The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz
The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz |
| X-rated Japanese erotica sets throats clearing at UK shows Posted: 21 Oct 2013 08:14 AM PDT The museum's Shunga: Sex and Pleasure in Japanese Art is one of three shows on across Britain dedicated to traditional Japanese erotica, pleasure and Kabuki theatre from 1600 to 1900. The exhibitions at London's British Museum, the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and Edinburgh's National Museum of Scotland include works by some of Japan's most famous artists from the period, including Utamaro, Hiroshige and Kunisada. The British Museum and the Fitzwilliam have opened recommended adult-only displays of Japanese shunga – erotic Spring pictures – exploring sex, love and humour in Japan through some 200 works including paintings, scrolls, sets of prints and illustrated books with texts. "It's up to people to make what they want of it, but when they become aware of the beauty and humour and humanity of it they're quickly won over," British Museum curator Tim Clark said today. In Edinburgh, the National Museum of Scotland has turned its eye on Kabuki, the popular form of all-male Japanese theatre combining drama, music, dancing and acrobatics, with 61 prints. In conjunction with the London museum's much bigger exhibition, Cambridge University's Fitzwilliam has opened: The Night of Longing: Love and desire in Japanese prints. Fitzwilliam curator Craig Hartley said how the prints of courtesans, geishas, famous love stories and theatre show the art form's celebrated place in exploring love, desire and pleasure in Japan's otherwise rigidly controlled society during the feudal Edo and imperial restoration Meiji periods. "It wasn't frowned upon... There wasn't any sense of sin or shame," Hartley said. Parental guidance In fact, shunga art on scrolls, prints and made into books could be used as a sex manual on wedding nights, for stimulation by young and middle-aged couples, was proudly displayed to visiting guests, and enjoyed equally by women as well as men. Shunga prints even depict the creation myth that underpins Japan's Shinto folk religion. "They tell about how Japan was founded when two deities had sex," Clark said. "From their union were created the islands of Japan, the other deities and the imperial family." The British Museum blockbuster warns visitors that its explicit material may offend some people and carries the tag "Parental guidance advised" on its website. "We're basically advising it's probably not appropriate for under-16s," Clark said. The 170 or so works include painted scrolls, printed books, sets of colour prints of couples making love in richly coloured inks, some spattered with gold dust and gold leaf, others sparingly drawn. Clothing from the period and shunga's influence on Western artists such as Pablo Picasso are also on display. The show was packed with visitors who avoided catching your eye and occasionally made the kind of gentle throat-clearing noise signalling public awkwardness among the polite British middle classes. But beyond the over-sized penises penetrating intricately drawn vaginas, there are tender moments of love, traditional stories brought to life, poetry, lewd jokes and affectionate humour celebrating love and pleasure in all its aspects. Some of the masterpieces on display at the British Museum, including Kitagawa Utamaro's Poem of the Pillow (1788) – one of the most celebrated shunga sets of all – show a wide variety of people engaged in love-making and emphasise the universality of sexual enjoyment. Clark said the show's curators hope the exhibition can be taken to Japan, where shunga played a central role until the country opened up to prurient Western cultures during the Meiji period (1868-1912), after cutting itself off from the outside world for more than two centuries. The social changes that followed eventually led to a ban on displaying the art in public until the 1990s. "It's the hope of everybody in the project that the exhibition can be reconstituted in Japan," Clark said. – Reuters, October 21, 2013. |
| Carol Burnett honored for comedy chops with Mark Twain Prize Posted: 20 Oct 2013 09:30 PM PDT Broadway and film actress Julie Andrews, comedian Tina Fey, and singer Tony Bennett were among the line up of friends and colleagues who paid tribute to Burnett, whose variety series "The Carol Burnett Show" ran for 11 years. "I'm overwhelmed, totally overwhelmed," Burnett told reporters ahead of the award ceremony. "I just hope after tonight they'll knock me down a few pegs because I think I'm getting a really big head." The 80-year-old singer and actress, famous for tugging her ear at the end of her performances, watched from a Kennedy Centre balcony as many of her contemporaries spoke of the example she set for their lives and careers. "I love you in a way that is just short of creepy," Fey, a former lead writer and actress on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" and sitcom show "30 Rock," said to Burnett. "I watched your show, and I thought: I could do that." The award program is scheduled to air on PBS on November 24, but the October events in Washington featured prominently. The US government re-opened last week after a 16-day shutdown triggered by failed Republican efforts to delay or defund Democratic President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law. "We are here tonight to celebrate the first lady of American comedy, Ted Cruz," Fey said to laughter and applause from the audience, referring to the Republican senator from Texas whose opposition to the law known as Obamacare helped inspire the shutdown. Burnett also had zingers for the town in which her prize was delivered. "It was a long time in coming, but I understand because there are so many people funnier than I am. Especially here in Washington," she said after coming on stage to accept the award. "With any luck they'll soon get voted out and I'll still have the Mark Twain Prize." Politics aside, most of the evening focused on the actress whose famous roles include Princess Winifred in the original Broadway production of "Once Upon a Mattress" and Miss Hannigan in the film version of "Annie." Burnett wiped her eyes after crooner Bennett serenaded her with a smooth rendition of "The Way You Look Tonight," and she talked back from the balcony as Andrews recalled their shenanigans during decades of personal and professional partnerships. "We're going on our 55th year of friendship," said Andrews, the star of movies "Mary Poppins" and "The Sound of Music." "My squeaky clean image goes right out of the window when I'm with her." Colleagues described Burnett as generous and classy. Vicki Lawrence, a co-star on Burnett's long-running variety show, and Rosemary Watson, a fellow entertainer, described how Burnett helped their careers after responding to simple fan letters they had sent to her. "She shaped my life as a child," Watson said. "She was the female comedienne I wanted to be most like." Clips from "The Carol Burnett Show" played throughout the evening, and famous costumes - one of which now resides in Washington's Smithsonian museum - were brought on stage. The Twain prize, named after the 19th century satirist, is the nation's highest honour for achievements in comedy. Burnett ended the show with a tug of her ear and a rendition of a signature song, "I'm so glad we had this time together." – Reuters, October 21, 2013. |
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