Crouching Coalie Hidden Wanker

[heavensqueen]

Yeah, I know, I have one job here, and I fail at it

Assignments out by Sunday Oct 15
Default deadline Monday Dec 11
Assignment deadline Monday Dec 18

Letter Posts:
https://yuletide.livejournal.com/1304730.html

https://yuletide.dreamwidth.org/94925.html

Letters app:
https://tagset2017.firebaseapp.com/

Latest Flat View:
https://yuletide-coal.dreamwidth.org/8618.html?view=flat&page=1000

 

Comments

Re: Inevitable Yuletide Fics You Don't Like

[(Anonymous)]

I think what people are picking up on with Velvet Goldmine is the fact that it was based heavily on Stardust by Edwards and Zanetta, which is a very unflattering portrait of David Bowie. He's made out to be a duplicitous, lying, unfeeling fake who uses people and throws them away. The movie follows that book quite closely, and as a huge Bowie fan, reading it was frustrating.

Then there's also the fact that Todd Haynes obviously felt personally betrayed by Bowie when he "went straight" in the 80s and told people he wasn't actually bisexual. The film is both a celebration and accusation of Bowie, as someone initially seen as a god who then really let (gay) people down.

"he though he was Maxwell and Maxwell thought he was god"
This shows that the film is fan fiction. I took it for granted that people knew what that quote was about, but you have to have prior knowledge of Bowie to really get it, since it isn't fully explained in the film. David really had difficulty with his identity, getting too wrapped up in the Ziggy Stardust character, who he "killed off" at the end of a live show when he felt Ziggy was taking over his psyche.

Velvet Goldmine is basically a group biopic of real glam rock musicians. They were originally going to use Bowie's songs, but he refused, naturally, so it became less biography and more fairy tale. Still, the more you know about Bowie and his relationships with Iggy Pop and Lou Reed, the more it all makes sense. (Lou punched David and had a screaming fit at him in public, for example.)

I very much agree, though, Curt is not blameless and Brian is not a villain. They're way more complex than that.

Re: Inevitable Yuletide Fics You Don't Like

[(Anonymous)]

NA

I've always wanted someone to do a many-years-later Velvet Goldmine AU that takes the Bowie!expy thing seriously and makes the post-movie Brian follow real Bowie's trajectory—i.e., glam artist who settled down, mellowed out, and still produced some really great shit before he died, sadly, of cancer.