NTL's Frankenstein
I just heard a CBC "As It Happens" interview with a woman who dated Jian briefly. When they were first alone, she says, he pulled her hair back roughly. But when on a later occasion she came back to his place, she says without warning he began to hit her on the head until she cried, in shock and pain, and got out. Tomorrow morning, apparently, there will be another interview, same story.
We in Canada are reeling - not because it's a salacious sex story, so unusual in this country, but because it's incomprehensible. We all knew the public face of this personable, clever, successful, multi-talented man. And now we discover he has another side, vicious, violent - Jekyl and Hyde. I just heard Jamie Lee Curtis in a video about bullying say, "Hurt people hurt people." But everything we know about Jian's childhood is comfort and happiness - loving middle-class parents, stable, warm - yes, an outsider, a Persian princeling in whitebread Thornhill, as he has so often joked. But what would produce a man so full of anger that he would assault a young woman he hardly knew, risking his entire career? It happened ten years ago, she said. It has taken that long for the stories to come out. If this were happening forty years ago, these stories might never have come to light. My British friend Annie just told me about growing up adoring the comedian Jimmy Savile - her horror and revulsion when it was revealed after his death that he had been abusing children - HUNDREDS of children - for SIX decades. Worse, much much worse than what happened here. Savile was a monster.
I think back on Jian's book, 1982, which is a light-hearted take on an 80's adolescence, but has a dark undercurrent about his obsession with a girl who in the end rejected him. Did rage at his outsider status somehow twist his soul? I used to wonder why such an attractive man in his late forties - though looking many years younger - had never had a longterm relationship.
What will happen to him now?
Well, on a happier note, my head is once again swimming in theatrical bliss - I did go to the National Theatre Live again, to see an adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, with Benedict Cumberbatch as Frankenstein and Jonny Miller as the Monster. There is another version with the roles reversed, and I'm considering going again. Once more, a stunning, powerful piece of theatre, as good as it gets. Once more, $22 for a front row seat. Once more, I left knowing that the British are so far ahead of the rest of us in their writers, actors, directors, producers for the theatre. Yes, we in other countries produce a great show every once in a while, but their theatre is consistently, by far, the best in the world. Brilliant in every way. If you possibly can, go.
PS And now the Star has produced more women ready to talk about Jian, more horrible allegations, punching, choking, beating, tales of verbal and physical abuse going back to 2002. How many people knew about this? How is it possible that such vile behaviour could go on for so long?
From Twitter:
Stephen Marche @StephenMarche 35m35 minutes agoI have never seen or heard, anywhere, of a journey from beloved icon to repulsive outcast so swift or so severe.
We in Canada are reeling - not because it's a salacious sex story, so unusual in this country, but because it's incomprehensible. We all knew the public face of this personable, clever, successful, multi-talented man. And now we discover he has another side, vicious, violent - Jekyl and Hyde. I just heard Jamie Lee Curtis in a video about bullying say, "Hurt people hurt people." But everything we know about Jian's childhood is comfort and happiness - loving middle-class parents, stable, warm - yes, an outsider, a Persian princeling in whitebread Thornhill, as he has so often joked. But what would produce a man so full of anger that he would assault a young woman he hardly knew, risking his entire career? It happened ten years ago, she said. It has taken that long for the stories to come out. If this were happening forty years ago, these stories might never have come to light. My British friend Annie just told me about growing up adoring the comedian Jimmy Savile - her horror and revulsion when it was revealed after his death that he had been abusing children - HUNDREDS of children - for SIX decades. Worse, much much worse than what happened here. Savile was a monster.
I think back on Jian's book, 1982, which is a light-hearted take on an 80's adolescence, but has a dark undercurrent about his obsession with a girl who in the end rejected him. Did rage at his outsider status somehow twist his soul? I used to wonder why such an attractive man in his late forties - though looking many years younger - had never had a longterm relationship.
What will happen to him now?
Well, on a happier note, my head is once again swimming in theatrical bliss - I did go to the National Theatre Live again, to see an adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, with Benedict Cumberbatch as Frankenstein and Jonny Miller as the Monster. There is another version with the roles reversed, and I'm considering going again. Once more, a stunning, powerful piece of theatre, as good as it gets. Once more, $22 for a front row seat. Once more, I left knowing that the British are so far ahead of the rest of us in their writers, actors, directors, producers for the theatre. Yes, we in other countries produce a great show every once in a while, but their theatre is consistently, by far, the best in the world. Brilliant in every way. If you possibly can, go.
PS And now the Star has produced more women ready to talk about Jian, more horrible allegations, punching, choking, beating, tales of verbal and physical abuse going back to 2002. How many people knew about this? How is it possible that such vile behaviour could go on for so long?
From Twitter:
Stephen Marche @StephenMarche 35m35 minutes agoI have never seen or heard, anywhere, of a journey from beloved icon to repulsive outcast so swift or so severe.
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