morning.

Mistress Hillary started disciplining her fellow senator last winter, after he began exploring a presidential bid. When he winked at her, took her elbow and tried to say hello on the Senate floor, she did not melt, as many women do. She brushed him off, a move meant to remind him that he was an upstart who should not get in the way of her turn in the Oval Office.

He was so shook up, he called a friend to say: You would not believe what just happened with Hillary.

She has continued to flick the whip in debates. She usually ignores Obama and John Edwards backstage, preferring to chat with the so-called second-tier candidates. And she often looks so unapproachable while they’re setting up on stage that Obama seems hesitant to be the first to say hi.

With so much at stake, she had to do it again in Vegas, this time using her voice, gaze and body language to such punishing effect that Obama looked as if he had been brought to heel. It was a mesmerizing display, and at an event that drew the highest television ratings of any primary debate this year. The momentum Obama had gained from a vivid speech at the Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner in Iowa drained away by the end of the first half-hour.

Think it's too strong? I dunno. She all but calls Obama, a smart, principled guy whose meteoric rise through the Dem leadership has been truly impressive, a fag. Not just a fag, but a faggy fag, as my students would say. Hillary "cracks the whip," something he's conditioned to because "he lives with another strong woman who keeps him in line ... a master at the art of the loving conjugal put-down."

Dood, MoDo says, you are so whipped!

In MoDo's world, where strong women must be balanced out by weak men, the idea of a mutually strong relationship is unthinkable (which may be why Hill and Bill confuse her so much). I can see a similar dynamic with Michelle, who strikes me as less bitchy than funny and self-deprecating, realistic rather than idealistic about the person who shares her life, far from the doe-eyed adoration expected of your Jeris and Judis of the world.

And so Obama is a pussy, and Hillary a bitch: " The debate dominatrix knows how to rattle Obambi."

But Hillary will be crushed when faced with A Real Man, MoDo is sure. Or at least, a much less convincing cross-dresser.

We are all Fergus now.

UPDATE: watertiger notes that both NTodd and I are shying away from the truly horrific implications of the "cracking the whip" motif when used by a white candidate against a black candidate.  Of course gender is the main deconstructive tool I use on the Idiot Princess, but it's an excellent point, the implications of which are stomach-churningly offensive.

Comments

[NTodd]

Sigh.

[watertiger]

Honestly, I find the whole "whip-cracking" in relation to Obama so blatantly REAL, not sexual, slave talk that it's disturbing. NTodd touches on it in his post.

[Silver Owl]

I did not realize the NYT was going in a whole new sleazy direction with printing Dowd's own sexual fantasies.

Maybe Dowd's work number is a new sex chat line at the NYT.

Will Dowd do Vitter in diapers? Stayed tune for more of Dowd's sexual habits to be published in the NYT.

[MA_blue]

Molly I;

Great job as always. After reading that tripe I had to come over here to calm down. MoDo is a truly disturbed person and she is waisting the precious real estate that is the nytimes oped space.

IS MAUREEN DOWD NECESSARY?

[DrDick]

Thanks (I think) for this post. This is just another example in an apparently unending list of obsessions about Democratic marriages and gender roles. I am not a fan of either Clinton or Obama, but give me a break. They are both strong, accomplished people who are married to other strong accomplished people and who seem to have really good, strong marriages. From everything I have seen, they are models for what modern marriages should be. If you want to obsess about people with marital issues, I would suggest taking a long, disturbed look at Giuliani or Fred Thompson. I do not know enough about the marital situations of the other GOP candidates to say whether they are equally interesting (funny how that works). More to the point, why in the fuck are we even talking about the marriages or gender presentations of the candidates and not the fucking issues and policies? The reality is that we have had almost no substantive coverage of these, actually important aspects as opposed to the millions of words wasted on whether the candidates are manly, womanly, etc. Jumping Jeebus on a jet powered pogo stick.

[Ripley]

Here's what I don't get:

Dowd sees nothing unreasonable in a strong (I'm assuming), opinionated woman expressing her thoughts and opinions in a major metropolitan newspaper (not to mention the New York fucking Times!). But, for some reason, it's less than acceptable for a strong, opinionated woman to run for President of the United States (which is arguably profound in its own right) and act as a strong, opinionated woman. WTF?!?

Apparently, in Dowd's world, catty is far superior to intelligent and self-assured. I don't know if it's hypocrisy or an absolute lack of self-awareness, but she's morphed into some kind of editorial slug, leaving a trail of Stupid behind her.

I don't know what's worse: that she keeps coming up with such drivel or that someone thinks it's worthy of a paycheck.

[Comandante Agi]

So, according to Ms. Dowd, Hillary is a whip-cracking dominatrix who constantly plays the gender card? Whuuuh??

[low-tech cyclist]

I don't pick up the 'fag' bit. Dowd's implication seems more to be that Obama's a sexual submissive, and Hillary's his domme.

But whatever it is, it's trash - that's the important thing. It's a return to the old 'strong woman' = 'ballbuster/castrating woman' meme. Most of us moved past this nonsense a couple of decades ago.

Maybe it's time for MoDo to stop living in the past.

[Hecate]

I don't pick up the 'fag' bit. Dowd's implication seems more to be that Obama's a sexual submissive, and Hillary's his domme.

Yeah, that was how I read it. But it's kind of the same thing, in regards to the patriarchy. Any man who isn't a macho man, a "real" man (like Rudy, according to MoDo) is feminized and,thus, not able to be presdient. Whether he's faggy or submissive to women, he's out. This is an attempt to make both Hil and Obama unacceptable and to boost Rudy. Sorry, but if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck and, well, you know.

[eRobin]

Holy Smoke - I thought that was a joke at first. Dowd has gone round the bend, which stinks for the people who will suffer b/c of it but vindicates me. I stopped reading her during Clinton's administration and have never linked to her approvingly under any circumstances that I can remember. (too lazy to check) Frank Rich too - no thanks.

[flory]

I think Yglesias is right. This may very well rank as the all time worst NYT Op Ed page in the history of forever.

Between MoDo, Friedman, the Cannan apologia for Reagan and the Kagan/O'Hanlon Pakistan excresence, it's hard to decide just when they jumped the shark, but jump it they did.

[Thers]

it's hard to decide just when they jumped the shark, but jump it they did.

And then they fucked it!

[Mr.Murder]

If Hillary only knew her place. It's next to MoDo, pumping out cliche driven typecasting for her gender!

As for the Crying Game, bravo!

Be warned though, Hillary used her "body language" in Vegas!

I hear Bill Clinton does a good Nic Cage, when he's had a good drink...

as if there was ever such thing as a bad drink, in Vegas, for a man...

The outrage will be when we discover Hillary's "body language" is done in fluent Spanglish! She's trying to seduce immigrant votes!

She didn't just jump the shark on this one, she buggers the Chupacabre! Be sure to guard your pet goat!

[Dave Latchaw]

Just how would spinster Dowd know anything about the dynamics of marriage?

[Molly Ivors]

To clarify: among adolescent males (which I take to be Dowd's demographic, because who else would take this shit seriously?), the term "fag" and "faggy fag" have nothing whatever to do with sexuality, just with an inappropriately deferent attitude toward women (in the speaker's opinion).

[Mo MoDo]

I agree with the others. Maureen was calling Obama "pussy-whipped". I'm surprised some sort of cat metaphor wasn't thrown in to drive it home further.

[trademark registration]

That's a disturbing image. But I agree that in Ms. Dowd's world, emasculation is king. It's the only tool she has come up with to keep herself relevant. And I use "relevant" loosely.

[anilmal]

Does NYT have any editors or are they all asleep ? To allow a column with the sleeze and quite frankly obscene column of Dowd in the magazine is really unforgiveable. It is time to put Dowd to pasture. This is the same columnist who was ready to bed Bush a few years ago.

[julie]

Glad you posted this.

When i saw Dowd's article this weekend, i couldn't believe they even ran it in the NYT. It was totally over the top, and at least should have had a flashing neon sign above it reading "The follwing opinion does not reflect-in any way- the veiws of the NYT".

Actually, i thought it was so vile they really shouldn't have run it at all.

[Bobby Mac]

Has anybody ever heard Dowd pronounce a 3 or more syllable word? Quite possibly she's smarter than she sounds, but how did she get to where she is today?

[Suzanne]

I cannot figure out if Dowd just hates Hillary or hates all women. I found her latest column disgusting.

[actor212]

UPDATE: watertiger notes that both NTodd and I are shying away from the truly horrific implications of the "cracking the whip" motif when used by a white candidate against a black candidate.

It could just be ,a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilsa%2C_Harem_Keeper_of_the_Oil_Sheiks">Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks, if that makes it more palatable...