skygiants

I know I have talked before about how much I want a version of Guys and Dolls featuring lesbian Sky Masterson. However, at those previous times, I had not recently seen Guys and Dolls. The other night I rectified this; I made genarti watch the 1955 film of Guys and Dolls with me because she had never seen it.

Throughout the course of the film, it became so increasingly obvious to us, textually, that Sky Masterson was already written as a lesbian that we kept forgetting that Marlon Brando was not in fact (to the best of my knowledge) a woman. Some unconvincing pronoun alternations had perhaps been made to the script to try to pretend that Sarah/Sky is a heterosexual romance, but the truth was obvious to anyone with a discerning eye.

We have already covered "Luck Be A Lady," but, at the risk of being repetitive, here, in order of appearance, is a detailed list of all the other most lesbian moments of Guys and Dolls:

- the part where Sarah talks about how she's from Boston, which honestly should have been a first clue for all of us

- the entire song I'll Know when Sky, smirking, demands that Sarah describe the SUPER HETEROSEXUAL MAN that she fantasizes about marrying one day, and Sarah literally cannot come up with one concrete thing other than, uh, he'll smoke a pipe! like men do!
- and Sky is like "ah yes, you'll know him at once because he's wearing pants"

- the part when Sky literally pops out of a closet to provide Sarah with the Havana proposition

- the entire scene in which Sarah U-haul lesbians herself into the notion that the only way to help with all Sky's sinning is to provide Sky with constant twenty-four hour accompaniment for all that sinning

- "ask me how do I feel, little me with my quiet upbringing / well, all I can say is if I were a gate I'd be swinging"

- the part where Sky wanders into Adelaide's dressing room and Adelaide coyly remarks that she doesn't know what etiquette she ought to be using or whether it should be considered inappropriate

- the part in "Your Eyes Are The Eyes Of A Woman In Love" where Sarah in the film sings back at Sky "your eyes are the eyes of a man who's in love" with deeply awkward, forced scansion and it's clearly meant to be the two of them echoing "your eyes are the eyes of a woman in love" back at each other, the song just works infinitely better that way! come on!! THIS IS A LESBIAN MUSICAL

If I make three posts today, I can finish up the December meme still in December! We'll ... see if that happens. Anyway, I was supposed to talk for umadoshi about one musical whose production I would like to direct/consult on and what I would like to see done with it.

Two days ago this would have been a very difficult question to answer (or at least narrow down to one) but FORTUNATELY between then and now genarti and I have come up with a BRILLIANT IDEA for a production of Guys and Dolls in which the character of Sky Masterson is a woman.

The great thing about this is that this would make my job (as director/consultant) SO EASY because you basically don't have to change anything at all, but suddenly everything grows all these fascinating edges! By magic!

I mean first of all just pause for a moment to imagine Sky Masterson, dashing and devil-may-care lesbian gambler, in the sharpest suit and hat ill-gotten gains can buy, who always manages to play with the best because luck's always on her side, and sigh a little to yourself because of JUST HOW HOT she would be. You're welcome.

OK, but then Nathan's bet with Sky -- that Sky has to seduce a nice girl, a religious girl -- and Sarah swearing that she plans to fall in love with a nice, upright moral man, and Sky lying to save Sarah's reputation, and then beating twelve gangsters in a row at dice so that they'll all go to a religious revival with her - it all gets at least five more layers, and could keep everything that's great about Guys and Dolls, INCLUDING the fabulous costumes. In fact, if I were directing, they would just raid Capital Scandal's costume closet. Floral fedoras for everyone!

(Lucy Liu as Sky Masterson? I don't know if Lucy Liu can even sing. But let's pretend she can so that we can all pause to imagine LUCY LIU AS SKY MASTERSON. Alternate fan casting also accepted.)

ETA: oh man I didn't even think about it but EVEN THE TITLE 'GUYS AND DOLLS' GETS TEN TIMES MORE SIGNIFICANT