Pop culture moments

[eruthros]

m_shell and I watched the DVD of the London stage production of Oklahoma! recently. You know, the one with Hugh Jackman? We'd seen it before, but only as a bad PAL to NTSC dub that our prof smuggled out of England.

This led to some discussion about Wolverine playing Curly, as is wont to happen, and I had a sudden flash of Prof X as played by Patrick Stewart in wheelchair singing "the farmer and the cowman should be friends" and trying to stop fights between the two groups and, just, yah. Patrick Stewart. Prof X. Singing this:

"Ain't nobody gonna slug out anythin'. This here is a party!
Break it up ya' two ol' fools. All right, Andrew, sing it!
Dum-dah-dee-um-dum-dum!

and

I'd like to teach you all a little sayin'
And learn the words by heart the way you should
I don't say I'm no better than anybody else,
But I'll be damned if I ain't jist as good!

Is that not just perfect? I mean, see, Magneto is going around all Superman and Mutants Are the Next Generation and stuff, and Prof X is singing about being no better and no worse. Hee!

Sadly, since this is clearly based on movie!canon, one can't have Laurie played by Rogue, so it has to be Jean as Laurie and Scott as Judd, which is lame. And Rogue and Iceman can be Ado Annie and Will, and of course Pyro can be Ali Hakkkkiiiiiiiim.

Except there's no place for Magneto, except perhaps as Andrew, which is also lame.

Anyway.

My other pop culture stream-of-consciousness-casting-call for the day comes from a discussion with friede about this ... interesting post in which a Draco fan compares Draco to Lord Peter Wimsey. (Which led to this post wherin a rather famous HP author explains her Draco characterization and uses the phrase "Darth Wimsey." No, really.) After moments of "wtf?" and "but... but..." and "so the logic goes how again?" I tried to work out who the Malfoys are really like in the Wimsey oevre.

eruthros: Darth Wimsey my ASS.
friede: blerg.
eruthros: ... maybe the Duke, actually.
eruthros: *ponders Lucius and Narcissa as the Duke and Duchess*
friede: oh dear Gawd.
eruthros: See, and Lucius knows there's something going on with his dear brother (cousin) that he just can't match -- Sirius has that certain Gryffindorish something.
eruthros: Oh! Oh! And then! See, Lucius is imprisoned, and it could totally be all "Clouds of Witness" and Sirius (lala he's dead but whatever) saves him because it TURNS OUT that he wasn't in the Department of Mysteries to kill anyone, but to visit some Commoner Cutie Patootie with a mean jealous husband.
friede: *facepalm*
friede: FLEE
eruthros: Heh.
eruthros: Well, as that makes clear, it doesn't work on the SPECIFICS.
eruthros: But if I were comparing the Malfoys to a "type" from the LPW books, it would be the Duke, not Wimsey.

I have a sudden desire to cast everyone else, except for the problem where it doesn't work and there is no LPW equivalent in HP. And besides, who'd be Freddie Arbuthnot? The Gringotts goblins? Lame! And Peter's mother! How could anyone else be like the Dowager Duchess? And how in heaven could anyone be Bunter, good steadfast Bunter who brought Peter back from his shell-shock? Or Harriet? Because Harriet and Peter are so much individuals, at least after Strong Poison, when Peter stops being quite so much a cliche with a magnifying-glass monocle.

Hmmmm. Actually, that brings up an interesting point: I wonder if the people who compare Draco to Peter are the people who love the early novels and hate Gaudy Night? Because it does make some sense, rather. Are they looking at Peter as the detective-toff? The white-blond man of distinction, collector of elegant suits and first editions and Daimlers with long bonnets? Rather than as Peter, intelligent and incredibly neurotic and cheerfully ridiculous and learning what it means to be desperately in love? I mean, in that post you see Peter and Harriet's relationship referred to as "inevitable," when that's the last thing I'd consider it -- it's inevitable from the perspective of the series before we meet Harriet in SP. But once DLS starts turning Peter into a real person and writing Harriet? Well, no, because then the whole point is growth and change, and it's the exact opposite of inevitable.

*ponders*