“Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.”
Oscar Wilde can’t tell us with words that Dorian Gray is a full out twink so he compares him to Ganymede and Antinous and hopes we know enough Roman gay history to understand.
19th century gay lingo is the only language I speak fluently fortunately
I’m glad I’m not Oscar Wilde or Alexandre Dumas or Victor Hugo because can you imagine creating some of the gayest characters in history and still having people try to argue that they’re not gay like can you imagine how painful that must be I mean
[Please note that this is an incomplete list of every version/adaptation of Dorian Gray/Dorian appears in with links, if I missed something, message me and I will add it]
Original work by Wilde is bolded
* Recommended
1890- The Picture of Dorian Gray (Novel) (Audio) *
what she means: why is Dorian Gray never played by people with blond hair? why is Dorian always depicted as all pale and dark? oscar literally describes his hair as gold like two seconds after we meet him. directors apparently feel like they have to make Dorian look dark dangerous and brooding, but he’s not supposed to look dark and dangerous and brooding. That’s the whole point. No one ever suspects him because he looks like an innocent little cherub with golden curls and rosy cheeks. His physical appearance is described with terms that Western literary tradition, during the nineteenth century in particular, associated with goodness and godliness, and this is intentionally juxtaposed with the blackness of his soul. If you intentionally play him as someone who looks like a Byronic hero, much of the symbolism of his character is lost, right?
¯_( ಠ_ಠ)_/¯ 