![]() This is compounded by the makeup which reads more like a bad burn, rather than abject monstrosity to be rejected by his mother and thrown into a freakshow (which is the site of some very gross anti-GRT racism). ![]() If the point of the Phantom is that he’s so aesthetically monstrous that society rejects him and makes him a freakshow, then casting Gerard Butler in 2004 (or frankly any year) makes very little sense given how closely he hews to the norms of attractiveness. As a start, it feels like he’s cast badly for the role. The central issue with this film is the Phantom. You would think that Joel Schumacher, director of seminal queer films like The Lost Boys and Batman and Robin, would be able to capture this feeling perfectly, but instead The Phantom of the Opera ends up feeling bizarrely flat and dry. Also, for many (especially queer/female people) there’s a very specific sexiness in the fantasy of reaching into the forbidden and ‘monstrous’. Pretty much everybody recognizes the half-mask, the brooding figure of the Phantom (at least in the abstract) and the general moodiness and melodrama. Like several of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musicals, The Phantom of the Opera is a giant cultural object, and with it comes a lot of expectations.
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