Friday, May 17, 2019

DAVID OAKES, JULIAN MORRIS TO LEAD 19TH CENTURY GAY ROMANCE BASED ON LORD BYRON'S ORIENTAL POEM THE GIAOUR SET IN OTTOMAN GREECE

   'THE GIAOUR' SENDS
DAVID OAKES AND JULIAN MORRIS TO OTTOMAN EMPIRE GREECE
David Oakes will play Hassan Ottoman commander
Gender identity is definitely a very hot topic these days, and Rika Ohara plans to discus it from a 19th century angle! She is currently preparing a movie project based on Lord Byron's famous 1813 poem THE GIAOUR in which harem slave Leila is drowned as an adulteress and her lover the Giaour ("infidel") kills her master Hassan in revenge, and is cursed to become a vampire! 

THE GIAOUR
which has two boys whom we couldn't really adore more even if we tried - David Oakes and Julian Morris in the cast, with the story set during the Ottoman Empire in Greece, will follow  ten year-old Laertes who is saved by Ottoman commander Hassan (David Oakes). Baba the Nubian eunuch puts Laertes in girls' clothes and calls him Leila. Protected by Hassan and Baba,
Julian Morris is to play a character named David
Leila grows to love Hassan but the world judges them master and "harem slave" — which is the story Byron chose to tell in his poem.

In the 200 years since its publication, THE GIAOUR spawned the vampire gothic genre and came to symbolize the lethal conflict between the East and the West as represented by its two male protagonists: one Muslim, the other, Christian – the giaour. Yet Leila, at the centre of all this passion, is entirely silent and strangely bloodless – until we consider a new, queer reading of the poem that unlocks her true identity. Love, blood, karmic retribution –  in THE GIAOUR Leila ceases to be a silent victim of "Oriental" violence against women, and Hassan emerges as a gay Muslim romantic hero. Alex Hassell from The Miniaturist, will play the leader of the Janissaries with Charles Lane as Baba.

14 comments:

  1. Those pants are pretty tight-fitting.

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  2. Two very nice looking "boys" indeed!

    Unlike Byron, I'm not attracted by orientalism, and I'm not in the mood for reading/watching an ottoman romance. However, Lord Byron's poem was a success at the time, and perhaps, The Giaour will be one too.

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    1. Byron was very dedicated to the Greek fight for independence from Turkish oppressors...

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  3. Sounds good! Our LGBTQ movie cup overfloweth these days!

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    1. It is a very trendy topic indeed, straight is no more in!

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  4. It does sound wickedly good! I don't like that hair color on Julian though. I prefer a darker mop on his head.

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    1. I think it is just the light in that photo, but I do adore and worship him in all possible editions... he is the ultimate cat's meow! I don't think there is a prettier man in the world than him. I'm sad that both him and Oakes don't work as much as they should and deserve.

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    2. I agree. I would not complain if we saw him take on more roles. He is eva the cutest of the cute!

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    3. Hope you did not miss him in The Man in the Orange Shirt mini series, I loved that one massively, so many raw emotions in it, and it also includes another of my faves, dearest Oliver Jackson Cohen!

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