Isn’t that what everyone really dreams of, then, a little? To be able to look at a person we are attracted to, and then know, exactly, what it is we have to do in order for this other person to be equally attracted to us? And isn’t this also what we are a little afraid of? To meet a stranger who is funny and charming, to be carried away, flattered, in love – and then discover that perhaps it was not a unique encounter in the night after all, but that the other is a driven charmer who lives to make people feel special? The fascination with the power that lies in being able to seduce someone, the both exciting and terrifying in being seduced – there lies much of the reason why stories about seducers have always been popular. It allows the public to observe erotic adventures from a safe distance, without them themselves risking anything. This autumn, Trøndelag and visitors will have the opportunity to study one of history’s most famous seducers, up close, when Trøndelag Theater stages “Don Juan”. Throughout history, culture and church and social norms have wanted to control people’s sexuality. Stable marriages have been the ideal. Those who want to live out their sexuality in more volatile and unpredictable ways have often been condemned. Therefore, there is often a duality in the seduction narratives. They would like to titillate the audience with their sexy plots, but also warn against immorality. Much of the dominant pop culture of the last hundred years has been American, and has been made for an audience where a large proportion have been Christian and conservative. This is one of the reasons why the seductive figures in old Hollywood films often have to either die at the end or become a new and better person. The crime films of the forties and fifties were full of seductive femmes fatales in tight satin dresses and a perpetual cigarette in hand. They had a violent effect on the poor men who came in their way, but they almost invariably met a sad end. In romantic films and novels, there is a separate subgenre called the reformed rake, the rascal who becomes a better person. Here, the main character is usually a cynical womanizer whom the audience follows through a series of erotic adventures, before he actually falls in love and realizes that life in secure togetherness is the only right one. COMING TO BETTER THOUGHTS: In the early 2000s, Matthew McConaughey was a frontman for the type of romantic comedy known as “the reformed rake,” about a seducer who changes his mind. Photo: Antonio Calanni / Ap It is striking that these narratives end immediately after this conversion. It’s as if everyone knows that the seducer becomes a lot less interesting once he’s embraced the prevailing ethics and morality. It was what he was up to in the first place, the clumsiness, the desire to cross boundaries, the ability to lure others into forbidden and sensual pleasures, that was what made people want to see what he was up to in the first place. The primordial seducer himself, Don Juan, has attracted mixed reactions since he first came into being. It was at the beginning of the 17th century, when the monk Tirso de Molina wrote the first work about a seducer named Don Juan. The book was meant to scare and warn, but people found it more titillating than deterring, and it became a huge success. This story was the basis when Molière wrote his “Don Juan” in 1665. Molière’s comedy, on which the performance at Trøndelag Theater is based, was both popular and provocative. So provocative, in fact, that it was pulled from the poster after just fifteen performances. INSATIABILITY: Don Juan flits from woman to woman, but defends his way of life tenaciously. Here from the performance at Trøndelag Theatre. Photo: Johannes LF Sunde / Trøndelag Theater Molières Don Juan uses women, cynically and without conscience. He makes promises he has no intention of keeping. In this sense, he is a genuine villain, who is severely punished in the last act. But Don Juan defends himself tenaciously. Among other things, he claims that the difference between him and those who criticize him is that he himself stands for what he does – while other social supports live sinfully in secret, while they preach a strict sexual morality when they are out among people. In other words: Through Don Juan, Molière accused the men of the church and the authorities of being hypocrites. Of course there was an uproar. Today, it is not here that the story of Don Juan is retold. Now the word “seducer” is often replaced by “fuckboi”, a word thrown out in frustration and contempt to describe masculine men who are only concerned with one thing. The word describes a deficiency, in unreliable guys who focus so much on sex that they haven’t developed the weight and credibility expected in someone who is supposed to be girlfriend material. The seducer’s traditional methods also do not fit in well with the modern ideal of a relationship based on equality, openness and simultaneous consent. Because seduction is basically crooked. It is one of the parties that is the current one. But perhaps Don Juan can also contribute to complicating the view of men and women and sex, where he calls out from the past. Seduction can be a deception, an exploitation. But it can also be a kind of dance, where those who take part happily play the roles of active and passive. It creates a playful, vibrating space, where the doors can be kept open in several directions. You don’t have to take a position right away, but you can decide whether you want to get carried away. If you want to be seduced. Because questions about attraction and sex are rarely completely simple. Don Juan knows that, and that’s why he was controversial then, and that’s why he’s controversial now.
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Speech on Don Juan – Speech
