Okay but seriously folks – as often as I joke about this movie stirs my loins and as weirdly popular as this text post got a while back, I wanna rap with you all about why the George of the Jungle remake is a pretty important piece of cinema.
It’s literally the only movie I can think of that is based completely around the unheard of “FEMALE gaze.” Granted, while I’m a huge movie buff I’ve not seen every movie ever made. But even so, even if there’s another example of the “female gaze” in cinema that has escaped me it’s still damn impressive that a kids movie from 1997 based on a Jay Ward cartoon from the 60’s managed to turn gender representation in media on it’s fucking ass!
First things first, let’s look at our leading lady and love interest – Ursula, played by Leslie Mann.
Let me just say that while Leslie Mann is adorable and a talented actress, she does look a little less conventional and a little more plain compared to the bombshells that Hollywood likes to churn out. Leslie, in comparison, looks much more like a real women you’d meet on the street. She dresses pretty conservatively and plain throughout the film ; Wearing outfits that are more functional than fashionable for trekking through the jungle, pulling her hair back and so forth. Not that if she was dolled up and more scantily clad it would give her character any less integrity, but can we appreciate how RARE that is in the male dominated industry of film? Just think about all the roads a film about a woman in the jungle COULD have taken but didn’t – no scenes with her clothes strategically ripped or anything! You can say this is a kids movie, intended for children and that’s why the sensuality of the female lead is so downplayed but there are PLENTY of kids movies that handle women in a very objectifying and sexualized manner despite the target audience is pre-pubescent. Like, a disgusting amount. So I don’t think “it’s a kids movie” is why the film doesn’t take ANY, let alone EVERY, opportunity to showcase the main female character’s sex appeal…
…especially considering the sex appeal of the film rests squarely on the well defined shoulders of our male lead, George of the Jungle played by Brendan Fraser in the best god damn shape of his life!
*Homer Simpson Drooling Noises*
Whenever members of the reddit community try to compare the sexualization of women in fiction to the design of characters such as Batman and Superman, I always want to just sit them down and show them this movie. Because THIS is what the female sexual fantasy looks like, and Batman and Superman are male power-fantasies. Look at him – his big blue eyes, his soft hair, his lean, chiseled physique built for dexterity rather than power. He’s wild and free, but gentle. It’s like he fell right out of that steamy romance novel your mom tried to hide from you growing up.
Hell, the whole plot seems to be designed around how damn hot he is! First, for the majority of the film, he wears only a small strip of cloth to cover the dick balls and ass. Everything else is FAIR GAME to drool over for 40 minutes. Then, after he meets Ursula she takes him with her to San Francisco just so we can enjoy him in a well-tailored suit (as seen in the gif set), running around in an open and billowy shirt along side horses while Ursula and all of her friends literally crowd around and make sexual comments about him, and my personal favorite, ditch the loincloth entirely and have him walk around naked while covering his man-bits with various objects while one of Ursula’s very lucky friends oogles him and makes a joke along the lines of “So THAT’S why they call him the ‘KING of the Jungle’…”
And yes, it’s also a very cute and funny little movie. Out of all the movies based on Jay Ward cartoons, it was the most faithful to the fast-paced humor and wit of the original source material (yes even the new Peabody and Sherman movie which honestly I thought was too cutesy-poo.) But that’s not why this movie is popular with the gay community or why we all became women in 1997. It’s just really cool that there’s a film out there where the sensuality of the female form takes a back seat for the oiled up, chiseled, physique of Brendan Fraser (in his prime that is)
One thing to add: in the scene mentioned above where the ladies are watching him in the billowy shirt running with the horses, it pans back to about 50 feet away to two guys in suits at this party looking at the women and one of the guys says, “Man, what is it with women and horses?” So not only does this movie highlight the female gaze, but it blatantly points out that western male sensibilities don’t have a clue what actually appeals to women.
ALSO
he’s non threatening
as mentioned above, he looks built for dexterity rather than power, but he’s still a 6+ foot tall extremely muscular man, and not once are you worried for Ursula when he’s with her
The more popular Vulture Culture gets the more demand there will be for things like skulls and pelts. And more often people are going to try and pass off poached/hunted items as scavenged. Here I will give a few red flags to look out for, as well as some good things to spot and some general tips for buying animal products.
(All photos used are for visuals ONLY. The products shown in the pictures provided are NOT call-outs or examples)
Red Flags:
1. Bulk quantities
If a seller is claiming something to be scavenged from roadkill, and yet is selling in large numbers, be cautious. This isn’t ‘always’ an indicator of an untrustworthy seller. I’ve seen 10 raccoons on one stretch of road before. But use common sense, how likely is someone to find and scavenge 10 foxes or 10 crows a week?
2. Unusual color morphs, especially foxes!
If someone has farm fox color morphs (like marble foxes, blue, silver, etc) and tries to pass them off as roadkill they arent even trying. It is possible to buy pelts like this secondhand in antique shops and fur farms arent inherently “unethical”. But just know they almost 100% came from a fur farm at some point.
3. Bones, pelts, and animal products from Asia.
As most vultures are well aware, different countries have different laws regarding sale of animal parts. Be cautious buying from places like China, Uruguay, and Brazil. Animal protection laws in those places may allow for easier poaching and hunting of endangered species as well an unethical treatment of animals in fur farms. This results in large quantities of VERY cheap skulls and furs, however the treatment these animals received as well as the legality of their culling is questionable.
4. Failure or refusal to provide permits
If you are looking into purchasing something that requires a permit or license and the seller refuses to provide the paperwork that is a HUGE red flag. Not only would selling without the paperwork be outright illegal, but the likelihood that they obtained the product legally in the first place is up for debate.
GOOD things to look for
Now ill list a few things that are good indicators of scavenged products.
1. Imperfections
Bones that are old, weathered, cracked, or otherwise imperfect. Bones that have been sitting out in the woods for a while tend to take on a specific look. Quite different from perfectly white bones.
2. juvenile or out of season animals
Hunters typically avoid juvenile animals or animals that have “out of season” fur or plumage. If you see someone selling a pelt of a coyote in its spring coat, or a bird skull with juvenile beak colors its ‘safe-ish’ to assume it wasn’t hunted if the seller says it wasnt. However take this tip with a grain of salt. If it WAS hunted it was likely out of season, and therefor poaching. Use this tip in combination with the others to make a safer guess.
Anyway, sorry this post is really lazily done hopefully this helps some new vultures.
THANK YOU, this is really a good set of rules-of-thumb.
Dishonesty happens in the Vulture Culture community so consider this info before buying.
Don’t lie about your sources either, gang. I know some people think “Oh I’m running a business, the buyer won’t understand my ethical standards so I’ll just say I found it dead.”
Well guess what: it’s when you lie about your source that when people investigate and you have a scandal. (Like in the case of mummified bats and donated humans. Those wouldn’t have been so infuriating if the sellers were honest.)
You can never be too sure in places like these. Another dumb short comic from the same talk with @kaisukidoodles as the other one was! They’re on the Nepal Village map today 😀
“The fearsome roar of Tyrannosaurus Rex as portrayed in film has left many a cinema-goer quaking in their seat.
But new research suggests the king of the dinosaurs made a far more sinister sound.
For a new BBC documentary, naturalist Chris Packham visited Julia Clarke, professor of Vertebrate Palaeontology at the University of Texas, to test out a the theory that dinosaurs actually sounded more like birds and reptiles, than today’s predatory mammals.” – Source
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