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Southern Voice/March 28, 1991 15
COUNTERCULTURE
FILM REVIEW
Jim Morrison
and New Jack
Review by Terry Francis
The Doors ★ — A bomb. In recount
ing the meteoric life and career of sixties
rock star Jim Morrison (Val Kilmer, finely
self-destructive as the lead singer and
principal songwriter for The Doors),
Oliver Stone succumbs completely to his
penchant for mythologizing every damn
thing in sight.
Even the simplest themes, here, are
treated as if they were the locus of a mod
ern morality play. The characters—
Morrison, the women in his life (Meg
Ryan, as the "ornament" and Kathleen
Quinlan as a sort of journalist witch), as
well as the other members of the band—
aren't so much vitiated human beings as
they are icons.
This tendency toward aggrandizement
also commands the film's visual design:
tired film techniques intended to simulate
and evoke the popular view of the sixties
as being a shimmering, sexy hallucina
tion.
In seeking to render everything the
sixties meant to him through the persona
of Jim Morrison, Stone reduces the singer
to a generic representation, a pale
metaphor. Yet, as he's presented in Stone's
film, Morrison comes across as little more
than a not very bright kid mining the bot
tom most reaches of alcoholism with a
vengeance. He's so benighted he can't
make the connection between his abuse of
alcohol and drugs with his impotence.
(His poetry, moonish and artificially pret
ty, is impotent, too.)
Where Stone's films always fail for me
(with the exception of the flawed, hyper
Salvador), is that they resurrect and
reconstruct the past in terms that are codi
fied and stylized to the point that charac
ter is lost. For all their visual effrontery,
Stone's films are pallid in their depictions
of human endeavor, because the personal
ities involved are carcasses in a theory,
by Penn Collins
According to the current Ulrich's
Periodical listing there are 600,000 peri
odicals in print. If we are indeed every -
where, then that might mean 60,000 of
them are for the gay and lesbian commu
nity. Well, maybe not...In this column I
hope to bring to your attention some of
the current crop of publications that may
interest gay men and lesbian.
"BGM" a magazine for gentlemen
of color has been published by Blacklight
Press since 1979. It was the first African-
American gay magazine to be published
in the United States.
The current issue, #5, is chock full of
what has made this publication good read
ing. A nice anthology, an interesting
comic strip by Burton Clark, and black
gay horror—certainly a hard-to-find-
genre—by Sidney Brinkley.
Also thrown in are some fascinating
graphics by artist Damballah. The poetry
on drug abuse is intriguing. I was startled
by an article on Black Muslims by Max
Smith. Black Muslims are a group that I
wouldn't normally read about, yet the arti
cle made me realize our commonality.
I would have to recommend this one, if
for no other reason that it again points out
the diversities of our culture.
"BGM" is available at Oxford Books .
Or write to Blacklight Press, P.O. Box
9391, Washington, DC 20005
Utne. It Rhymes with chutney.
"Utne Reader" is one of the best publica
tions out there. But don't ask me, ask the
rather than humans refined in their indi
viduality.
Near the film's conclusion, in a grab
for depth so desperate it becomes palpa
ble, Stone resorts to an unsophisticated
(and hackneyed) collage technique that
throws in some of the most important
issues of the sixties—the war, the assassi
nations, the riots, and so on—that simply
are not substitutes for accrual of character.
It's comparable to using an affecting piece
of music, say, Barber's "Adagio for
Strings" in Platoon, to supply emotion
unearned by the material.
Coming after Gus VanSant's
Drugstore Cowboy and Alex Cox's Sid &
Nancy, The Doors seems not only mud
dled but superfluous. Oh, yes, this is one
of those movies with a steady stream of
frontal female nudity but scarcely a male
bum in sight. The women in the film
reflect the standard dichotomy, but with
an outre twist: bloodsucking witches and
dumb blondes.
Perhaps the most noxious and effective
scene in the film is when Morrison meets
Andy Warhol, the master manipulator of
his own aura, at a party attended by
Warhol's entourage and sycophants.
In a brief, seemingly inchoate conver
sation, Warhol leads a sky high Morrison
down a garden path of fugitive ramblings,
until he draws everything together by
offering him an ordinary, everyday object
to be used for an utterly bizarre purpose.
Morrison, whose fellow Doors appear
THE MAGAZINE RACK
readers. And according to a recent article
in "Time Magazine," it is growing. In a
time where such magazines as "Fame,"
"Psychology Today" and "Egg" are ceas
ing publication, "Utne Reader" is on the
rise. Subscriptions are climbing and folks
cannot wait for the next issue of this bi
monthly.
What makes it such a hit? Well,
according to its byline, it is "the best of
the alternative press." Recent issues have
culled articles from such diverse publica
tions as "Washingtonian," "Greenpeace,"
"Native Self-Sufficiency," "Kick It
Over!" and "Village Voice." It is variety
that makes this one work—"Utne Reader"
covers a lot of issues: gay/lesbian, co
dependency, singleness, even Christian
Ecology finds a spot here. You never
know what another issue will bring.
The current issue is a perfect example.
The main topics are salons and gay life in
the '90s—with reprints of two diverse arti
cles.
The first is "To Be Young and Gay" by
"Mother Jones" writer William Hayes.
The other article, "Why Heterosexuals
Need to Support Gays" by Village Voicer
Donna Minkowitz, offers a delightful
twist to a common discussion. I found
myself looking differently at the commu
uncomfortable by the Warhol ian ambi
ence of it all, appear dumbstruck. At the
same time he appears to wonder if he's
being made a fool of he's also blown away
by Warhol's suggestion.
Warhol, meanwhile, has already
walked away, chattering stream-of-uncon-
sciously to some apparently dear friends
just passing through a doorway.
New Jack City ★★★ —It's a mess, but
there's so much raw talent on display in
this movie that I urge you to see it. After
such comatose offerings as Dances With
Wolves, Awakenings and The Hard Way
—all those men, showing us the
way—Mario Van Peebles' urban night
mare melodrama seems like a breath of
fresh air. The prodigious Wesley Snipes
(he was the thing about Spike Lee's Mo'
Better Blues, which seemed to shrink
around him) stars as a John Gotti-like
street king of crack, hooking everybody
he can on drugs while handing out food
and money to locals like an old-style pop
ulist on the campaign stump.
Snipes and his strongarms literally take
over a neighborhood apartment building,
transforming it into a high-tech crack fac
tory and smoking den. Snipes' ambition
grows. Turf wars turn deadly. In the face
of Snipes and his fellow terrorists, the
locals are rendered helpless, their young
shortly to fall under the spell of Snipes'
nity after reading this.
"Utne" offers fresh views in a way that
the reader doesn’t have to dig through a
lot of other publications. The editors
seem to relish finding little gems like
"Why Heterosexuals...Support Gays" and
tossing them at the reader.
There is a section devoted to "The
Lively Art of Political Posters" which
highlights such scary arcana as the fact
that less than 5% of the artists in the
Modem Art Sections of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art are women, yet 85% of
the nudes are female.
Also worth noting: the "Smorgasbord”
and the "Off The Newsstand" sections.
Both have a lot of fun stuff to offer.
"Utne" even gives us a convenient coupon
to send off for samples of everything from
"Nude and Natural" magazine to a cata
logue for everything from Birkenstocks to
environmentally safe gardening supplies
and games for the socially aware. One
warning though—when coupon says
"allow 4-8 weeks for delivery," they mean
it
Worth Noting: "Family Therapy
Networker's" Jan-Feb issue is one of the
best I have seen. Virtually the entire pub
brand of greed and fast money.
Through the efforts of the police, the
bloody reclamation begins. As always
nowadays in American movies, the clich
es abound. The "good" cops are played by
Van Peebles and rapper Ice T (and the
always repellent Judd Nelson); along with
Snipes, the villains include Christopher
Williams and Allen Payne, all of them
outstanding.
Van Peebles direction is all over the
place, and it's difficult, with this, his debut
film, to know whether to accord highest
praise to him, his editor, Steve Kemper, or
his cinematographer, Francis Kenney.
The sloppy film teems with an energy and
cast of characters (and actors) who go a
long way in making the film's numerous
flaws more bearable.
A virtual dissertation could be written
on this film's depictions of the attitudes
expressed by its male characters toward
women, its cesspool of cross-ethnic preju
dices, its utter sense of despair. Van
Peebles' movie is alive. It breathes fire.
lication was devoted to lesbians and gay
men and therapy. Discussions ranged
from what to do if your therapist is in the
closet—is it hindering you?—to coping
with homosexuality—no longer a psychi
atric disorder. The writing is extremely
good, thought provoking and honest. This
will be hard to find, but it is worth search
ing for.
In upcoming months I hope to contin
ue covering/looking at the wide variety of
lesbian/gay publications and other publi
cations that work for and with the com
munity. Magazines to look out for:
"Sportsview," "Outing Travelogue" the
always fresh "Outweek." If you hear of
anything new drop me a note, I am con
stantly searching for new publications.
Two Ways to
Examine Diversity