Talk:The Surprise of a Knight

Waugh puh
I'm deeply disturbed by this article and the article on Le ménage moderne du Madame Butterfly. They both cite this Thomas Waugh character, who strikes me as incredibly homonormative in his descriptions of heteronormativity. The existence of drag queens and bisexuality aren't negative stereotypes, they're reality, and they obviously conflict with heterosexist hegemonies of the past and present. 75.49.251.170 (talk) 11:15, 28 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Thomas Waugh is a gay scholar who has written a number of very highly regarded books about gay pornography, gay film, gay photography, and more. He is hardly heteronormative! First, you are misreading his assessment of the film: Waugh is critical of Surprise of a Knight for reinforcing heteronormativity, he is not applauding it.  What Waugh argues is that, for the time and place the film was made, the film is amazingly accepting of homosexuality (it is, after all, a gay porn film) while at the same time it makes concessions so that it does not provoke a homophobic response by intolerant individuals or governments. Second, at the time Surprise of a Knight came out, and in the places where it was released, heteronormativity was indeed common, and accepted.  Third, you may disagree with the assessments made by scholars.  But you should find alternative scholarly or critical assessments rather then merely delete cited text you disagree with. - Tim1965 (talk) 20:11, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Allegations of synthesis
Damiens.rf concludes, without evidence, that the "Assessment" section of this article violates WP:SYNTHESIS because it is "selective" and "advances a position." He could not be more incorrect. First, none of the claims in the section's three paragraphs advance any contributor's opinion. All the paragraphs describe the opinions of the cited authors. There simply is no synthesis. Second, this contributor makes no conclusions in the article; all conclusions are those of the cited authors in question. Third, Damiens.rf believes there assessments cited are selective. If Damiens.rf believes this, it is incumbent on Damien.rf to identify any additional published information about this film, to cite it, and to add it to the article. Absent such information, there can be no allegation of synthesis. Fourth, the cited sources specifically make the claims stated in the article; they are not reinterpreted by any Wikipedia contributor (certainly not by me). If Damiens.rf wishes to make this allegation, then Damiens.rf should cite the articles in question to indicate that re-interpretation equating with synthesis occurred. - Tim1965 (talk) 18:39, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
 * At first glance, Tim1965 appears to be perfectly correct here. He is quoting "assessments" from other authors. Nothing wrong with this. In fact this is how we build up articles-- not from Original Research, but from sources which state both facts, and the interpretations/opinions of authorities on the subject... The edit summary, "sourced opinions are still opinions. creatively selecting them is WP:SYNTH" makes a glaring inaccuracy-- Sourced opinions are opinions, yes, but they are the opinions of commentary by reliable sources on the subject, and should be included in the article. I prefer to put "According to so & so... So & so writes..." right in the text of the article. But as long as they are footnoted (and they are here), we know who is making this assessment. The second allegation-- that these opinions have been selectively presented is possible, but as Tim 1965 invites the editor to quote from other sourced opinions, appears to be unlikely. Dekkappai (talk) 18:57, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
 * The text could be worked out to say "According to so & so... So & so writes...". That would be ok. Currently, the article states opinions as facts, like:
 * "The Surprise of a Knight is a film fraught with interpretational difficulties."
 * "The use of drag in TSofaK also distances the audience from the performers."
 * "The film reaffirms heteronormativity and negative stereotypes of gay men and gay sex."
 * --Damiens .rf 23:08, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, and those are cited to the source for those opinions... Maybe the "So & so says..." format would be an acceptable compromise? Dekkappai (talk) 23:32, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes. Per RS: "it is important to directly attribute the material to its author, and to do so in the main text of the Wikipedia article so readers know that we are discussing someone's opinion" (emphasis mine). Once we do that, we should start asking ourselves if the article isn't giving an WP:Undue weight to that authors theories about the movie. --Damiens .rf 02:42, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Well that's progress anyway. If you and Tim1965 can work out the text, then the issue should be settled. As far as offering alternate opinions, I suspect Tim is quoting as many authors as he can find. I don't get the impression he is selectively quoting. If you have other authors whose opinion you wish to quote, of course they belong here too. I don't think anyone would object to them. Regards. Dekkappai (talk) 02:50, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I've edited the Assessment section to address the concerns noted above. I should say that I feel wholesale blanking of the section does not indicate a good-faith effort to improve the section. Furthermore, the initial claim of violation of WP:SYNTH has now been dropped in favor of a claim of RS. I find it difficult to improve the article given these two circumstances, but have done so. I would suggest that an WP:Undue weight claim must provide some evidence, for example, that other authors have discussed the film in question. Ideally, the claim would point to citations that draw different conclusions than either cited author, but I'd be happy to see that any other authors have addressed the film. My sense is that none have. Subsequently, there would be no undue weight violation, but simply critical assessments by published authors which readers may (or may not) disagree with. I look forward to additional input and suggestions. - Tim1965 (talk) 03:56, 20 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Looks fine from a synth standpoint now. Unless it is shown that many other commentators have written about this with differing opinions, there is no basis to claim undue weight here. Having done lots of research for other LGBT articles, i would not be suprised to find very little critical assessment from RSs - study of historic LGBT popular media is a niche area with limited sources. The few sources on Google books agree with Waugh's assessment, some even quoting him. There may be a little more to add to show this (most sources only have a few sentences at most), but undue weight is not a problem. Yob  Mod  16:19, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I added some more analysis from a different author. 3 authors make this even less a undue weight problem.

modern ménage of madame butterfly shows male-male activity as deviant and the characters are firmly "hetero" when they're clearly not?
everybody is at least bi. pupil dilation studies and erection "meters" have proven this. perhaps I should post links but I'm just saying at this stage and they are freely accessible. they were bi in that film. where did it show any deviancy? they were engaged in it weren't they? i see no evidence for that. and yet the article says it firmly establishes their "heterosexuality"? where? seems like a "the sky is green" type of heteronormative argument to me — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.151.36.160 (talk) 23:17, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

is this a lost film?
cant find any evidence of it's existance beyond like 2 pictures. did it ever even exist? Spider Gwen from Spider Gwen (talk) 01:51, 2 November 2023 (UTC)