funny, I don't remember that tactic from my Debate 101 class....

you get an F!!! you can try a make up exam at a later date.

misogyny???? where??? i never thought that! infact, many of his women are empowered by the events in his films...for example, eXistenZ, jennifer jason lee kicks ass! she's the hero & the villain all at once.

the most specific example of charges of homophobia came from naked lunch, strangely enough. Cronenberg utilized some conventions that shifted the responsibility of bill lee's homosexuality away from himself, and on to outside forces, in this case represented by talking anus typewriter agents. Also the fact that the homosexuality had been tamed from the scenarios that were in the book.

taken from a paper written on the subject (google'd it):
_________
David Cronenberg's Somatic Dialectic
by
Doug Mann

"Cronenberg's early films have led some commentators to see in his monsters misogynist or homophobic creative intentions. David Sanjek, discussing Shivers in the light of his first four films, notes that they all feature women who have been labelled as "monsters" due to some male action: witness the sexually rapacious women in Shivers, Rose in Rabid, Nola Carveth in The Brood,and Kim Obrist in Scanners (1996: 57-8).(9) He goes on to condemn the lesbian kiss between Betts and Janine as proof that if a lesbian relationship exists in Dr. Hobbes' (Cronenberg's?) world, it would be initiated violently, and only between two "monstrous" women (67), concluding in the end that it appears that many of Cronenberg's films "construct narratives whose story-lines exist on the basis of the victimization of women who are made the objects of male power" (70).

Andrew Parker focusses on Rabid instead, linking monstrosity, the media reaction to the AIDS crisis, and national and sexual difference. He comments that "...Cronenberg has consistently been drawn into the same monstrous terrain where sexuality grafts itself onto nation, the same terrain the mass media have exploited since the advent of the AIDS crisis" (1993: 210). Parker sees inRabid a remarkable anticipation of all the fears, all the "murderous details", that would come to dominate the American media's reaction to the AIDS epidemic, notably how sex is linked with death in the syringe/penis that Rose extrudes from her armpit when hungry for blood (216). Oddly, he parallels the sexual difference between straights and gays to the instabilities within Canada's borders, suggesting that Montreal (the site of Rabid) has a singular, sexualized role in Anglo-Canadian imagery. His youthful travels north of the border have convinced him that Quebec is an Anglo-Canadian metaphor for lustful desires and inner subversion, for homosexuality (213, 222).(10)"
____________

Just take a look at his stunning film, 'Blue Velvet', and it'd put all those accusations to rest.

Wait a minute....

Wrong director.

You're right. Cronenberg sucks.

Except for Videodrome. And Existenz, and Crash, and......

hey greg, thanks for posting... if you read the rest of the thread, you'll see I am not saying that cronenberg sucks, I was putting my ACTING hat on a spewing forth an accusation that has been leveled at the man elsewhere... it was meant to get a little conversation going since this tribe gets a little *quiet* sometimes. I suppose I should have expected a bit of confusion, but honestly, I am a bit taken aback that fans of The Cronenberg Experiment are so susceptible to a bit if fairly obvious provocative technique. As far as I can tell, even garrett up at the top there still thinks I am an asshole.

Let it be known now and forevermore that I consider David Cronenberg to be one helluva filmaker, and I fanatically view everyone of his films and cameo acting appearances to load up on more of that sweet sweet mugwump juice. LONG LIVE THE NEW FLESH!!

"Vit-dee-o-ddromh"