{"id":84169,"date":"2015-03-27T16:40:43","date_gmt":"2015-03-27T20:40:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=84169"},"modified":"2015-03-27T16:50:53","modified_gmt":"2015-03-27T20:50:53","slug":"the-impossible-dream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/03\/27\/the-impossible-dream\/","title":{"rendered":"The Impossible Dream"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"quixote\"<\/a>

A comparatively tame still from the erotic cartoon take on Quixote<\/i>.<\/p><\/div>\n

It made headlines last year when word got out that Terry Gilliam would finally resume work on his windmill-tilting\u00a0Don <\/em>Quixote\u2014<\/em>and cineastes speak with awe of Orson Welles\u2019s unfinished 1955 Quixote<\/em>. But there\u2019s one Quixote<\/em> adaptation that no one talks about much, that few people seem even to\u00a0know<\/em> about: the Spanish pornographic cartoon from the seventies.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not going to link to it. If you want to track it down, you can. The caption on one Web site reads, \u201cJust too cool \u2026 Must see \u2026 \u201d I\u2019m not a professional film critic, but I respectfully disagree\u2014the erotic Don Quijote<\/em> cartoon is tedious in the extreme. <\/p>\n

I mean, if your thing is a priapic, animated Don Quijote having explicit amorous adventures with various buxom women\u2014all of them coarsely animated\u2014knock yourself out. (I\u2019ll admit I didn\u2019t watch closely\u2014I jumped around\u2014but there also seems to be a threesome with cartoon Sancho Panza and a chambermaid.) And I don\u2019t speak German, but I\u2019m pretty sure there were some lance puns in there.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I understand that Don Quixote\u2019s point isn\u2019t plot; that we\u2019re supposed to accompany him in his adventures and that the picaresque, open-ended nature of his quest is integral to the experience. But there is considerably more \u2026 variety<\/em> in the original source material. And more motivation; in the grand tradition of pornography, innkeepers\u2019 wives and chambermaids and passing noblewomen fall into Don Quixote\u2019s bed (or off ladders, onto his waiting manhood) for no seeming reason. The knight of La Mancha\u2019s enduring, single-minded devotion to Dulcinea may seem<\/em> to us squares to be a crucial aspect of his character, and of the novel as a whole\u2014but hey, artistic license!\u00a0<\/p>\n

Of course, it\u2019s possible that the whole thing is just playing with the idea of Don Quixotes\u2019s illusions. Maybe we\u2019re supposed to assume that these sexual adventures are as much a figment of his imagination as his steed, his quest, and his notions of chivalry. Perhaps, by extension, it\u2019s really a meditation on fantasy and aging. The pressures of masculinity and the power of suppressed homoerotic desires.<\/p>\n

None of which really explains the scene in the pigpen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was John Waters who said, \u201cYou\u2019re not really a\u00a0classic, in my\u00a0book,\u00a0until there\u2019s\u00a0a\u00a0porn parody.\u201d Cervantes may have had to wait till Tangerine Dream\u2019s heyday, but by this standard, he\u2019s made it.<\/p>\n

Whether he\u2019d agree is another matter. Archeologists recently announced that they\u2019ve found Cervantes\u2019s remains in a Madrid convent. One member of the team warned,<\/p>\n

\n

We can\u2019t at all confirm that we have found Cervantes, we can\u2019t guarantee this was Cervantes\u2019 coffin either, but the reality is that we have found a very battered coffin which was falling apart, and some badly damaged bones in that corner of the crypt.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This seems like a pretty clear indication that it is, indeed, Cervantes\u2019s body: he was literally rolling in his grave.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sadie Stein is contributing editor of <\/em>The Paris Review,<\/em>\u00a0and the <\/em>Daily\u2019s correspondent.
<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It made headlines last year when word got out that Terry Gilliam would finally resume work on his windmill-tilting\u00a0Don Quixote\u2014and cineastes speak with awe of Orson Welles\u2019s unfinished 1955 Quixote. But there\u2019s one Quixote adaptation that no one talks about much, that few people seem even to\u00a0know about: the Spanish pornographic cartoon from the seventies. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[5563,2691,134,2059,7924,13714,8258],"class_list":["post-84169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-adaptations","tag-animation","tag-cartoons","tag-don-quixote","tag-erotica","tag-miguel-de-cervantes","tag-porn"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThere\u2019s an Erotic Animated Don Quixote, and It\u2019s Terrifying<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sadie Stein on the single worst adaptation of Cervantes\u2019s masterpiece.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/03\/27\/the-impossible-dream\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" 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