Keira Knightley has Magic Legs

(hate to think of what search strings that'll attract)

Just got back from the third Pirates movie. I have no intentions of any real spoilers, just a handful of comments, but one or two might make it in, depending on what you count as a spoiler.

1) Very, very dark humor. The tone for the whole movie is set by the opening scene. Which is a mass execution. With a moment of very morbid humor as one of the victims isn't tall enough to reach the noose. It's well...let's say the amount of human suffering in this movie almost pushes it past the point of being enjoyable. The director was walking a thin rope. I'll have to watch again before I can say how well or badly he did.

2) Johnny Depp -- brilliantly pointless!

3) Can I give Davy Jones a hug? He and Tia Dalma have what is arguably the best scene in the movie.

4) Barbossa. I do believe I am also in love with him. Or at least want to hug him, the little scoundrel!

5) The title of this post: Keira Knightley has magic legs. Despite having spent the entire movie running about on pirate ships with flithy men with their teeth rottening out, her legs are perfectly devoid of hair at the end. An obvious give to the myth that women were naturally endowed with hairless legs! (Why, yes, I do realize it's Disney, it's ridiculous and over the top anyway, and this movie is based in myth with not a shred of reality. It still struck me as a THINGS DON'T WORK THAT WAY moment.) I was also a little disturbed by the exploitation of potential places to hide weapons on a female body for a cheap laugh. That went past the extreme dark humor into flat out inappropriate.

ETA: So, in my bumping about the interweb ramblings, it seems I have suddenly managed to land myself within the top ten of Google hits, at least at one point last night, for searches regarding the legs of Miss Keira Knightley. In fact, I do believed I have just received my first spam comment, which while it expresses a rather revolting sentiment and abuses the English language, I have decided for the time being to leave up. Anyhoo, because I am a little frightened by being in the top ten for searches that I do believe were purposed to find photo's of Keira Knightley's legs or more prurient discussions of her legs, the radical feminist within me would like to comment that it is rather disgusting behavior to reduce the value of a woman to whether or not her legs are "thick" or "shapley" or "smooth" or "hairy" or whatever. And frankly, I didn't notice what her legs looked like because I was too busy thinking that there was no way under the sun that they could be that hairless!

At this point, I will digress into stating that I think the portrayal of Elizabeth Swan in the Pirates movies -- while far from a feminist's dreams come true (please see above notes regarding cheap laughs) -- is quite refreshing. After all, it's not every day that we get a film or a series of films in which the leading lady develops from a damsel in distress and the object of our hero's desires into her own independent operative, acting to further her own goals, which may or may not be a cross-purposes with those of the hero. And, she's also damn kick-ass. And Keira Knightley isn't even the main eye candy of the film, kudos to Orlando Bloom for, by his pretty-boy status, adding some genderfuck into the mix with oh, so, sexy chest scars.

Further, I would like to note that this blogger endorses the crazy notion that most beauty standards are misogynistic and imposed upon women by the patriarchy for whatever reason. (See this post from Laura, Of I'm Not a Feminist, But... for more on that.) Therefore, this blogger hasn't shaved her won legs in nearly a year and has no intentions of doing so at anypoint in the near future. Why? Because of the revolutionary notion that my legs do not exist for the benefit of someone else's thrills but exist mostly to get me from point A to point B and somwhere after that for my own thrills and chills. My legs -- I will shave them if I want, and won't shave them if I don't want.

But, wait, I hear the chorus now chanting that, but Keira Knightley is an actress and puts her legs up for view by the denizens of the world. She should give the audience what they want -- smooth, hairless legs! A straw man, to whom I can only reply: Keira Knightley is an actress. She is paid to act, not to satisfy your culturally inflicted need for hairless legs on women. Does the dominant culture use actresses to satisfy their sexual fantasy? Yes. Should they? No, probably not. And they particularly shouldn't do so based on a single physical attribute of the woman in question. Love/lust after Keira Knightley because she's had a tendency to play women who are rather awesome and manage at least some degree of independent existence. Not because of her legs!

Thank you. I will now go eat a sausage, zuchinni, and sweet corn casserole. Because sausage is a particularly tasty form of tasty, tasty murder!