SALON

Thomas Rogers

Wednesday, Dec 19, 2007 12:00 PM UTC

Everything you were afraid to ask about “Southland Tales”

Baffled by Richard Kelly's latest apocalyptic epic -- the fluid karma, the biblical references, the space-time rift? Get all your questions answered here.

By
  • more

    • All Share Services

Everything you were afraid to ask about

It’s OK to be confused by Richard Kelly’s “Southland Tales.”

For half of Kelly’s epic film about the end of the world, characters are quoting T.S. Eliot or the Book of Revelation. Its plot hinges on a barely explained back story involving rifts in the fourth dimension. For some reason, Wallace Shawn is dressed like a new-wave Japanese pimp. By the time the film reaches its climax — which somehow manages to combine modern dance, a floating ice cream truck and the resurrection of Christ — all semblance of logic has long since evaporated.

Although Kelly’s first film, “Donnie Darko,” was an obtuse cult hit about time travel and an apocalyptic rabbit, few people could have anticipated a follow-up as thoroughly baffling as “Southland Tales.” When it premiered in its original three-hour form at Cannes, last year, the response was acidic. One critic wondered if Kelly had ever met another human being. Roger Ebert called it “the most disastrous Cannes press screening since, yes, ‘The Brown Bunny.’” But despite the reaction, Kelly managed to secure a distribution deal and, on Nov. 14, released a shortened version of the film in U.S. theaters. As a tie-in, Kelly has also produced three graphic novels (“Two Roads Diverge,” “Fingerprints” and “The Mechanicals” — now available as “Southland Tales: The Prequel Saga”) that explain the film’s back story.

The theatrical cut of “Southland Tales” has been extensively reedited — a subplot has been excised, additional special effects shots have been inserted, a new explanatory sequence opens the movie — and critics have been considerably kinder to it. As Andrew O’Hehir put it, the recut film “transcends its adolescent awkwardness and approaches being magnificent.” But even with the changes, the film is still almost impossible to understand, a trait that probably hasn’t helped its box office. It’s too bad, because “Southland Tales” is one of the more interesting and ambitious American films in recent memory.

In the hopes of helping you make sense of the movie, we’ve decided to unravel “Southland Tales” as we’ve done for “Mulholland Drive,” “The Wire” and, of course, “Donnie Darko.” If you haven’t seen the movie and don’t want to have it — or the graphic novels — spoiled, you should stop reading this right now. Using the graphic novels, the Book of Revelation, friends and whatever else we could find, we’ve pieced together everything you need to know (or at least everything we’ve been able to figure out) about “Southland Tales.”

We’ll begin with a recap of the film. If you’d like to skip directly to our question-and-answer section, click here.

“Southland Tales” opens on July 4, 2005, in Abilene, Texas. Kids are shooting home video of their Independence Day barbecue. Suddenly, a bright light appears through windows and a mushroom cloud rises in the distance: Abilene has been nuked. We zoom out to a satellite view, revealing that another nuclear bomb has been detonated in El Paso.

What follows is a hyperkinetic Fox News-style summary of the following three years in the “Southland Tales’” alternate universe: After the nuclear attacks in Texas, the United States reinstates the draft, and by October 2005, war (sponsored by Hustler and Bud Light) breaks out with Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, North Korea and Iraq — where Pilot Abilene, the film’s narrator, is injured in a friendly-fire accident. A blockade in the Strait of Hormuz impedes the flow of oil to the United States, causing an increased demand for alternative fuel sources.

As a result of the attacks, Republicans win the November 2006 elections by a landslide (290 Republicans and 145 Democrats in the House) and they beef up the Patriot Act — creating USIDent, a think tank that monitors, among other things, the Internet. Liberal extremist cells start to emerge, including a group called the Neo-Marxists. The 2008 election, which is being fought between Clinton-Lieberman (Democrats) and Eliot-Frost (Republicans), hinges on the electoral votes of the state of California.

In June 2008, Boxer Santaros (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson), an action movie star with ties to the Republican Party, disappears. Three days later, he is discovered in the desert near Lake Mead.

The movie begins in earnest when Boxer wakes up on a beach near the Santa Monica pier. Above him, Pilot Abilene (Justin Timberlake) sits in a gun turret and recites from the Book of Revelation, Robert Frost’s poem “The Two Roads” and an inverted version of T.S. Eliot’s “Hollow Men.”

“This is the way the world ends,
This is the way the world ends,
This is the way the world ends,
Not with a whimper, but with a bang.”

The first chapter in the film (“IV: Temptation Waits”) begins.

Nana Mae Frost (Miranda Richardson), the wife of Republican candidate Bobby Frost, inaugurates the Los Angeles USIDent headquarters. She cuts the ribbon as USIDent employees — dressed in windbreakers — applaud. Elsewhere, in a luxurious apartment, Boxer crawls into bed with Krysta Now (Sarah Michelle Gellar), a former porn star with a reality television show. Together the two have written a screenplay, called “The Power,” that tells the story of the end of the world.

We quickly learn that the United States is running low on gas and has cut a deal with a “renegade scientist” named Baron Von Westphalen (Wallace Shawn) and his company, Treer. The Baron has built an enormous machine off the coast of California that generates an electromagnetic energy field called fluid karma. Surrounded by his entourage, which includes Serpentine (Bai Ling); the Baron’s mother, Dr. Inga Von Westphalen (Marion Card); Dr. Katarina Kuntzler (Zelda Rubinstein) and Dr. Soberin Exx (Curtis Armstrong) — all dressed like a Cirque du Soleil troupe — the Baron explains how fluid karma works: by “quantum entanglement.”

At a beachside restaurant, Krysta Now meets Cyndi Pinziki (Nora Dunn), a porn producer with ties to the Neo-Marxist movement, to discuss Krysta’s marketing plan. In addition to her reality show, Krysta has launched an energy drink and recorded a hit single called “Teen Horniness Is Not a Crime.” When Krysta mentions that she is sleeping with Boxer Santaros, Cyndi decides to use this information to blackmail Boxer’s father-in-law: Republican candidate Bobby Frost.

Back at USIDent headquarters, we learn that Boxer was kidnapped at a charity scavenger hunt several days earlier, and a charred body, presumed to be his, has been found in the desert near Lake Mead.

Zora Carmichaels (Cheri Oteri), a member of the Neo-Marxist movement, buys blank bullets from Walter Mung (Christopher Lambert) in an ice cream truck filled with weapons. At their Venice Beach headquarters, we meet the rest of the Neo-Marxists, including Veronica “Dream” Mung (Amy Poehler) and Dion Element (Wood Harris). Elsewhere in the building, Ronald Taverner (Seann William Scott) is in the bathroom, looking at his reflection. As he waves at himself in the mirror, he notices that his reflection’s movements don’t match his own.

Roland Taverner, his (alleged) twin — a racist cop — is sitting unconscious in the main room, having been kidnapped and drugged by the Neo-Marxists. As part of his participation in the Neo-Marxists’ plot, Ronald must pretend to be his brother Roland and accompany Boxer during his movie research. With the help of Dion and Dream, Roland will then help stage a double murder that, caught on tape, will incriminate Boxer and destroy the Republican campaign.

When Ronald arrives at the home of Fortunio Balducci (Will Sasso), a movie producer, to meet Boxer and Krysta, Boxer explains that he and Krysta have written a screenplay called “The Power,” about a “paranoid schizophrenic cop” named Jericho Cane.

Ronald agrees to take Boxer for a ride-along so he can research his role. As they drive, Boxer continues to talk about his screenplay, explaining a subplot involving a miracle baby that doesn’t produce bowel movements. Taverner reveals that he hasn’t produced a bowel movement in six days.

Unfortunately for the Neo-Marxists, their operative in USIDent, Kenny Chan, has been compromised. His colleague, Starla Von Luft (Michelle Durrett), has planted a bug on his jacket and is leading the police forces to their hideout. Meanwhile, using a sex tape given to her by Krysta Now, Cyndi Pinziki is blackmailing Frost for money and demanding the passage of Proposition 69 (a bill that restricts USIDent’s powers). The police break into Neo-Marxist headquarters and kill Kenny Chan. Roland manages to escape, climb onto the roof, and fall into a dumpster.

Boxer and Ronald have stopped for some lunch. During their discussion, they learn that Ronald has been dreaming of Boxer. While Ronald is briefly distracted, Boxer is beckoned over by Serpentine, who has been hovering nearby. He follows her to the back of a bookstore, where the rest of the baron’s entourage is waiting. They claim to have read his screenplay. According to Serpentine, “The future is just as [he] imagined.”

The second section of the film (“V: Memory Gospel”) begins.

Starla Von Luft, the double-crossing USIDent employee, is reading a copy of “The Power” at work. Starla is in love with Boxer and, in a fit of delusion, has assumed the role of Dr. Muriel Fox, a character from the screenplay.

Back in Venice Beach, Boxer and Roland pull up in front of a house while Dion and Dream pretend to fight inside. According to their plan, Boxer is to videotape their faked murder. But, unexpectedly, police officer Bart Buchman (Jon Lovitz) pulls up and shoots both of them for real. Boxer and Roland run out in a panic.

Boxer receives a phone call from Starla Von Luft — who is still under the impression that she is Dr. Muriel Fox — and tells him to call Vaughn Smallhouse, one of Frost’s assistants. Vaughn sends a car to pick up Boxer and bring him back to the Frost mansion.

Ronald Taverner, meanwhile, has picked up Zora and Bing Zinneman, a new member of the Neo-Marxists. Bing is freaked out by the murders, and decides that he no longer wants to be part of the group. Zora abruptly pushes Ronald from the car, and runs over Bing.

Back in the dumpster, Roland Taverner wakes up as his hands begins to glow. He climbs out and walks up to the nearby ice cream truck. Walter Mung recognizes him and quickly sedates him with an injection of fluid karma.

Boxer walks up to the Frost mansion, where his wife, Madeline Frost (Mandy Moore), and the Frost team are waiting for him. Although he recognizes Madeline as his wife, she remains unimpressed and demands to know why he disappeared.

Zora Carmichaels and Bart Buchman return to the Neo-Marxist headquarters, where we learn that the two are lovers and have planned the murder of Dion and Dream. Krysta is brought to the Frost mansion, where she is confronted by Madeline. The Baron admits that he has been paying Krysta to deceive Boxer, but also mentions that Madeline is pregnant with the child of Brandt Huntington (Joe Campana), one of her father’s assistants.

Once Krysta departs, Boxer receives a phone call from Starla instructing him to go to the Santa Monica pier. Boxer gets into a convertible and drives off. The Baron phones Simon Theory (Kevin Smith), an old bearded man, and instructs him to “remove the body from Utopia Three.”

Through voiceover, we learn that Pilot Abilene was injected with fluid karma in Iraq, as part of an experiment by the Baron, and in his quest for global domination, the Baron has negotiated an agreement with the prime minister of Japan, Hideo Takahashi, for fluid karma. As part of the deal, the Baron has Serpentine cut off the prime minister’s left hand.

Meanwhile, Martin Kefauver (Lou Pucci), a young man dressed in hip-hop gear, meets Pilot Abilene at the “Fire” Arcade, where he exchanges pot for fluid karma. Abilene injects himself with fluid karma, collapses, and, in a dream sequence, dances a routine to the Killers’ “All The Things You’ve Done,” while nurses twirl around him.

The final chapter of the film (“VI: Wave of Mutilation”) begins.

We learn that July 4 will be the launch date for the new Treer mega-zeppelin (the “Jenny Von Westphalen”). Krysta Now stops by Zora’s place to buy some drugs, when she notices the tape of Dream and Dion’s murder on a chair. Thinking it’s her sex tape with Boxer, she takes it with her.

Ronald walks up to Martin Kefauver’s Hummer, which is parked near the ocean. Martin has just learned that he’s been drafted to go to Iraq and is about to shoot himself in the head. Ronald persuades him not to commit suicide, and the two decide to go to Mexico. Cindy meets Vaughn Smallhouse at a restaurant and gives him a copy of the sex tape. When Vaughn threatens her, she tells him that she has multiple copies, then Tasers him in the balls.

Boxer appears at the Santa Monica pier to meet Starla Von Luft. She tells him that he must board the mega-zeppelin and what he is looking for is in the Baron’s private chamber. Then she pulls out her gun and threatens to kill herself unless she can give Boxer a blowjob. Pilot Abilene, who has been watching the scene from his gun turret, shoots and kills Starla.

Krysta has decided to make her sex tape public by placing it into a Neo-Marxist drop box. She is pursued by Zora and Bart, who have discovered that Krysta has taken Dion and Dream’s murder tape by mistake. Nana Mae Frost is also monitoring the entire situation from USIDent. When a confrontation erupts near the Neo-Marxist drop box, Zora and Bart are both killed by a soldier.

Boxer meets Fortunio on the beach after his rendezvous with Starla. It turns out that Fortunio has been on the Baron’s payroll all along. Fortunio’s goons inject Boxer with fluid karma and load him into an ambulance. He wakes up in a bed in his apartment in Treer Plaza. Madeline walks in and tells him that he has been speaking in his sleep. He says, “It all ends tonight.”

The mega-zeppelin launch is at hand. Neo-Marxist cells have begun to converge on central Los Angeles. Violence has erupted throughout the city. As the party in the Mega-Zeppelin kicks off, Boxer heads upstairs to the Baron’s secret chamber.

Once there, Boxer meets Simon Theory, one of the Baron’s employees. He learns that “The Power” is correct: As a result of the Baron’s Utopia projects, the world is coming to an end and the Earth’s rotation is slowing down. This has opened up a rift in the space-time continuum on the outskirts of Lake Mead.

When he first discovered the rift, we learn, the Baron decided that the first human to travel through the rift would be a movie star and that movie star would be Boxer Santaros. He had Roland Taverner kidnap Boxer and drive him through the rift. As a result, Boxer was duplicated. One copy of Boxer traveled 69 minutes back in time, while the other copy was killed by an explosive charge in the car. Ronald and Roland Taverner, furthermore, are not twins, but copies of the same person. If the two Taverners were to touch, Theory warns, the fourth dimension would collapse onto itself and the world would come to an end.

Ronald and Martin Kefauver pull up to the Rove Credit Union where Kefauver tries to withdraw his savings. He learns that his account has been blocked, so Kefauver and Ronald use the Hummer to rip the ATM from the wall.

Unfortunately, Kefauver and Ronald’s Hummer soon collides with the ice cream truck carrying Roland. Both vehicles come to a rest in the middle of a shootout and Walter Mung is killed. In the midst of the action, Ronald is shot in the eye but survives. Roland runs to meet him inside the ice cream truck. Their hands begin to glow. As they hold hands, the truck begins to float into the sky with Martin Kefauver on board.

Fortunio and his buddies break into USIDent, killing all of the employees, including Nana Mae Frost. On the mega-zeppelin, Krysta Now performs a dance number. Boxer joins her on the stage, followed by Madeline. The three perform an abstract dance. It is suddenly interrupted when Boxer pulls out a gun and threatens to kill himself unless everybody evacuates the mega-zeppelin.

Outside, the ice cream truck levitates upward. Martin climbs on top of the truck and launches a missile at the mega-zeppelin. Just before it hits, Boxer extends his arms, and his tattoo of Jesus begins to bleed in the nape of his neck. The mega-zeppelin explodes, and its pieces scatter across L.A.

Inside the levitating ice cream truck, the two Taverners continue to hold hands. One Taverner repeats, “friendly fire,” while the other says, “I forgive you.” On the soundtrack, Pilot Abilene says, “Revelation 21: And God wiped away the tears from his eyes so the new Messiah could see into the new Jerusalem, his name was Officer Roland Taverner from Hermosa Beach, California. He is a pimp and pimps don’t commit suicide.”

Taverner’s eyes fade to gray.

Is it just me, or did that make no sense?

No, it’s not just you. But, then again, you probably shouldn’t try to interpret “Southland Tales” too literally. It’s filled with so many references and so much self-conscious irony that it’s nearly impossible to make sense of it all. And then you would miss all the jokes and stop enjoying the dance sequences. It does get easier to understand, though, if you’ve read the Book of Revelation.

The book of what?

The Book of Revelation is the last book in the New Testament. It foretells the end of the world and the Second Coming of Christ (Pilot Abilene keeps reading it on the soundtrack). Kelly has said in interviews that the film was partially made in response to the rise of apocalyptic evangelism in the United States. For “Southland Tales,” he loosely adapted the plot of the Book of Revelation and set it in an alternate version of the present day.

The Book of Revelation, or the Revelation of John, was written by an unknown person in the first century. It’s not exactly easy to follow, and its meaning is still heavily debated, but if you read it as a prophecy, this is one way of interpreting it:

In the future, the world will be a miserable place filled with war, famine and disease. Eventually, the Antichrist will show up and take over the world. Among his accomplices will be a “false prophet” — a deceitful ruler. The false prophet and the Antichrist will create a dominating world system. Then, two “witnesses” will appear. They will start speaking out against the Antichrist and begin overthrowing the evil empire. Lots of scary apocalyptic stuff will happen (judgment, plagues and the like), before Jesus Christ will ride in on a white horse and establish the new kingdom of God.

Although it’s part of a different section in the book, Revelation also refers to the Whore of Babylon — dressed in scarlet and covered in gold — as a symbol of Babylon’s corruption.

If “Southland Tales” is a semi-straightforward reinterpretation of the Book of Revelation, then Baron Von Westphalen is the Antichrist, Sen. Bobby Frost is probably his false prophet, Krysta Now is the Whore of Babylon, the two witnesses are probably Boxer Santaros and Roland Taverner, the white horse is the levitating ice cream truck, and Christ is Ronald and Roland Taverner.

Background newscasts in “Southland Tales” are also constantly referring to earthquakes, wild fires and “red tides.” These are all references to the seven plagues that precede the destruction of Babylon.

So the parallels with the Bible are kind of buried. But they’re in there.

What’s the deal with this screenplay-within-the-movie that all the characters keep referring to?

Ah, yes. “The Power.”

According to the “Prequel Saga,” “The Power” was written entirely by Krysta Now, who is apparently psychic. She became psychic when a plane she was on — United 23 — flew through the rift in space-time above Lake Mead. As Treer employees were interviewing the plane’s passengers, they noticed that she was the only passenger who didn’t suffer from amnesia and that she could see into the future. They decided to take advantage of her powers. Dr. Severin Exx read Krysta the Book of Revelation while she was under hypnosis. He then asked her to forecast the last three days on Earth, and she made her prediction in the form of a screenplay: “The Power.” Most of the screenplay is included in the “Prequel Saga.”

So “The Power” is an adaptation of the Book of Revelation, written by a character in a movie called “Southland Tales” that is itself an adaptation of a screenplay based on the Book of Revelation?

That’s it.

How meta. What happens in the screenplay?

“The Power” is a pretty hilarious piece of work. It has a similar plot to “Southland Tales,” but with different characters and more gratuitous product placement. Its story overlaps with the movie, so it explains some of the back story.

It tells the story of Jericho Cane, a renegade Los Angeles police officer (and Boxer Santaros doppelgänger), who teams up with Dr. Muriel Fox, a psychic stripper (and Krysta Now doppelgänger), to protect a baby named Caleb. The reasons for this are never really explained, but Caleb is the child of Tawna and Rick McBride, a couple in Palmdale, Calif. Caleb does not produce bowel movements, but when he farts, the Earth shakes.

Muriel and Jericho take the child after its parents are killed, and, under Muriel’s guidance, drive to a farmhouse, where they are met by Serpentine, the Baron’s mistress. Serpentine explains that the world is coming to an end; the rotation of the Earth is slowing at a rate of .000000006 miles per hour every day. The baby, she explains, is the Messiah, and Jericho is his guardian. As part of his job, Jericho must tattoo a symbol from every world religion onto his body and, when the Messiah reaches maturity, the “winning” religion’s symbol will bleed snake blood.

The screenplay ends at a McDonald’s restaurant, when Caleb starts belching noxious gas and launching fireballs. The restaurant starts floating into space. Cane loses consciousness. The world ends.

Is the screenplay important for understanding the movie?

Not really, but it explains why the tattoo of Jesus on the back of Boxer’s neck starts bleeding at the end of the film. This means that Christianity has won the “contest” for Earth and is the one true faith.

Why does the movie start with Boxer Santaros asleep on a beach? And why is he having an affair with Krysta Now?

Three days before the movie starts, Krysta Now was vacationing on a houseboat on Lake Mead with Ronald Taverner, Tab Taverner (Ronald’s father) and Fortunio Balducci. After losing a game of cards, Fortunio needed to make his way back into California, and Krysta offered to set him up with a visa. On his way to meet Krysta, Fortunio discovered Boxer Santaros in the desert, stricken with amnesia.

When Boxer and Fortunio met up with Krysta, she recognized Boxer and managed to convince him that she was an actress researching a role in his new movie, “The Power.” Also, they had sex. Then, after several detours, Krysta and Boxer made their way to Los Angeles, where Boxer went on a nighttime stroll on the beach, injected himself with fluid karma and passed out. That’s why he wakes up on the beach at the start of the movie.

How did the Taverners end up with the Neo-Marxists in Venice Beach?

Several days before the movie starts, on the same houseboat on Lake Mead, Tab Taverner, Ronald/Roland’s father, told Ronald — who has amnesia — that he must kidnap his brother in order to protect him. Roland, a Hermosa Beach police officer, had gotten involved in a “deep conspiracy” and would be in danger if anybody found out that he was alive. Presumably, Tab was afraid that the Baron’s people would find out that Roland had survived the trip through the time rift. Tab wanted Ronald to help the Neo-Marxists destroy USIDent, so he entrusted Roland and Ronald to Zora Carmichaels, who then drove them to Venice Beach.

What do all the characters in the film keep on quoting from?

Much of Pilot Abilene’s voiceover consists of direct quotations from the Book of Revelation. The other main reference points are T.S. Eliot’s “Hollow Man” (“This is the way the world ends/ Not with a bang but with a whimper”) and Robert Frost’s “The Two Roads” (“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-/ I took the one less traveled by”).

The first time Fortunio appears in the film, he quotes Karl Marx (“Anyone who knows anything of history knows that great social changes are impossible without feminine upheaval”), and several characters quote the song “Three Days” by Jane’s Addiction (“We saw the shadows of the morning light/ The shadows of the evening sun/ Until the shadows and the light were one”). The film also evokes Kurt Vonnegut’s sci-fi absurdism, Philip K. Dick’s philosophical approach to time travel, and Thomas Pynchon’s sprawling narratives.

What about movies?

The film that is most obviously referenced is “Kiss Me Deadly,” a 1955 film noir about a private detective who uncovers a plot to detonate a nuclear device. The movie plays in the background in several scenes, and in the “Prequel Saga,” Krysta tells Boxer it is his favorite movie. As in “Southland Tales,” a character in “Kiss Me Deadly” picks up a stranger in the desert, and one of the main characters in the film is named after a poet. The name of Dr. Severin Exx is a reference to the name of an evil doctor in the movie “Kiss Me Deadly,” and Boxer Santaros’ convertible is the same car driven by Ralph Meeker in the 1955 film.

“Southland Tales” also borrows from “Repo Man,” which ends with a flying car. Singer Rebekah Del Rio, who (as herself) performs the “Star Spangled Banner” onboard the mega-zeppelin, is also featured in David Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive.” Jericho Cane is the name of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character in “End of Days.”

What’s the deal with the Treer company, and why are there all these references to Karl Marx?

The Treer company is a German defense contractor that employs Dr. Inga Von Westphalen, a zeppelin designer and the Baron’s mother. In the “Southland Tales” universe, when war broke out following the nuclear attacks in Texas, Treer was contracted to build several mega-zeppelins to ferry troops and equipment across the world. Kelly has said that this idea was inspired by a real U.S. Army project.

In the universe of the film, Dr. Inga Von Westphalen is also the granddaughter of Jenny Von Westphalen, Karl Marx’s wife. The name Treer is a reference to Trier, Marx’s birthplace. All of these references to Marxism aren’t entirely unconnected to the film’s biblical references. The Book of Revelation and Marxism have been connected by academics — both advocate the overthrow of tyranny. In fact, Marx was indirectly influenced by the Book of Revelation in his writing. If you replace the Antichrist with the bourgeoisie, and the kingdom of God with a communist utopia, you’ve got the same basic narrative.

Does “Southland Tales: The Prequel Saga” explain what this fluid karma stuff is?

Fluid karma is an “organic compound” that the Treer company discovered while drilling off the coast of Israel. It exists under the Earth’s mantle, circles the world like a “serpent,” and, as the movie explains, is being used by the Baron to power his Utopia energy plants.

Then why do people keep on injecting it into their neck?

It also works as a drug. As the movie suggests, the Baron conducted secret experiments, headed by Simon Theory, with soldiers in Iraq. The project was named “Serpentine Dream Theory.” When scientists injected fluid karma into the soldiers, they became telepathic and could see into the past and, eventually, the future.

Two of the solders that participated in the experiment were Roland Taverner and Pilot Abilene. Before being drafted, Pilot Abilene was also a movie star. He played a character named “Donnie” in a movie with Boxer Santaros (in an obvious allusion to “Donnie Darko”). Shortly after they received their first injection of fluid karma, however, Taverner and Abilene were sent on a mission to Fallujah, and Taverner accidentally injured Abilene with a grenade — disfiguring him. That’s why Taverner always feels so guilty.

Why did Roland Taverner end up driving Boxer Santaros through the space-time rift?

After Roland Taverner came back from Iraq, he got a job as a police officer in Hermosa Beach, thanks to his father. For reasons that never become entirely clear, he was hired by the Baron to kidnap Boxer Santaros from a charity scavenger hunt and drive him to Lake Mead.

Then what?

When Boxer and Taverner went through the space-time rift, they traveled 69 minutes back in time — creating duplicate versions of themselves. But once they went through the rift, the car’s self-destruct mechanism was activated, killing the copy of Boxer that did not travel back in time.

Why did both Taverners survive?

No idea. It never becomes clear what exactly happened in the desert. We may have to wait for the DVD commentary to figure that one out.

What exactly happens at the end of the movie?

Again, we’re not entirely sure. But if “Southland Tales” follows the same logic as “Donnie Darko,” as laid out in that film’s DVD extras, when the fourth dimension is corrupted, it causes the creation of two parallel universes: the Tangent Universe and the Primary Universe.

The Tangent Universe is an alternate reality to our own. You could argue that all of “Southland Tales” occurs in the Tangent Universe — hence the film’s alternate history of the past three years, and its weird mishmash of pop culture. In “Donnie Darko,” the world ends when the Tangent Universe collapses, which may also be what happens at the end of “Southland Tales.” Why that happens when the Taverners touch, only Richard Kelly knows.

Thursday, Jul 26, 2007 4:35 PM UTC

Girls gone hog wild

The motorcycle industry discovers women.

By
  • more

    • All Share Services

How do you sell a motorcycle to a woman? If you’re Harley-Davidson, you get your dealers to groom their hair, decorate their showrooms with a houseplants and show off some dazzling biker gear. At least that’s according a piece in Wednesday’s New York Times, which reported that the proportion of women buying motorcycles has tripled to 12 percent since 1990 and that Harley-Davidson has not let the new demographics go unnoticed.

Why a biker-babe boom? And why now? According to the article, bigger paychecks and decreasing marriage rates are drawing women into the market and turning them into choice consumers in an industry that’s otherwise struggling to maintain its late-’90s growth rates. To cater to these new clients, manufacturers are making cycles that are lower to the ground, shrinking seats and softening clutches. Harley-Davidson now also sells feminine biker attire (read: “bright colors and rhinestones”) and sponsors Femmoto, a “female-focused” biking event in Las Vegas.

Anybody who has seen Marlon Brando in “The Wild One,” or been buzzed by Hell’s Angels on the highway, is keenly aware of motorcycles’ phallic (and, well, sort of gay) connotations. But since the ’50s, the “motorcycle lifestyle” has gone from being a genuine expression of male rebellion to the dominion of gay-panic ensemble comedies starring John Travolta and graying men looking for noisy proof of their undiminished sexual virility. In fact, it’s a mildly surprising testament to the industry’s small-mindedness that it has taken it so long to clue in to the women’s market.

Though these are hardly the times to celebrate the growth of any industry that thrives on carbon emissions and (according to the president of Women Riders Now) sees women as merely a “transitional group,” it’s still nice to see an obnoxiously masculine plaything brought into the feminine sphere. Not to mention, as anybody who has seen the Dykes on Bikes at a gay pride parade can attest, there’s just something totally, weirdly transgressive about a woman sitting on a motorcycle, revving her engine.

Continue Reading Close
Wednesday, Jul 25, 2007 11:20 AM UTC

Conversations: “The Devil Came on Horseback”

The makers of a devastating documentary on Darfur discuss the crisis and how to resolve it in this interview and podcast.

By
  • more

    • All Share Services

Conversations:

Clockwise, top: Brian Steidle, Annie Sundberg, Ricki Stern

To listen to a podcast of the interview, click here.

To subscribe: Click here to add Conversations to iTunes or cut and paste the URL into your podcasting software:

In February 2005, the New York Times published photographs of four dead bodies — one skeletal remains, three intact — lying on brown, sandy ground. In the most upsetting of the shots, a dead infant — cheerfully clad in red, with bright blue shoes on his tiny feet — lies face down in the sand. The photos, taken in the Darfur region of Sudan, had been leaked from classified African Union archives by Brian Steidle, a former U.S. Marine and one of just three American military advisors to the region’s African Union monitoring team.

Not long after the photos appeared, Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern, the duo behind the award-winning “The Trials of Darryl Hunt,” approached Steidle about making a documentary to help draw attention to the crisis. Steidle gave the filmmakers access to hundreds of his photographs — rare visual proof of Sudanese government-sponsored atrocities — and allowed their cameras to follow him on a cross-country lecture campaign and on information-gathering trips to Chad and Rwanda. The resulting film, “The Devil Came on Horseback,” which opens in New York on Wednesday, is a vivid, kinetic retelling of Steidle’s experiences as an observer during the genocide.

The film lays out the crisis in simple terms. Although southern Sudan has been wracked by civil war for more than 20 years, the current situation in Darfur dates back to 2003. Following a rebel uprising in February of that year, the Sudanese government used Arab mercenaries (the “Janjaweed”) to attack southern militias and local civilians. The resulting conflict — in which militias burn villages, torture civilians and rape women — has claimed, according to conservative estimates, more than 200,000 lives and is now regarded by the United Nations as the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.

Salon caught up with Stern, Sundberg and Steidle in May at the Tribeca Film Festival, where the film was screened. Sitting in the filmmakers lounge, the trio spoke about their goals for the film, the solution for Darfur and the ethical dilemmas of making a movie about genocide.

Did you have a specific goal in mind in making this film?

Stern: We wanted to make people aware of what was going on, and give them a simple enough education of what’s happening in Darfur that they weren’t overwhelmed with too much information, but knew enough to be engaged and understand what the story was and what was happening to Brian as it unfolded for him.

Sundberg: Our hope was to make a film that is going to wake up an audience and have an emotional connection to what’s happening — with the idea that Brian as a voice could bring a different kind of audience [to the film] as opposed to those that are already tapped into African issues.

How important is it to have a Western figure in the film for the audience to identify with?

Stern: We think that the American audience and American distributors need to have a protagonist that is identifiable to them. I don’t want to say it has to be an American, but whoever that person is — in the movie “Hotel Rwanda” it isn’t an American per se — it’s somebody with a personal story that we can identify with. In this case it happened to be an American.

Sundberg: Brian, more importantly than being an American, had access to information that very few other people had. He was on an eight-person African Union monitoring team. [Through him] we had the ultimate insider perspective on the Darfur crisis.

Do you think there are advantages in using the visual medium, as opposed to print, in covering this story?

Sundberg: You can read a lot about Sudan, but it doesn’t carry the kind of emotional impact that you have with an image. I hate to say it, but words come from the imagination, and people can discount articles that are written by claiming certain atrocities weren’t committed. Brian’s photographs are proof, absolute evidence of atrocities. It’s so valuable for the international community to have that, but it also goes back to what photographs can do.

What was the production process like?

Stern: A lot of the work in this film was done in researching and getting the audio news stories that we used in the film, and gathering other renegade filmmakers’ footage that had been shot in Darfur. When Brian brought the story back, Darfur had already been closed to journalists. Of course there are still journalists there now, but I think the footage that was collected in 2003 and 2004, I don’t think it’s coming back now: of villages being burned, the destruction. It’s being covered up better now, or it’s just not getting out.

With a complex conflict like Darfur, do you think that the lack of straightforward narrative keeps people from engaging with the situation?

Sundberg: I think that people do shy away from the complexity of this. People get confused when we say, “Oh, it’s Muslim on Muslim,” or, “What does it mean to be a black African versus an Arab in Sudan?” It’s almost like it’s too complicated: “I don’t want to get involved when I have to do too much work to figure out how to address this situation.” Our goal with the film is to convey that this is a government that is neither protecting nor benefiting its citizens and the civilians are the collateral damage in the crisis. Our hope was to keep things understandable on a human level, so that people could really empathize with the Darfurians.

How do you negotiate that ethical dilemma of speaking to people, as you did in Chad, when you’re potentially putting them at risk of reprisal?

Steidle: We felt that showing their stories without mentioning their names minimizes their risk. They’re willing to take the risk. They want the story told and they really believe that America can help them.

Was there ever a moment where you backed away from somebody because of the risk to them?

Steidle: No, there wasn’t.

In the end, it was the Rwandan Patriotic Front that ended the Rwandan genocide. How likely is it that the Sudanese people will end this crisis themselves?

Steidle: The only way I think that the Sudanese people can end the crisis is to become a stronger military presence than the Sudanese government. At the moment they can’t do that because they don’t have the equipment, the training, the ammunition. If there was interest from the international community to assist the rebel groups within Sudan, you’d also see the south rise up again and destroy the government. I think the Sudanese people see themselves as Sudanese. They don’t want to be separate. They don’t want to see families get killed, or friends. I think it’s more likely that we’ll see a peaceful solution than a wartime solution.

If there were a military intervention in Sudan, do you think it should be a neutral peacekeeping force, or should troops be allowed to take sides in the conflict?

Steidle: There should be no taking sides. That’s why the United States was overwhelmed in Somalia and pulled out. You cannot take sides in internal conflicts because sides flip, people flip. You have to go in there with the intention of protecting the civilian population from the rebels, from the Arabs, from the government, from anybody who threatens their existence. You cannot afford to take sides; if you take sides in the military conflict you will be overwhelmed.

You advocate divestment. Why?

Steidle: I think that one of the simplest and easiest things we can ask people to do is divestment. The whole divestment issue is to try to get people to pull their money out of the two dozen companies that are complicit in this genocide — companies like Petrochina, which is owned by the Chinese state, and funds this war [by buying Sudanese oil]. Without them there would be no war. There would be no money to buy equipment and ammunition for the Sudanese government. By putting pressure on those companies, I think we can make a concrete difference on the ground.

How would you respond to people who say that that approach is too slow moving?

Steidle: I would say that we’re already slow moving, and so any step forward would be a good step. Divestment is something you can do tomorrow.

Sundberg: When you look at the overall share of international trade that countries in Africa have, Sudan’s a big player, with oil revenue in particular. I think if you really put pressure on Sudanese oil exports, it’s the biggest thing that’s brought them to the table. There are also possible U.S.-led sanctions. One is a sanction that would have any tanker that has ever carried Sudanese oil be prohibited from entering U.S. ports.

Steidle: This would put the pressure not only on the Sudanese government, or these oil companies, but on these ship captains and shipowners. They would have to make a decision: “Is it more important for me to trade with the U.S. or with the Sudan?” Who are they going to choose? They’re going to choose us.

Because so many people have died in Darfur, it seems hard to imagine them as people, instead of anonymous victims. Did you try to individualize them in the film?

Stern: We have thousands of Brian’s photographs showing the dead bodies, showing images of dead person after dead person. You can divorce yourself from it, but if you spend enough time and slowly look at these photographs and at their details, it becomes personal. But it’s important also to show the living — to show what we’re missing.

Continue Reading Close
Wednesday, Jul 18, 2007 10:37 AM UTC

The secret life of sperm

The author of a new book on the social history of "baby gravy" discusses sperm in children's books, the frontiers of artificial insemination and how semen became a TV star.

By
  • more

    • All Share Services

The secret life of sperm

Lisa Jean Moore first learned about sperm when she was 6 or 7 years old. Her mother sat her down on the “entertaining” couch in her family’s living room in upstate New York and pulled out “How Babies Are Made,” a children’s book about reproduction. On the book’s pages, small white cells swam cheerfully through the insides of dogs, chickens and people. In each case, sperm wriggled toward a small white egg with simplicity and purpose. She was mesmerized by the image. The book became, as she puts it, Moore’s “treasure,” stored in a special place for frequent consultation.

In “Sperm Counts: Overcome by Man’s Most Precious Fluid,” Moore’s new book about the cultural meanings of sperm, she tells this story to illustrate her own childhood naiveté about a substance that, as she now sees it, is far from simple. These days, according to Moore, an associate professor of sociology and women’s studies at Purchase College, sperm has tremendous cultural meaning — and looking at it in its many contexts, from children’s books to pornography, can tell us a great deal about the skittish state of American masculinity.

“Sperm Counts” is a serious book, and the first on its subject. But it also includes anecdotes from Moore’s life, lending it a more conversational tone than most academic works. The book’s margins are even squiggled with sketches of sperm — flip the pages and they swim around. (This is a subject matter, after all, that requires a certain degree of levity.) Moore happily lists spermatic nicknames (“baby gravy,” “gentlemen’s relish,” “pimp juice”) before skewering, in a later chapter, the burgeoning home sperm-test industry (sample ad slogan: “I don’t know how that semen got in my underwear!”).

Moore started investigating the subject when, as a young sociologist, she conducted a study on the promotional literature and donor catalogs of American sperm banks. She has continued her work over the past decade, speaking with sex workers and watching countless hours of crime shows and hardcore pornography. She has also been a board member for San Francisco’s Sperm Bank of California, and, as she details in her book, became the mother, with her lesbian partner, of two children conceived through artificial insemination. Salon spoke with Moore over the phone about how semen gets processed, sold and eroticized.

Why do you think that semen is a substance worth studying?

Initially, like most people, I thought it was basically just a substance that was necessary for human reproduction. Then I started to think about it as an erotic substance, and as criminal evidence. What I do in the book is look at how people make sperm meaningful and what that says about men and boys and their relationship with their sperm.

What do you think is wrong with the ways in which kids are taught about sperm in children’s books?

Secular children’s books want to anthropomorphize these little sperm cells and make them interesting, heroic and exciting, people we would identify with — kind of like Dr. Seuss characters. They have very masculine personalities, of purpose, competition and aggression. They give sperm qualities that we would want our fathers to have. Just like “Daddy did this for you, the sperm did this for the egg cell.” But sperm carries the X or the Y, so technically it’s not really he or she.

The narrative is so monolithic. It doesn’t say, wow, most sperm cells are in a shape that isn’t healthy and most don’t swim right, and most don’t have tails, and it’s actually sort of miraculous that people get pregnant because semen is a highly unpredictable substance. Children’s books also create this narrative of children always being wanted, always being planned, always being predicted, and of the sperm cell having some cognition of that. It never bangs into a diaphragm or the back of a condom. It never comes out in the air because the guy is jerking off.

So they teach children that masturbation is bad?

Precisely. It means you’re wasting your seed. We get that notion of onanism and the spilled seed even in children’s books. Sperm comes out for all these different reasons. Sometimes sperm doesn’t come out. Sometimes men don’t have sperm. Sometimes mommies go to stores and buy sperm. Sometimes Mommy has a friend and the friend leaves sperm in the kitchen and then Mommy’s girlfriend takes the syringe and inseminates Mommy.

So how would you explain insemination to a child?

By showing that there are lots of different ways these cells exist in our bodies. They’re invested with different purposes. I think you could say that sometimes people who get pregnant are completely surprised, and wonder if they can take care of a baby. And sometimes people try to get pregnant, but they can’t, so they choose other methods.

I actually think that children could understand those ways if you had a creative illustrator or somebody who could speak on their level and was compassionate and understanding of children’s needs.

As you mention in the book, it’s kind of odd that you’re dealing with this topic because, as a lesbian, you only have tangential contact with sperm.

Yeah, isn’t it ironic? Obviously I came from sperm and used sperm to have my kids, but it’s not like with my heterosexual friends, who have had to manage their relationship with sperm on an interpersonal sexual level. There is this irony; how would I have a lot to say about sperm? But if you were to interview a lot of women who use alternative methods of reproducing, they probably would be experts about sperm, because they would become very savvy market researchers, investigating the different ways of consuming semen for reproductive processes.

Have you ever questioned your personal interest in the topic?

For me, it has to do with an obsession with masculinity. I teach a course on masculinity at Purchase College and, coming out of a vibrant queer community, I just was taught to think and look at gender differently. Semen enabled me both a way to understand sperm as something that I might need to eventually use and marshal for my own reproductive purposes and a way to talk about men and masculinity, not being a man — though sometimes I’m masculine — and not producing the essence of manhood myself.

In the book, you tie sperm technologies, like sperm banking and artificial insemination, to a crisis of masculinity. How have these technological changes affected the way that men see themselves?

I want to be careful. I don’t want to make it sound like average men are aware of all the technical things that are happening to their physical capabilities. I think it’s more of a long-term process that I’m proposing as a theory.

Technology has made sperm so pliable, so knowable, something that can be so sterilized, and so flexibly used, that women can now begin to use it. It can be extracted from male bodies and men can be bypassed in the process of reproduction. [Having] semen available in a marketplace radically changes the definitions of paternity, paternalism and fatherhood, and the fatherhood rights movement is reacting to that. It’s finding that incredibly threatening to their ability to maintain notions about the heterosexual-male-dominated family.

In the United Kingdom, researchers recently developed a technique that, by extracting bone marrow and turning it into sperm cells, may allow two women to have a biological child. What did you make of that news?

I’ve been tracking that story. It started off with them using male bodies, and then six weeks later there was a story that said, Well, we can do this with male bodies, so why can’t we do it with female bodies? You could see the hysteria happening: Lesbians can reproduce without men!

This is not a new fear. This is a fear that has followed us throughout history. It’s that women are going to become Amazons and take over the world, and take male babies and put them on rocks to be eaten by eagles. We develop these scientific tools; then we’re afraid they’re going to get in the hands of the wrong people, who are going to create a new social order that is somehow going to destabilize masculinity.

Why do you think there’s been such a sluggish attempt to create a male contraceptive?

From my own sense, anything that would have the consequence of men’s fertility being potentially damaged for any period of time is distasteful to men. I think that has to do with this notion of sperm competition and with the notion that women are unpredictable and untrustworthy.

When something involves messing with semen, it’s not going to fly with men, because I don’t think they ultimately trust that things are going to get back to normal. If they look at women’s reproductive history with contraception, they should know it probably won’t.

Women’s bodies have been enormously messed up from reproductive research and faulty contraception. Why would men want to allow that to happen to their bodies, particularly when there are things that, from their perspective, work perfectly well?

At one point in the book you call crime shows like “CSI” “seminal entertainment.” What do you mean by that?

These shows have semen as their very special guest star. The sperm gets billing above the dead woman’s body, which the sperm is sort of tossed out upon. In the transcripts for some of these shows, the discussion about the semen is actually longer than the discussion about the victim: how voluminous the man’s semen is, where it is in the room.

They use their goggles, turn off the light and there’s just sperm everywhere. [Laughs] You’re just like, “Wow! I didn’t know that was possible!”

There’s crazy scenarios where guys mix their sperm with ketchup and put it in the refrigerator. Part of what’s interesting about these shows is the way they mirror children’s books. The semen takes on personalities. Having a lot of swimmers means that the rapist is a really strong guy, or having very low sperm count motility means he’s really a pervert.

So where did all this sperm visibility come from?

There’s certain things that just happen in our culture. We end up all going to “There’s Something About Mary,” where a guy is masturbating and sperm somehow gets on his ear, and a woman thinks it’s hair gel. Then everyone is talking about it.

But I think it also [has to do with] this “lesbian baby boom” and the ways in which certain political forces use it as an opportunity to create a wedge. The hysteria about lesbians reproducing, the hysteria about women being able to reproduce from their own bone marrow — I think that those things have always been around in our culture, but they reach fever pitches depending on what’s happening geopolitically.

How important was the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal for bringing sperm out into the open?

I think this notion of the semen-stained blue dress and how horrible that was for our children to see and hear about because of the Kenneth Starr report — it was a high point for sperm because it linked back to a president, and it was the beginning of knowing, and thinking, “Oh shit, what am I going to do now?”

Many, many men have cheated on many, many women in highly political positions, but it wasn’t until very recently you could keep the evidence — not have it dry-cleaned and then, through the encouragement of another friend, have it tested at a lab. With Clinton that was new. These crazy critters are out of control! It used to be: “I can’t keep my dick in my pants.” Now it’s: “I can’t keep my body inside itself.” [Laughs]

You also write about the emergence of a new kind of pornography. Can you explain that?

This gonzo pornography that exists now, of women drinking sperm out of shot glasses, that’s probably happened over the past five to seven years.

The money shot has changed. It’s no longer the moment of a man ejaculating on a woman’s body or in her face or in her hair. Now it’s men ejaculating into a cup or into some object that can then be highlighted, looked at and valued, and then, from there, the ingestion can happen. The point of ecstasy is both the release and the witnessing of somebody wanting something so much that they need it right then.

I think that that is about men wanting to get back to this organic sense that someone would love you so much that they wouldn’t want to process you.

Like you say in the book, men want women to want their semen.

And they want them to want it from the source — they don’t want them to want it for $250 a vial at a sperm bank, right after they’ve gotten 40 bucks for ejaculating in a cup.

Continue Reading Close
Tuesday, Jul 17, 2007 10:30 PM UTC

The Bratz are back in town

The Bratz Boyz help bring gender equality to the world of inappropriately sexualized dolls.

By
  • more

    • All Share Services

On Aug. 3, in the most highly anticipated doll-inspired film event since this month’s “Kit Kittredge: An American Girl Mystery,” “Bratz: The Movie” will bring everybody’s favorite sexually suggestive doll line to the big screen. Since its inception in 2001, the Bratz brand, which is, apparently, wildly popular among 6-year-old girls, has expanded to include a cosmetic line, board games, and even a line of padded bras. And it’s been attacked frequently for its sexualized aesthetic.

But in the interest of gender parity, we’d like to draw your attention to the comparatively obscure, and just as freaky, Bratz Boyz line of male dolls. The “Boyz,” like their female equivalent, have a “passion for fashion” — as proven by their wide assortment of garish metrosexual ensembles. Each doll comes with a “4 piece Mix-N-Match Fashion Outfit,” a hair accessory, shoes, a personal backpack and hairbrush. Additional themed outfits, like “Funk Out!” and “Tokyo A-Go-Go,” are available at extra cost.

Like the female dolls, the Boyz — each with a sassy nickname — have a sexual savvy that far outstrips their target demographic. Cameron, aka “the Blaze” — “because [he's] hot”– has a rippling six-pack, bleached hair and, when he’s dressed in his “sun-kissed summer” beach outfit, a twinkified aesthetic that wouldn’t look out of place in a surf-themed mid-’90s gay porn movie.

Whereas Mattel’s Ken dolls have always had a similar surfer-boy look, they still managed to be blocky and functional. The Boyz, however, have a well-defined musculature — with bulging biceps and a V-tapered lower abdomen — that suggests an intensive gym regimen and an obvious concern with personal appearance.

Given the fact that most Bratz Boyz consumers are still girls, these dolls probably don’t pose a threat to young boys’ body image. But if this is really what young girls are being taught to expect from guys, it doesn’t bode well for the long-overdue disappearance of the “metrosexual” male. While women have been exposed to unhealthy toy-form depictions of themselves for decades, having the same standard applied to their male equivalents hardly counts as progress.

Continue Reading Close
Friday, Jul 6, 2007 5:30 PM UTC

Harry Potter and the prediction pool

Who will survive "The Deathly Hallows"? Elizabeth Hand, Kelly Link, Steve Almond -- and Stephen Amidon's children -- join Salon staff and place their bets.

By and
  • more

    • All Share Services

Harry Potter and the prediction pool

With the publication date for “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” mere weeks away, to say that Harry Potter has been a success for J.K. Rowling is like pointing out that Iowa grows corn or Ann Coulter may be slightly unhinged. The series has made Rowling a billionaire, single-handedly transformed her British publisher, Bloomsbury, from a small independent publisher into a powerhouse, and made it socially acceptable for adults to read kids’ books. For better or worse, Rowling’s oeuvre has become a major part of our cultural zeitgeist.

Her first six books have sold over 325 million copies worldwide, and through the sale of Harry Potter toys, movies and companion books — ranging from “The Gospel According to Harry Potter” to “Barry Trotter and the Shameless Parody” — it’s spawned an economy of its own. With her final book slated for July 21 release, Rowling has already beaten all of her previous presale records. In this frenzied atmosphere, even Potter predictions have become big business. When Rowling announced her plans, last summer, to kill off two characters in the “Deathly Hallows,” bookmakers, unsurprisingly, started taking bets.

Now the wagers have come in — and things aren’t looking good for Harry. When a disproportionate number of people started predicting that the boy wizard would die, British bookmaker William Hill changed its tack. The company is now taking bets on who will be responsible for Harry’s death. Elsewhere, Voldemort and Harry have been pegged as the two most likely victims. But other gamblers have been more optimistic. At Sports Interactions, an online gambling site, Harry Potter is expected to survive (alongside the specification: “surviving as a Phantom Obi-Wan Kenobi style counts as dead”).

To help make sense of the speculation — and maybe even help you earn a buck or two — we’ve assembled some of our favorite Harry Potter readers and asked for their predictions on how things will play out.

— Thomas Rogers

Steve Almond is the author of “My Life in Heavy Metal” and the upcoming collection of essays “(Not That You Asked).”

I’ve read each of the previous books multiple times, and devoted most of the past year to sifting them for clues. To answer the Big Questions:

Is Dumbledore really dead?

Yes, though he is reincarnated as a newt.

Is Severus Snape good or evil?

Neither. He’s got a substance-abuse problem. Toward the end of the book, he issues a public apology to his former Hogwarts students, goes into rehab, and emerges eager to launch a career in reality television.

Will Ron and Hermione finally work things out?

Yes. But not before some turbulence. Still smarting from Hermione’s indiscretion with Viktor Krum, Ron hits his beloved with the dreaded Spell of the Itchy Sphincter. She retaliates with the Spell of the Asparagus Urine. Harry intercedes, dosing both of them with a philter that includes holy secretions from Oprah’s adrenal glands. The lovers reconcile, relieve their epic sexual tension, and post the eye-popping results on the Internet.

Who is the mysterious R.A.B.?

An obscure wizard-rapper from Piggledon Province, whose theft of Voldemort’s locket — a publicity stunt — backfires after he is shot in the throat by a rival, who runs with Draco Malfoy’s posse.

Do Harry and evil Lord Voldemort finally throw down?

They most certainly do, in a 223-page rampage of blood, sweat, and potions. The action is pitched and plainly homoerotic. (At one point, transfigured into amorous bonobos, they tongue-kiss.) Having battled to a draw, they settle the matter in a most unexpected manner: a chili cook-off! Voldemort, allergic to the peanut oil Harry used to braise his tenderloin, goes into anaphylactic shock and perishes.

What about the death eaters, then?

Without Voldemort’s leadership, they return to politics.

And Hogwarts?

One word: Disney.

Kelly Link is the author of “Magic for Beginners” and “Stranger Things Happen.”

About a year ago, I realized that my friend Holly Black is a faster reader than I am. I was crushed, and also, of course, impressed. When I said as much, she told me that her friend Cassandra Clare was an even faster reader. Holly said she’d once sat in Cassandra’s apartment in Brooklyn with a group of other writers/readers/fans after making the midnight trip to Books of Wonder to buy the new Harry Potter. You could tell who the fastest readers were by the gasps of astonishment and horror. (An agonizing experience for the slower readers.) Only a few hours in, and already someone stood up and went outside to sit on the stoop and wait for the next-fastest reader to come outside so that the ending could be discussed. Imagine the dread and anxiety, dear reader, of that last reader in that apartment in Brooklyn. And yet how I wished I’d been there, too.

Last night was July Fourth, and a group of us sat around at Holly Black’s house in Amherst, Mass., and drank and talked politics and Harry Potter. Among the writers present were Holly, Karen Joy Fowler, Steve Berman, Cecil Castellucci, Jedediah Berry, myself, and my husband, Gavin Grant, who has repeatedly expressed the hope that book seven will be told from the point of view of Harry Potter, age 75, looking back upon the tumultuous events of his late adolescence. (Midlife-crisis Harry Potter would also be an interesting choice.) This seems unlikely. More likely are some of the theories below, attributed as accurately as I can manage. (There were a number of Tom Collinses. I drank several.)

Cecil Castellucci: Harry will turn out to be one of the Horcruxes.

Holly Black: Harry Potter is Voldemort. That is, when Voldemort tried to kill Harry Potter, he instead destroyed his own corporal form, and some essential part of himself was magically bound into Harry-the-infant. This explains why Voldemort’s followers have had to laboriously make a new body for him, and also the strange connection between Harry and Voldemort (the twinned wands, the confusion of the sorting hat, etc.). Voldemort needs to kill Harry in order to reclaim the rest of himself/his power. If it turns out that Voldemort just wants to kill Harry Potter because he couldn’t kill him the last time, that will suck.

Steve Berman: Like Bill Murray and the gopher in “Caddyshack.”

Karen Joy Fowler: I hope Sirius comes back. Alive, preferably.

Everyone, in chorus: We hope Sirius comes back, too. His death was lame. Also, Snape is Dumbledore’s secret agent. Will undoubtedly die for the cause of good and make Harry feel bad. Also, hopefully, Harry will feel stupid. Draco Malfoy will be redeemed, possibly by the example of Snape. Harry and Ginny will not do it. And what was with all that house elf stuff?

Holly Black: Maybe at the end, the magic will be removed from the world and then the house elves will have to go into the east.

Me: I hope that someone sets that stupid sorting hat on fire.

Holly Black: The sorting hat is clearly the real villain.

Steve Berman: So maybe Voldemort will be destroyed at the end, and then the sorting hat will fly up into the sky and go all Stormbringer from Michael Moorcock’s Elric books and say, “I was ever more evil than you,” and everyone will be dumbfounded.

Rebecca Traister is a staff writer at Salon.

Snape is good, Harry’s scar is a Horcrux, and the final battle between Harry and Voldemort will take place in the Department of Mysteries at the tattered veil that separates the living from the dead, and by the time we get there, there will be more people that Harry loves on the dead side.

Snape will save Harry, possibly by removing the final scar Horcrux from his head (since I believe Snape was at Godric’s Hollow the night Lily and James were killed, and saw whatever went down spell-wise, I believe he’ll probably have a better idea than most about what clerical issues need to be tied up before Harry can finally off the Dark Lord), and someone — perhaps even Wormtail, paying back his wizard-debt to Harry for saving his life — will see Snape casting a spell at Harry’s forehead, assume he is trying to kill him, and in turn kill Snape.

In the end, Harry will have to make a series of nightmarish choices: between living and dying, between killing and showing mercy, between his friends and his destiny, between giving way to his hate or using the love that has always been his greatest weapon, between trusting Dumbledore or wanting to avenge him.

I’m pretty confident he’s going to choose well, though, since it is our choices that show what we truly are.

Also, I think we’re going to learn a lot more about Albus’ brother, Aberforth, and his strong affection for goats.

Elizabeth Hand is the author of “Illyria” and, most recently, “Generation Loss.”

J.K. Rowling’s once-comforting vision of an England where Magic, Bad and Good, duked it out according to supernatural Marquess of Queensberry rules has taken on the dark cast of our own world. Voldemort’s factions resort to terrorism, the Ministry of Magic’s alert level is Critical after Dumbledore’s death, morale is at an all-time low. Plus, that nasty prophecy suggests Harry may join Dumbledore in Hogwarts’ portrait gallery of dead talking heads, if Hogwarts reopens at all.

I think it will, or at least there will be a Hogwarts in exile, with Professor McGonagall running the show. Someone has to die — my money is on Arthur Weasley, or maybe Hagrid — but mass killings of beloved characters is a major buzzkill (c.f. “The Last Battle,” by C.S. Lewis). The werewolf factor is going to be big, what with Bill Weasley’s attack by Fenrir Greyback and the blossoming romance between Tonks and Lupin. Look for a supernatural wedding planner hired by Fleur for her nuptials. Rowling’s professed admiration for Jane Austen will amp up the romantic quotient considerably, though snogging may be played down due to More Pressing Issues that face our central couples (Harry and Ginny, Ron and Hermione). Neville Longbottom will finally get his close-up and defeat one of the more important purebloods, maybe Bellatrix Lestrange, nee Black (I suspect a Black figures prominently in those mysterious initials R.A.B.). As for that prophecy — love will prevail, and pity will stay Harry’s wand when the time comes.

What I’d like to see: Snape and Draco Malfoy admitting their love for each other, then casting their lot with the good guys. Snape’s crime of passion at the end of book six is the most selfless act of the series, after that of Harry’s mother. I don’t buy that whole Unbreakable Vow thing: Snape knows his way around the dark arts — he’d find a loophole. A lot of Draco’s miserable behavior can be explained by his refusal to accept his own sexuality. Surely there’s room for another charmed couple at Hogwarts?

Stephen Amidon is the author of “Human Capital” and “The New City.”

I have never read a word of the Harry Potter novels, nor have I watched any of the film versions. And yet I feel a strange, fractured intimacy with the boy wizard through my 8-year-old twin daughters, huge fans who even share a birthday with Harry, July 31. So I thought I’d let them speculate about “The Deathly Hallows”:

Aurora: I hope that Harry, Hermione and Ron use the Time-Turner to bring Sirius and Dumbledore back to life. I also hope that Harry wakes up and finds that the whole series has been a dream — he doesn’t have a scar, and his mother and father are alive. He goes to school and sees that there is a new prime minister who looks like Cornelius Fudge and a whole new magical adventure starts. I also think Snape will turn out to be good, and he killed Dumbledore for a special reason.

Celeste: No, I think that Snape killed Dumbledore because he’s really, really bad. I think that Dumbledore is going to come back as a ghost. Harry, Hermione and Ron are going to skip the last year of Hogwarts to find the Horcruxes of Voldemort. And I think Ron will die on the way by the Avada Kedavra Curse. Harry and Hermione will go on until they have to face Voldemort, and then Harry and Voldermort have a face-off and kill each other, because Harry has to die or else all his fans will want J.K. Rowling to keep writing these books until she goes nuts. I hope there will be another series, this one about what happens at Hogwarts when Hermione comes back without Harry.

Sarah Karnasiewicz is Salon’s deputy Life editor.

J.K. Rowling has a mess of loose ends to tie up in this, her final Harry Potter book — too many, in fact, for me to keep track of before I’ve completed a line-by-line rereading of the six previous installments. (With 16 days and counting on the Potter clock, and more than 3,400 combined pages to cover, I’ll need to keep to a pace of at least 212.5 pages a day: Don’t expect to see my byline again on this site anytime soon.)

Till then, I’ll risk a few off-the-cuff hunches: Dumbledore really is dead as a Dumble-doornail. Ron and Hermione will indulge in some fumbling comic-relief snogging. As for other beloved characters with death on their dance card, my money’s on: Hagrid, Molly Weasley (and a couple more from the Weasley brood: possibly Ron — after the snogging — but not Ginny), and Severus Snape. While we’re on the subject of Snape: I’m guessing everyone’s favorite creep will go down fighting the good fight, though his motives (A hibernating sense of honor? Vengeance on Voldemort for killing Lily Potter, once the object of his affection? Or pity on Potter?) may remain ambiguous to the last. And finally, meek Neville Longbottom will inherit some seriously powerful wizarding responsibilities — and will prove himself more than up to the task.

OK, but what about Harry? Eh, Harry’s the easy part. He’ll get the girl. And go through hell and back. But the kid’s gonna be all right.

Mary Elizabeth Williams is the host of Salon Table Talk.

All we’ve really wanted from our endings this summer has been for Tony Soprano to die and Harry to live. David Chase gave us a more cryptic finale — will J.K. Rowling do likewise?

Whatever the outcome, the body count will rival the Jersey mob’s. I’m praying Ron and Hermione make it, because an entire generation of kids (my own included) and their parents (that’d be me) would really gain a whole new appreciation of the meaning of “scarred” if we’ve come this far to lose them. Their deaths would sting even more than if Harry were to go, because his loss at least would somehow seem prophetic destiny.

For what it’s worth, I think Snape was doing Dumbledore’s bidding. I think he’s a mean man who hates Harry, and I think that’s the point. The ones you love — Sirius, Dumbledore and, maybe this time, Hagrid — can’t always protect you in life. The ones you loathe may turn out to be the ones you have to trust in the clinch. I also think the poor greasy-haired bastard is a goner.

Neville, I hope, is going to step up in ways that will dazzle us all. Ron and Hermione, magic willing, will come out of this together. I think Harry is the final Horcrux, and that’s going to sting to destroy. And absolutely, Voldemort must die, and we all want Harry to be the one to deliver the coup de grâce — although He Who Must Not Be Named’s nasty followers will likely keep the flame of evil alive.

Rowling has said this is truly the end of the series, that she will give us no more of Harry Potter when it’s over. But I hope that she won’t leave us utterly grief-stricken. I hope she’ll let us imagine, as we did with Big Tony, a little of our own desires for him, whatever they may be. Personally, I just wish for Harry what I would for any talented high school graduate — that he grows in his talents, that he sees the world, that he finds love. And that even if the scars don’t heal, they get to the place where they don’t hurt anymore.

Continue Reading Close

Page 35 of 36 in Thomas Rogers

Thomas Rogers is Salon's Arts Editor. He has written for the Globe & Mail, the Village Voice and many other publications. He lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Recommendations