Of the many comments about the recent book that criminalizes Vivien Leigh’s sexual behavior, i found one to be quite interesting: it critiques the book for its sensationalism and criminalization, and emphasizes the idea that Vivien, as an employee who went to the brother with her boss, must have been brave, a person with good self esteem!
the author is one Svutlana, who writes a very interesting English, which seems to have a simplified grammar from another language, and has an uncanny resemblance to the kind of street talk one hears in certain parts of town. the form may be funny, but it reveals an interesting content. Kudos!
you can find Svutana’s blog here
you can get the book from Amazon.com, even though yours truly cannot really recommend it, seems too sensational!
yours truly posted a comment to Svutlana’s brave blog, and she copies it here:
“Svutlana, i completely agree with you, the whole thing, the way it’s presented, tends to criminalize Vivien Leigh, which is really unfair since Lawrence Olivier, George Cukor, and others in that generation of Hollywood stars had similar, somewhat excessive behaviors, partly due to the fact that cinema was new, star status unprecedented (to the extent that cinema could generate world wide) and that their personal lives, their privacy, fell thru the cracks. It’s unfair to single out Vivien Leigh as a woman, it presumes that different standards would apply to her than to the men who accompanied her. And your point that she did ‘rough trade’ with her boss is very important, perhaps a sign of her being a healthy, savvy collaborator (Cukor was a closet gay, and maybe she helped defuse the attention and provide some safety for him). Some of the criminalization also results from the implication that she was something of a ‘fake,’ as in fake British who was actually born in India. again, nationalist and racial stereotypes behind the criminalization of women’s sexual freedom!
Oh, and i just wanted to add, for more in the ways of POSITIVE perspectives on bisexuality, polyamory, and other styles of amorous expression that promote women’s freedom and equality, all are invited to visit my blog, http://polyplanet.blogspot.com, and to join my Facebook Fan Page, Gaia and the New Politics of Love.”
http://polyplanet.blogspot.com
