I was watching Robert Zemeckis ode to Beatlemania “I wanna Hold Your Hand” the other day, the story of the day and night the Beatles played the Ed Sullivan Show as seen through the eyes of four teenage girls and two teenage boys. The movie isn’t PG, actually it isn’t even PG-13 really, not when you are including child abuse, drunken driving and teenage prostitution in the mix.
Though where it really isn’t a bland out Disney take on the Beatles is in its depiction of the girls desire for the four boys from Liverpool being far from innocent in its original meaning rather it is sexual, teen girls were sexually attracted to the boys and the physiognomy of this desire was very clear in the Karen Allen in the Beatles hotel room scene.
It is the day before Nancy Allen’s wedding and she wants a sort of bridal shower with her two best friends but they are both obsessed with seeing the Beatles. Through a series of mishaps, Nancy finds herself in the Beatles room. The Beatles themselves (in a great idea, I might add that many of the effects Zemeckis uses here he would perfect for “Forrest Gump”) are never seen except in old footage, or from a distance, or behind: the result is the suspension of disbelief that would not occur if you had men performing the role. Nancy discovers where she is and her latent desire for the foursome, it is like the way sometimes you are not aware you are attracted to a girl and then it suddenly hits you, and you’re crazy about her.
As Nancy crawls on all fours towards George’s guitar (Later, you would hear him say: “Hey why is it sticky?”, she oozes carnal desire, you kisses he neck of the guitar, caresses it, she will take a sip from one of their tea (hope it isn’t Brian), and she is in such a state of lust, she seems to be orgiastic, a sort of internal five way.
The film was released in 1978 and so it was post the first couple of rounds of feminism but even so, in depicting accurately one of the Beatles most obvious but really least considered aspects, their physical beauty, it loosened up the moral harbingers of desire, it gave free reign to something that deserved free reign.
In the 1970s, and if anything more so today, men never repress their sexuality, and women are forced to. “What happened with Beatlemania was feminism at work; yes there was hysteria but there was also a demand for satisfaction, for a sating of desire completely unheard of really anywhere outside of Molly Flanders or Dr. Chatterley’s lovers. Certainly, almost reproachingly not allowed for teenage girls.” It isn’t a million miles away from the suppression of women wearing the Burka: it is a similar fear. The Beatles brought into modern times girls right to be sexual beings. It is a battle that continues to this day.
