Carry On Cleo.: Britain, Empire & Sex
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Jhawley2Carry On Cleo.: Britain, Empire & Sex
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Jhawley2CARRY ON CLEO.
Britain, Empire & Sex.
What a Carry on......
Longest running British film comedy . 34yrs.
1958 Carry on Sergeant
1992 Carry On Columbus
Films renowned for crude humour surrounding sex, toilets,
homosexuality....
Frequently dismissed as worthy in there own right.
Rogers & Thomas.
Everyone made by the team of producer
Peter Rogers and director Gerald Thomas.
What a Carry on......
In popular imagination the stars of the Carry on series are usually
thought of as being:
Sid James
Barbara Winsor
Kenneth Williams
Charles Hawtrey
Kenneth Connor
Jim Dale
Joan Sims
Hattie Jacques
Bernard
Frankie Howard.
Howard, while not in Carry on
Cleo, had been, along with
Kenneth Connor, the Play
A Funny Thing Happened on
the Way to the Forum.
Also set in ancient Rome,
both played slaves which
Connor reproduced in Carry
on Cleo while Howard went
on to great success
With the television series.
Carry On Cleo
The symbolism of ancient Rome cannot be underestimated.
The 1960s was a cultural watershed for Britain in a number of
ways
Britain was both changing, becoming more culturally liberated
yet, at the same time, was declining economically .
The theme of ancient Rome resonates these themes:
Sexually liberated yet its pomp, empire and decadence were to
fall apart.
Carry On Cleo. The Film.
Carry on films tended to pick up on other
major films that were being shown around
the same time.
Carry on Cleo was no different.
Elizabeth Taylor had wanted the
blockbuster Cleopatra to be filmed in
Britain.
Filming started but then moved to Italy.
Massive sets & costumes left behind.
Perfect.
Carry On Cleo
Film is a lampoon of Elizabeth Taylor, Rex
Harrison and Richard Burtons staring
roles in Cleopatra. (1963).
The story of love and rivalry between
Julius Caesar and his general Marc
Anthony for the love of the Egyptian
Queen.
Carry On Cleo.
Taylor, Burton and Harrison are replaced by:
Amanda Barrie, Sid James and Kenneth Williams.
Carry On Cleo
Probably one of the best Carry on films.
Very funny, particularly the way it plays on cod Latin
quotations
Listen out for Williams being seasick on the ship to Egypt where
he says
oh sick transit Gloria to a female servant.
This is a play on Latin quote: Sic transit gloria mundi
thus pass all glory from the world
Also the Slave market:
Marcus et Spencius
Carry On Cleo & Context.
Decline of Empire.
Awareness of Europe
Sex, sex, sex and a bit more
please !!!!
sex
Empire.
Decline
High point 1930s
2nd World war undermined its fragile
foundations.
By 1960 all but gone. Colonies given /
won independence.
Massive impact on British identity
Contradiction between most important nation of the planet in the
past and now being marginal in the present.
This besides the changes caused by new immigrants coming to
Britain and a new sense of Britishness being forged.
Decline.
Within this Britishness there is the
problem, still felt today of what it is to be
English.
England being the core of the (so-called)
British empire.
Who are we? What do we stand for?
Europe.
Decline of Empire leads to search for new
identities.
One possible is to be European.
But difficult.
Britain tries repeated to join EEC but is rejected.
Influence of France under Gen de Gaul.
Europe.
De Gaul never forgave
British during 2nd world
war for marginalising him
But also Europe appears
different.
At once better and worse,
more sophisticated Yet too
different for us to be apart
of.
Representation of Decline in
Carry on Cleo
Lovely depiction of Ancient
Britain as utterly backward.
Stone age. Compared with the
luxury of imperial Rome.
Perhaps a metaphor not so
much of state of country rather
our mentality compared with
the rest of the Europe.
Representation of Decline in
Carry on Cleo
Remember this period also
sees the start of mass
holidays aboard to Spain.
Again Carry on Cleo can
be understood as
representing the impact of
Brits encountering newer
and different ways of
living.
Of being utterly lost when
encountering the
European other.
Carry on films
attacked for their
representation of
women.
Either Dumb &
stupid or sex
objects
Or nagging wives
Need to be more
balanced. While
not defending
these
representations it
is also true that
for first time
women are also
being shown as
self-determining
and powerful.
Can give as good
Sex
Sex
But tendency to represent sex the desire, the want of it is
also represented in a very interesting way.
All through the Carry on films Sex is something we British /
Enlish as utterly useless at.
Typical attempts at seduction are blundering affairs.
Also representation of British heterosexual men as being
incapable of coping with strong sexually assertive women.
Carry on
films also
attacked
for their
representat
ion of gay
men..
Sex
Again these representations are
crude.
But what is interesting is the way that
the representations are positioned in
the films.
Importantly so that for the first time
manifestly gay man may be seen as
socially acceptable.
Crude yes, yet still socially significant.
Sex & Empire.
Decline of empire, rise of Europe in British imagination goes
along with other cultural changes.
These foreign types loose morality, particularly those
Mediterranean ones and sex.
Advent of the contraceptive pill liberating women from the
fear of pregnancy
More social tolerance regards homosexuality.
Perhaps Carry on Cleo is a modern morality play about what
Britain is and perhaps aim for.
A place where differences can be accepted.
Far from being just crude perhaps it represents something