PIC: Zoomorphic Revolutionaries

[backupmemories]

Yes, yet another joke on Thermidorian propaganda. I promise to post the other two Vampire Hunter Rousseau pictures soon, they're more interesting. ^^;; maelicia and I were talking about various depictions of revolutionaries in Thermidorian propaganda, and the popular description of Maxime as a cat came up.

I commented that it's a good thing no one who had read that particular story had then gone onto a career in anime, or else we'd be faced with catboy!Robespierre and other such things...

Inevitably, I actually did draw it. ^^







I'm contemplating continuing this, because it takes me about two minutes to do each one. Any ideas? Snake!Marat? Something for Saint-Just? And what is Camille - some sort of pigeon???

Suggestions welcome, please. Accuracy to Thermidorian preferred for the joke value, but not required. ^__^

Comments

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

Hm, Maratoad? Too obvious perhaps... And then Puppille might not be obvious enough.

It really is. It's a great drawing to yes. Yes, it is indeed from "that weird Roger Waters thing"--which is actually much better than it sounds, in the original French version, anyway. (The English version has the annoying habit of changing great lines like "régner est un crime immense" ("to reign is an immense crime") to "to be king is a sacred trust." >_>) The art is by the librettist's wife.

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

I feel I've got to add I loathe and despise Roger Waters - he actually premiered his 'French Revolution' thing at a benefit concert at the Royal Albert Hall in front of the massed ranks of the English aristocracy - Waters is a toff - as a special benefit gig for the 'Countryside Alliance', an organisation previously known - before they employed a PR agent - as The Masters of Foxhounds Association. Even other members of Pink Floyd commented, that of all the organsations in the world, this was the least deserving cause of the lot. I've already posted about hunters STILL calling the animal they kill 'Charles James' after Fox, the Whig who supported the Revolution. Presumbly the irony is lost on Waters...I remember screaming at the radio when some interview with him about it came on - "get your hands off the revolution you foxmurdering aristo c*nt!".

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:dTbhyMwXP9gJ:www.neptunepinkfloyd.co.uk/index.php/news/news-archive-2002/75-roger-qthe-foxq-waters+ca+ira+roger+waters+countryside+alliance&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=uk&client=firefox-a

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

The author Robin Page, cited by Waters at the end of that bit of self pity was also an active Aparthied supporter. Many Countryside Alliance supporters are also far-right: the magazine 'Earth Dog Running Dog' carried the Countryside Alliance masthead until there was a big story in the papers about their editorials which contained comments like 'the Jew Straw (the then Hom Sec) and his monkey Boateng'

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

Paul Boateng being a black MP... sorry about multiple posting but every time I do a link it erases stuff...the aristos also like to claim - as in that bit by Waters - that they are an 'oppressed minority group' - here's my take on that, and oh I was so pleased to see the letter they published just before it! - http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/jul/03/hunting.ruralaffairs

Sorry about going off-topic, but I had to get that rant off my chest!

[maelicia.livejournal.com]

My view is that hunting with dogs is not only morally correct but also a natural expression of mans' nature as an omnivore.

Question: ...can we eat foxes? Because I doubt we do. And thus the whole argument fails.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

We could eat them, in case of dire need, but we don't. But obviously, the argument still fails, because they're hardly in dire need, now are they?

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

Hm, really? That's too bad. But I feel then, in this case, the need to separate the author from his work--except, obviously, in the case of the English version. Music, after all, can't have political sympathies, and I agree largely with the sentiments expressed in the original French libretto, which, as I mention above, actually *does* say things like "to reign is an immense crime."

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

It's such a live political issue here that it's impossible for me to seperate the 'work' from the author's politics - and it just strikes me as truly bizarre that someone can premiere a work about the revolution in front of, for the financial benefit of, and as an active member of a group of people who stand for everything the revolution - in its Jacobin form - wanted to destroy: that audience would literally have been full of the people whose forebears were, with Pitt, the destroyers of that revolution.

(I know, I know, with all the things in the world today, my concern for fox-welfare on a small, cold, wet island seems trivial, but it's actually how I became politicised as a child - age 6 or 7, I couldn't understand why one social group was allowed to kill animals for 'sport' when any normal person would be imprisoned for cruelty...and then I found out about the class system..!)

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

The original French libretto isn't his work and is pretty Jacobin though (ie, not only pro-Revolution, but pro-regicide and recognizant of the necessity of the Terror and even of Robespierre's opposition to the war and his role in the abolition of slavery, so I don't feel particularly bad about liking it. Especially since the librettist wrote it for the bicentennial of the Revolution - though that didn't work out - and had no idea about the circumstances of its premiere (having died in 2004).

As for the issue of supporting Waters by paying for it--well, I've already done that, unfortunately, and ceasing to listen to it or selling it or breaking it wouldn't change that.

(But I completely understand your feelings about the putridness of class systems, and of England's especially. I share them--and feel that fox-hunting is barbaric.)

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

Ah - I didn't know the libretto was by someone else - I suppose that explains a lot! Waters probably just thought 'revolution - that's kind-of big and cool and dramatic! I'll set it to music!' whilst knowing little about it, in the same way that Coldplay are doing at the moment...

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

Exactly. It certainly explains the "(un)improvements" he made to the English version.

[nirejseki.livejournal.com]

I feel vaguely bad for asking given the conversation following this, but is there any way to obtain this? Given the conversation, preferably illegally, which I normally avoid like the plague? I'm curious to see it because I've only heard/saw one clip of it and I want to see more to make sense of it; but I have no idea how one might obtain it legally or illegally. -_-;; And now I feel somewhat bad for asking for it, too. Any thoughts? Where'd you get yours? Also, is the version you have with visuals or just the music..?

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

I got mine online a couple of years ago; I forget exactly where. I don't typically buy things illegally either, so I unfortunately wouldn't know where to point you for that either. My version has the visuals, the libretto, and the music, because I actually bought the physical CDs.

I'm thinking of posting an analysis of some of the more unfortunate changes made in it for the English version, if that's of any interest, though of course it would be sans music (though not necessarily sans images).