This heavily reconstructed scene is from that "P.a.l.i.m.p.s.e.s.t"
motion picture of U.m.b.e.r.t.o E.c.o's novel "T.h.e N.a.m.e o.f
t.h.e R.o.s.e." It is an epic film about knowledge and responsibility,
and it stars an unacceptably modernist S.e.a.n C.o.n.n.e.r.y as
W.i.l.l.i.a.m of B.a.s.k.e.r.v.i.l.l.e and a timeless babe in
the person of the young C.h.r.i.s.t.i.a.n S.l.a.t.e.r as A.d.s.o
of M.e.l.k. Nothing "C.h.r.i.s.t.i.a.n" has done since matches
the purity of this role, and no subsequent revelation of his buttocks
can invoke as this invocation invokes.
In the present scene, he falls prey to the guiles of a local wastrel.
The movie makes much of his inner urgings to remain and wed this
mute near-idiot, something the more unlikely given the contrast
between the realtively secure life of a monk as against the horrifying
conditions of medieval peasant life. Despite what is obvious,
I prefer to think of the object of the novice's sins as a local
youth as beautifully bebuttocked as is young S.l.a.t.e.r here.
Surely the guilt attendant upon a homosexual act would have the
more tortured the boy; and surely their ultimate parting would
have been the more touching given the greater mobility possible
even for a peasant male.
More significantly for our present perorations, there is no punishment
for this eggregious breach of the fundaments of monkly life! It
is here that the C.o.n.n.e.r.y character exposes his intolerable
modernism, for this breach of the rules left unpunished promised
an eternity in hell not to mention a feint to the corruption of
the contemporary church against which William was pitted not to
mention an opportunity to inflict exquisite bodily pain on his
hapless charge. The elder monk would surely have taken the occasion
to whip the quivering cheeks of wee A.d.s.o, to put to him a lesson
of terror and excruciating pain second only to the burning of
the non-heretics with which the movie otherwise, and thus pointlessly,
climaxes. Nowhere in cinema -- or in modern literature -- is a
greater opportunity for gut-wrenching corporal punishment missed.
But, alas, we must content ourselves with watching his sweet ass
roll in the hay when there would be so much more to gain from
watching it roll with a whip.
More's the pity for this lost opportunity because it is more than
evident that the present-day C.h.r.i.s.t.i.a.n S.l.a.t.e.r, affectionately
if un-ironically known as "cs" by his numerous, mostly young female
Web fans, needs his still curvaceous butt whipped but good. He
got ninety days for a drunken orgy of beating up his girlfriend,
then spent some time on work parole apparently cleaning cop cars.
When he emerged from jail, he opined in sickening familiar tones
of denial that "We all go through bad times ... it's a matter
of ... how you take responsibility and open your eyes to all the
good stuff that you've been shutting out." I'll tell ya how, bucko
... get those pants off, turn it up in the air, and take the whuppin
like a man. Oh yeah, and give up on women ... all they do is cause
trouble. Now if you'd tried to whack a boyfriend, he'd as likely
a whacked you back and none of this would have made the headlines.
Then, you could have spent a glowing evening trading belts instead
of having to put together a string of femmy "sensitive" statements.
Here's the bad boy himself outside of court, looking besotted
and bedraggled. Now where is S.e.a.n C.o.n.n.e.r.y's belt when
you really need it, "cs"!
