Today is Talk Like a Pirate Day. I’ve never understood the whole fascination with pirates, though. Here we are (most of us, anyway), trying to raise our children not to fight or steal, and yet we let them run around the house mimicking those whose main activities were fighting and stealing.
My four-year-old has picked up a love of things piratical through little effort of ours. We thus tell a fair number of pirate stories, but most involve braving storms at sea and searching for lost treasure, rather than taking said treasure from its rightful owner. I’m sure this kinder, gentler approach will only work for so long.
Still, I imagine pirates provide some necessary outlet, a safe venting of bad behavior in the context of role playing that will with luck not translate to shoplifting at the mall or brawls in the school parking lot.
If it does, of course, we can always blame Johnny Depp.
Mombian Bonus Feature: Lesbian pirates! Or at least, Wikipedia entries on Anne Bonny and Mary Read, actual pirates who may have had an affair while Mary was disguised as a man . . . and perhaps afterwards. Both also had affairs with men, though, so whether they would consider themselves lesbian, or bi, or none of the above considering this was over two hundred years ago, is open to question. (The usual caveats about Wikipedia’s historical entries apply . . . but please leave comments about whom you would like to see play Anne and Mary in a big-screen adaptation of the tale.)
For some reason Maggie Gylenhall (sp?) pops into my head.
Being the Queen of the Surf Pirates, Mary and Anne has always been my role models…
So I’d like to see Rebecca De Mornay as Mary and Gabby Reese as Anne