In the Name of Camp
I’m sorry, but how did someone cast Matthew Lillard, Burt Reynolds, Ray Liotta, and Ron Perlman all in one movie? How? Is it even conceivable to watch the trailer for In the Name of the King and not suspect, strongly, that it’s the work of some mash up genius? But, no, it’s real.
I’ve always loved Burt Reynolds. He, Alan Alda, Shipwreck from the animated G.I. Joe cartoon show, Jeff Goldblum and Joan Jett were my childhood celebrity crushes. My adulation of Reynolds was furthered when, in a college production of the the Vagina Monologues, I performed “The Flood,” in which an elderly woman who’s never had sex describes this beautiful surreal recurring dream she has about having dinner with Burt Reynolds. The deal was sealed when I first saw the glorious full-nude Cosmopolitan Magazine centerfold he posed for in 1972. After months of near misses, I finally managed to purchase a copy of that particular cultural artifact on eBay, and I must say, a thing of beauty is a joy forever — especially when it’s naked on a bearskin rug. The image was recycled last year in an advertisement for DirecTV HD, for which they edited out his smokes.
Reynolds seems almost quaintly unrefined now — all that unruly hair and macho swagger. The increasingly fussy aesthetic applied to what makes someone physically attractive has rendered men like Reynolds nearly parodic, a burlesque of manhood. There are echoes here and there. George Clooney’s got a bit of burly chic about him, and Vince Vaughn certainly does. But, in an era when even the Brawny Man has been cleaned up to look like someone’s nice suburban accountant neighbor, those flashes of unrepentant macho seem increasingly rare.