on characterization and spanking

Mmm, spanking. I'll circle back around to that. First, some thoughts based on an editorial on Spiderman 3 that Ms Connie sent me. The editorial makes the point that unlike Pan's Labyrinth, say, which really explored some interesting aspects of the nature of a shape-shifter, S3 just makes the Sandman brutish, at best. Which I'm of two minds on; in one sense, yeah, that's pretty much what he is in the comics, so they kind of stayed true to the source...but, in another sense, even as I watched the movie I was thinking, hey, wow, if his body is like that now, he could live forever, I wonder what he thinks about his immortality (etc, etc).
On a bit of a flipside, Venom was really given short-shrift, to many ardent fans' irritation, it turns out. There I think there was more source material to really explore Venom's mindset, but the issue in that case rather was a confusion of which source material they wanted to use, I'm guessing. They obviously couldn't do the original Secret Wars origin, where Parker gets it on another planet in a forced cape-war, so as far as I understand it instead of coming up with something new (military experiment, maybe?), they (as I've heard it) went with the Ultimate storyline, and I don't think that cut it for the more pragmatic of viewers (ie, the luck of the meteorite landing perfectly right next to him, and gently, at that).

As for the spanking, this line of thought was started because I realized last night that a bundle of thick sunflower stems would be really great for said activity. So! My (very) quick reading of how the film Secretary doesn't eroticize or condone masochism. That is, while at the beginning the female main character cuts herself (in this interpretation) as a way of feeling like she has control, there is nothing erotic attached to the act, so it's not even taking-pleasure-in-pain, so much. Later, though the spanking is of course obviously painful, the erotic element is about the transfer of power, the control she surrenders and he takes. Interestingly, along with that erotic element, her self-destructive behavior is banished or transcended or whathaveyou, eliminating the possibility of it being incorporated into their erotic relationship. Finally, at the climax of the movie, her behavior is an exemplary disply of self-control that no average person would accomplish, and while that may be considered socially-self-harming, there is no pleasure in it for her (she's doing it for a specific purpose), and furthermore it's a manifestation of control, by both her lover and herself.