Wednesday, April 20, 2005

The Mother of All Divas

The Mother of All Divas

The Mother of All Divas (2002)

From "The Diva in Decline" by Daniel Harris (from Harper's):

Despite appearances to the contrary, diva worship is in every respect as unfeminine as football. It is a bone-crushing spectator sport in which one watches the triumph of feminine wiles over masculine wills, of a voluptuous woman single-handedly mowing down a line of hulking quarterbacks who fall dead at her feet, as in Double Indemnity, where Barbara Stanwyck plays a scheming femme fatale who brutally murders her husband and then dumps his lifeless body from a moving train in order to collect his insurance, or in Dead Ringer, where Bette Davis watches calmly as her dog lunges for the throat of her gigolo boyfriend.

On the Diva in Luc Besson's The Fifth Element (from The American Beach Observer):

The Diva appears on stage before a silenced crowd, appearing almost nervous or shy. Her features stand revealed: very tall, with light blue skin that glistens in the light. Her skull extends far back, into a kind of horn albeit with a rounded tip. Projecting from her head and back are long tentacles that lend a strange beauty to her. Her throat, wrists and along the top of her skull are decorated with what appear to be leather or vinyl items that also shine in the light. Encircling her slender waist is a belt made of an undiscernible material. Her gown seems to be made of vinyl or some other plastic, and opens out at her feet. Her fingernails are decorated with a darker shade of blue, as are her lips. As the music begins, she gracefully steps forward and begins to...sing, or something more than singing. Her teeth are startlingly white, contrasting beautifully with her body and garment. Her voice communicates a tragic story, echoing to every corner of the ship.

Now, imagine if Aretha Franklin had starred in The Fifth Element....

2 comments:

Tim said...

You know, when I first saw this fractal I really wondered what on earth it had to do with "Divas." But now I think I see something quite profound. The large purple shape has apparent mandibles, like a bee or spider. The square shapes resemble TV screens. The pattern of the TVs suggest a honeycomb and the large purple thing is the mother feeding from her mandibles her brood who live encased in a honeycomb of television programs.

Is that crazy?

cruelanimal said...

Well, that works for me, Tim.

The long tendril, a common form found when using sine-trap functions in Sterling-ware, the program in which the base image was rendered, certainly snakes out menacingly to touch the Diva's surrogates or hold hostage an already captivated audience.