[Pt 2/3] The Feral Kings of "Disclaimer"
Kevin Kilne & Sacha Baron Cohen with director Alfonso Cuarón
Reminder: I’m hosting a free event for artists *especially in film/tv* in Santa Monica on Wednesday, December 11th at Palihouse. It’s by invite only. See details below.
If you missed it, part 1 started with our queens, Catherine and Nancy.
[Pt 1/3] The Shadows and Sexiness of "Disclaimer"
Before we get started, I would be remiss not to mention I’m hosting an event for artists *especially in film/tv* in Santa Monica on Wednesday, December 11th at the gorgeous Moorish hotel, Palihouse.
Forgotten King Stephen
Bumbling Stephen takes on the Forgotten King archetype. Once a central figure in the family structure, he now feels displaced and invisible, as the wife’s emotional focus has shifted entirely onto the son. The Forgotten King is an archetype rooted in the mythology of the dethroned or impotent ruler—his power usurped, his authority ignored.
Disempowerment: He becomes a passive participant in his own family, relegated to the background. This can breed deep feelings of shame and inadequacy, especially if the wife’s emotional and sometimes physical rejection of him is palpable.
Projection of Weakness: The wife may project her own disowned fears and resentments about male sexuality onto her husband, seeing him as weak, impotent, or unworthy of her emotional or physical attention.
He confirms that this is his archetype when he judges the other forgettable husband for the same failings, while he himself dances off the edge of being rightfully fired from his job due to willful incompetence. What we judge in others we hate in ourselves.
Stephen transforms right in front of our eyes into Nancy/Jonathan’s avenger when he dons his new uniform, the heavy wool cardigan of his departed beloved. A sort of madness takes him over. Finally, his grief becomes visible, as well as unbearably itchy.
Kevin Kline talked about his dire hatred of this cardigan at the panel discussion at the London Film Festival, lol. My favorite moment was when he’s been wearing it for so long that he’s discovered that he can conveniently hang his reading glasses in one of the moth holes. The moth holes eventually eat all the way down into his soul.
One must peer through the looking glass to know his anima projection, the disowned yin aspect of sexuality. We do not see him express much there other than his choice of Nancy as his wife. We can’t know what drew him to her initially, but I will speculate to the best of my abilities. If something is now vinegar, we know it began as sugar.
At her best, the juicy sweet Nancy would’ve been direct, bold, and unapologetic about her desires. She would be lightly seductive and playful. This would attract Steven as a counterbalance to his docile, overly loyal nature. Golden retrievers may be lovely on many counts, but they are not sexy.
So long as he did not embody the positive expression of her qualities, he instead unwittingly expressed the most hostile expression of this energy, the all-consuming addiction to vengeance.
As such, Stephen lives a performance of a life dictated by social norms and familial expectations. He has the mannerisms and education of England’s elite. So does his witless opponent…
Mister Ravenscroft
Oh, Robert. Just how are you so very Robert, Robert?
And now we must pause to confront the real world of Sacha Baron Cohen, the actor. It would be remiss for me to omit that he has been accused by former costar Rebel Wilson of pressuring her sexually on a shoot. I won’t speculate but let you draw your own conclusions.
Although Robert does his best to not show it overtly, he is driven by a desire for stability and control in a world he feels increasingly out of his depth in. How much did we love the scene where he breaks the pencil in the meeting room?
For those not in the know, that was a Blackwing which says “Half the pressure, twice the speed.” I know this because I had one in my hand while watching it. The level of attention to detail… just whoa.
In the British upper class, emotional expression is suppressed by rigid propriety, leaving Robert trapped between a need for validation and a suffocating social facade. His internal chaos clashes with the polished image he’s expected to project, leading to a disconnect in his relationships. His struggle to truly engage emotionally becomes a performance, and his son despises him for it.
He’s a neat bookend of Stephen. They are both confused men who don’t have the mastery to confront conflicts. Instead, they both resort to pacification and passive aggression. The only difference is Stephen’s a generation older and more bitter, so his passive aggression has had time to rot into aggressive aggression.
We see Robert’s performative shell crack for the very first time in the last episode where he asks for the validation he craves – forgiveness. Catherine deals him the death blow when she refuses to take him back. In truth, he doesn’t want forgiveness, he wants her to prove her loyalty to him by sweeping his cowardly behaviors under the carpet and continuing to pretend that nothing happened. Yuck.
This was too much for Ms. Ravenscroft, finally.
GOOD.
Catherine spent her whole life sweeping things under the carpet, and this breakdown was her breakthrough. She lived through her greatest fear, that of being unmasked and shown for the evil, defective mother that she sees herself as. It was her undoing and her freedom simultaneously. Like Martha Stewart after emerging from prison, now she’s got nothing left to lose.
Robert’s choice of Catherine tells us that buried down deep inside he’s one kinky gentleman. Her devotion to perfectionism reminds me the most of doms who use strictness to its fullest, firmest advantage. Think whips and restraints. Think being told to clean the bathroom and having that bathroom checked with a white glove. Think punishment as pleasure.
Can we turn the tables and see him as the one with the whip in hand tying up Catherine and giving her very specific instructions? I can. Yes, please.
He might enjoy watching her with another lover. Let us not forget how blazingly hard he got imagining her as a dom. But really, I don’t know any of these things. What do you say? Please leave a comment.
Love from Oaxaca,
Cris and Team Dragon
P.S. I applaud the writers and Alfonso Cuarón for using their platform to subtly throw shade on billionaires using charities to launder their money and reputation. That’s some red-hearted courage right there.