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[tangleofgarlands]

PLAYER INFORMATION

NAME: Ember
AGE: 24
CONTACT: colorilluminates
CHARACTERS PLAYED:N/A

CHARACTER INFORMATION

NAME: Arthur Stuart
CANON: Velvet Goldmine
AGE: around 20
CANON POINT: the morning after the Death of Glitter concert, 1975.

BACKGROUND: The Velvet Goldmine wiki page.

Chronologically, the first we see of Arthur is in school as a teenager in the suburbs of Manchester, 1972. His teacher is lecturing on The Picture of Dorian Gray, but he’s not paying attention, thoroughly absorbed in a doodle of bisexual, androgynous glam rock star Brian Slade. Right away, he’s established as dreamy and prone to getting lost in his own head, a habit that seems partly to be an escape from his his restrictive, somewhat cold home life.

Arthur’s older brother is the first example we get of explicit homophobia, mocking ‘pansy rockers’ like Brian Slade and calling Arthur’s interest in his new album ‘disgusting’. His parents are mostly shown silently watching TV, not really addressing him at all; during a press conference in which Slade informs the press that he does indeed like men, Arthur imagines leaping to his feet and pointing and shouting ‘like a lunatic:’



Outside of his imagination, though, his teenage rebellion is much less overt. He papers his walls with posters of his favorite musicians, plays his records loudly enough to be heard from the floor below, and gets away with leaving the house in glam getup by hiding it under plain, loose clothes. He’s clearly the black sheep of his family, but he’s also quiet, private and shy, and hides the aspects of himself that would cause conflict rather than throwing them in his family’s faces.

This secrecy backfires later on. Arthur brings home a newspaper and Brian Slade’s latest album, jams a chair under his bedroom door and settles in to listen and read, but he’s shocked to find a picture inside of Brian Slade passionately kissing Curt Wild, frontman of an American garage band, on the mouth; flipping the page reveals Brian simulating fellatio with Curt’s guitar, a la David Bowie. Fed up by the volume of his music, Arthur’s father storms upstairs to tell him to turn it down and discovers him masturbating to the photo of Brian and Curt.

He does not react well--although we don’t see the discovery, we do see Arthur’s tears and bloody nose, and hear his father calling him filthy and shameful. The last we see of Arthur’s family is his mother, running to wave goodbye as he takes a bus from Manchester to London, the epicenter of the glam rock scene.

After arriving in London, Arthur makes friends with a glam rock band called The Flaming Creatures after seeing them perform. He informs them he’s looking for a room, and from then on they’re primarily seen together, in a group; the only exception is when the Creatures are performing, and Arthur is watching from backstage. The opening credits depict a montage from 1974, including Arthur and the Creatures on their way to a Brian Slade concert--the same one at which he stages his own assassination and sets the movie in motion with his fall from grace.

Not much is seen from the rest of that year, but by the Death of Glitter tribute concert to the end of glam rock in ‘75, Arthur has blossomed, going from a shy, closeted teenager to a dreamy, vibrant, romantic young man with a bit of a clumsy hand when it comes to eyeliner. As he’s doing his hair and makeup to look like Maxwell Demon, Brian Slade's stage persona/alter ego, he's comfortable enough not to bat an eyelash when his male roommates are struggling, half naked, to get into their stage costumes. He dances to their set, wildly and with what looks like very little awareness of his own body, until a roadie has to tell him to cool it--and brings none other than Curt Wild into his field of vision.

Curt, transfixed by the amateurish but sincere homage to his ex-lover, signals to Arthur at the afterparty to meet him on the roof. Although he's much more confident since leaving home, Arthur is still shy, and it takes some coaxing from Curt to bring him over. They talk for a while, have some beers, and Curt points out a shooting star, telling Arthur to make a wish. They have sex on the rooftop under the stars, Curt tender and gentle, Arthur blissfully transfixed; afterwards, they talk and laugh and hang out until the early morning.

With the conservative turn of the ‘80s, Arthur leaves glam rock and England behind. He becomes a journalist for the Herald in New York City, and it's not until he is assigned a piece on Brian Slade’s assassination hoax that he revisits his past, ultimately running into Curt Wild in the course of his research. As he narrates early in the movie:

“Why was it suddenly up to me to figure it out, when clearly there was something, something from the past, spooking me back? I didn't realize at the time that it was you.”

INCENTIVE: Arthur spends most of the film drifting, untethered and unhappy. The exception is the middle storyline, which is the highest point of his life that we see. ‘73-’75 is a time when he feels accepted, like he belongs somewhere. ‘75 specifically is also bittersweet; with the eponymous death of glitter, the real world is starting to edge back in, and Arthur knows that the real world can be harsh and even cruel. Desperate to hang onto some piece of that happiness, but afraid to ask for too much, his wish is simple: to cross paths with Curt again someday.

FIT: Arthur is gay and grew up in a home where it was treated as something filthy and shameful, if it was talked about at all, which has given him some hangups. His family, especially his father, seems distant and detached and even sometimes scornful; Arthur, while quiet and private, can also be a hopeless and somewhat flamboyant romantic, and threw himself into the solace and freedom he found in the glam rock scene.

Over his years rooming with The Creatures, he blossoms under the freedom and belonging, and becomes more and more comfortable with his own sexuality and expression. He’s still his shy, quiet self, but he enjoys being a flashy part of a flashy crowd, and his repressed upbringing has made him skin-hungry. He’s nervous and reluctant to make the first move, partly because of his shyness and difficult home life, but he’s eager to please and still basking in the glow of being able to be open about his sexuality.

CONSENT: The worst he ever does is have sex while high on magic mushrooms, which is technically impaired consent by way of drug use, but it’s not a habitual thing, and by later adulthood he doesn’t even smoke cigarettes. He’s also very shy, and would rather follow someone's signals than make advances himself--of any kind, much less with force or coercion. He’s generally respectful, polite and sweet; a large part of his motivation is the freedom to have enjoyable sexual encounters, and he’s not the kind of person who would take advantage of someone.

SAMPLES: one | two

ANYTHING ELSE?
Word on the street is they lived happily ever after.