So, I've watched Patriot today. And I must say, Tavington is such a perfect villain. I don't know if anyone can portray such a repulsive butcher being a perfect eye-candy at the same time. It saddens me that such movies are so predictable and the good guy always wins. Like come on, in real life bad guys often win, why is it so hard to make at least one flick true to life? Let the villain win, just once, if just for a change! I mean, Tavington has really won the battle with Martin and the latter survived just because he's played by Mel Gibson and coz good guys win in the end by some miracle. It's not fair. In real life Tavington would have killed everyone and got all the glory and land 😄

And also... well, the hair. Jason Isaacs looks so stunning with longer hair and short haircut does not do credit to his soft features (hello to Kibbe types, God bless his soul). Short haircuts are good on those with angular, sharp features and guys with soft, gentle ones only lose. I'm not saying that Mr Isaacs looks half bad with short hair but it does not complement him, while longer hair gives him character.

1999 Hot Wheels Computer

whiteboard doods w/ @rtbyg

a lot to unpack here wow

2008 Metal Gear Solid 4 for Sony PlayStation 3 Magazine Ad

Jason Isaacs as the extremely evil Colonel Tavington ♥︎ 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘗𝘢𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘵 (2000)

I advance myself only through victory.

what do you guys know about the scarlet pimpernel 1982 and/or the patriot 2000….

The Patriot (2000)

The Patriot, 2000.

I feel like if Moriarty the Patriot came out on the 2000s along with Monster and Death Note, it would be one of the biggest anime until now

Because idk, it just suits the theme era somehow. There's a slight eeriness in both Monster and Death Note, and also in MTP. Plus, the OP and ED actually fits in that era

Change my mind :v

~ Spyglasses in American Revolution Media ~

[The Patriot (2000)] ~ [TURИ (2014)] ~ [George Washington (1984)]

Bonus: Clinton watching Washington watching Clinton and Howe

2000s au hits again. any yuumori fans

more patriot doodles bc they are all i can think about @rtbyg

so you know that scene in The Patriot where Tavington is all disheveled and his hair is let down while he's fighting... yeah that was shot for the female gaze

For @kijilinn since you got me started on watching new (to me!) Jason Isaacs content.

Since watching Sweetwater (2013) and Look Away (2018) over a couple of days, I've been reflecting on how Jason Isaacs' villains have changed over the years. While he certainly has played a variety of characters, and not all of them villains. Captain Hook from Peter Pan (2003) and Colonel Tavington from The Patriot (2000) have more in common with each other than with Dan from Look Away, Prophet Josiah from Sweetwater, and Dr. Volmer from A Cure for Wellness (2017), who likewise share several traits in common.

Hook and Tavington are, on the surface, a pair of campy, sword-wielding child killers, but if we look deeper, they are each singularly obsessed with one man (or boy) who has things they lack, and if we look deeper yet, they are both queer men whose peripheral relationship to society at large has left them anxious and resentful. With the last of these in mind, I'm tempted to throw Michael Ryan of Dangerous Lady (1995) into the mix even though he is not a villain. Of these three, Ryan is the one is most clearly attracted to men and hurt by them, though that is also true of Hook and Tavington to different degrees. Ryan was molested as a teenager by his mafia mentor, Tavington's father squandered the fortune he was to inherit, and Hook lost his hand in a fight with Peter Pan, all of which have redefined their connections to masculinity and to other men. They are all surrounded by men and unable to trust any of them. They all desire connection with and recognition from other men, particularly recognition as men. What allows for Hook's temporary triumph over Pan is that he has experienced adulthood and knows something of its pleasures as well as its pain, both things Pan will never know. Tavington could have ended Martin easily had he not insisted on making Martin acknowledge that he could. Ryan, having killed two of his lovers deliberately, is unwittingly killed by the man who infects him with AIDS. Ryan is definitely the outlier here as he is written to be sympathetic, despite his numerous crimes, while Hook and Tavington are fleshed out primarily through Isaacs' performance. He manages to make even flatly written characters feel human and even sympathetic.

As Hook, Tavington, and Ryan are all primarily interested in males, so their violence is primarily directed against them. Thus their relationships with men are very fraught, which is not the case in their relationships with women. In Ryan's case, the only consistently loving and somewhat healthy relationship he has is with his sister, the titular "dangerous lady" herself. Meanwhile, Hook and Tavington are completely indifferent to women (and girls) except where they can be used to manipulate the man/boy who is their true objects of desire. Intriguingly, Isaacs' straight villains also see women primarily as objects to manipulate for their own ends, even as a couple also believe they love women.

Dr. Volmer, Dr. Dan, and Prophet Josiah: oh, what can I say about these three? The first and most obvious commonality is that they are all fathers of daughters, and the second is that they all, to one degree or another, have incestuous desires for their daughters. The only one who attempts to act on that desire is Volmer, but Josiah's comment that Sarah "could teach [his daughter] how to fuck" hints that he might be interested in benefitting from that knowledge when she gets a little older. Dr. Dan--who, to his credit, is the only one of these three who is not a rapist--goes on "bonding dates" with his daughter maria and announces that he is giving her plastic surgery, of his choice, for her eighteenth birthday. He views women more as his artistic medium than as people. He left one of his twin daughters in the snow to die from exposure when she was born deformed, an act that haunts both the surviving girl and her mother. Like Volmer, Dan believes he loves his daughter, but what actually manifests in both cases is a selfish desire for control over women's bodies, medical and otherwise. At least Josiah is honest in his misogyny. When one of his men describes Sarah as a "female whore," he asks, "is there any other kind?" While I first interpreted this as implying that there are no sex workers who are not women--which has never been true, but that's a different point-- it could also imply that there are no women who are not sex workers. The second definitely fits Josiah's view of women generally. All of his converts are men except for his wives, and he has promised them wives of their own. That the women might not agree to being wives does not appear to have crossed his mind. Josiah is a collector of beautiful things: china, mahogany tables, and women, and, like the others, he sees little difference between them.

I wonder if it's a coincidence that Isaacs played the first three characters near the start of his screen career and the second group of three after he became a father himself. His first daughter with partner Emma Hewitt was born not long before filming on Peter Pan started; by the time he starred in Look Away, he had two daughters just a few years younger than his fictional one in that film. By then he was well established as a screen actor, and likely had greater ability to turn down roles that did not appeal to him. It's also possible that the new worldview parenthood brings about led him to rethink who the real villains in our society are. Even the most fantastical of these three, Dr. Volmer, exudes the kind of cold, cruel, selfish misogyny with which so many girls and women have to contend in their medical treatment even today. And it is by no means rare for a girl's first experience of misogyny to come from her own father.

I want to end this depressing meta by acknowledging that the first father Isaacs played after becoming one in real life is also, from my limited knowledge, the best. George Darling tries to suppress his natural gentleness to become the kind of stern, decisive, powerful Victorian father his sister urges him to become for his children's sake, but, fortunately, he fails. The best thing by far about this version of Peter Pan is its assertion that a father who can connect emotionally with daughters and sons alike is far better than one that cannot.