Stephen Bannon, the future Chief Strategist for the next President of the United States, once wrote a film script where Shakespearean characters fuck in outer space.




The Paris Review recently shared a detailed account of Bannon’s many attempts to get his favorite Shakespearean violent tale of rape and murder, Titus Andronicus, on the big screen...culminating in the disastrous flop that was 1999's Titus starring Anthony Hopkins. According to Bannon’s collaborator Julia Jones, Bannon thought the movie would’ve been a hit “if they’d done it my way” in the first place. Of course, that way was space fucking.

ATTAVA

Everything is always so…physical with you. AARON

Oh, yes… He climbs onto her and their forms dissolve, blend and blur in an erotic scene of ectoplasmic sex.


Bannon and Jones’ first project in the early 90s was unofficially called Andronicus, a Star Wars-style space opera about Titus, a leader of the Andronicii, beings of pure light who lived in the Seven Sisters cluster. They assumed human form in order to save Earth, but that didn’t exactly go according to plan, and tragedy ensued. Jones originally pitched the idea to Bannon as a Shakespearean adaptation set “on the moon with creatures from outer space,” which he seemed to love. She’s later come to call it an embarrassment.

“It’s really dreadful, the dialogue and such,” Jones told The Paris Review. “It was mostly his vision and he was in agreement, and enthusiastic, about what was written.”

The Daily Beast shared a portion of the love scene, which finds Attava—the space opera’s version of the Queen of the Goth—getting steamy with Aaron, her secret lover who she has an illegitimate child with. Aaron is described as a “Lower Human” in Bannon’s version, which is pretty insulting when you consider the character is a black Muslim in the play.

INT. ATTAVA‘S PALACE CHAMBER—NIGHT A roaring fire, wine, silver goblets, a deep canopy bed. Attava has been well provided for. OUTSIDE, IN A DRAUGHTY CORRIDOR Aaron leans like a shadow into the doorway. He knocks. BACK INSIDE Attava approaches. Her dressing gown gapes open, revealing her breasts. She opens the door. Aaron enters, closing it behind him and leans against it, arms folded across his chest. AARON

I’m glad you called. He grabs her. She leads him to the bed and pulls him down; laughing softly, she unwraps her gown. ATTAVA

Everything is always so…physical with you. AARON

Oh, yes… He climbs onto her and their forms dissolve, blend and blur in an erotic scene of ectoplasmic sex.


There’s nothing particularly revolutionary about Bannon’s concept—tons of Shakespeare plays have been adapted into futuristic works, like Forbidden Planet (based on The Tempest). Hell, Star Trek was all about incorporating Shakespearean themes and stories. But as stupid and hilarious as it is to know that Bannon spent years writing Shakespearean fan fiction set in space, there is something more serious to gather from Bannon’s obsession with Titus Andronicus.

The Shakespearean tragedy is all about mutual destruction to the point where there is nothing left. Bannon has reportedly described himself as a “Leninist” who wishes to see the destruction of the state. To what end, we don’t know yet, although typically the destruction of one power results in another one rising up to take its place. In that regard, his words about a world where humans chose feeling over logic, leading to a complete collapse of society where any despot could charge through and recreate the status quo, seem more like a love letter than a warning.

They fly lower. Andronicus looks down, suddenly intent on the scene below. Now they can make out humans, deformed, mingling with aliens, like animals in the dust. ANDRONICUS

So this is Earth… ARKAS

No war could have done what we did to ourselves—no enemy be so cruel…so unkind. ANDRONICUS

I was wrong. Earth is a world of feeling, not of form. Feelings are the linch-pin [sic] on which we rise. Or fall. (strange, lost) Emotion mediates between pure action and pure thought. But do not stay there. No. Move through it only. Be like the tide—


But hey, at least space fucking is still funny.

[The Paris Review via The Daily Beast]