Editor’s note: this memo on the recently released blockbuster movie was found in the offices of OPAL. It came into TDI’s hands by way of confidential sources. The following is the memo in its entirety:

Title: Dead Man’s Chest: An Affirmation of Personal Identity
To: Dean Tommy Lee Woon
Submitted: Friday 9/7, 3:00 AM

Of course Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest has its weak points. Instead of a world of rigid class structures, appalling racial prejudice, and horrific violence, Dead Man’s Chest portrays the 17th century Caribbean as a world of fluid class systems, friendly integration, and bloodless confrontations. Fair enough. Lesser fans might call into question the movie’s historical accuracy. But Dead Man’s Chest also has the potential to be used as a learning tool. The film provides compelling testaments to the importance of personal identity – and at times inter-personal identity as well! Consider the following:

Culturally appropriate venues abound in the film. Sensitivity to underrepresented peoples of the 17th-century Caribbean is a priority for the colonial English government in Dead Man’s Chest. Witness the intricate braids of the Afro-Caribbean sorceress Tia Dalma. Clear evidence for the existence of an outpost for black hair care in the midst of the sorceress’s eerie bayou. From his dreadlocks, it seems that Captain Jack Sparrow, too, has taken advantage of this black hair-care establishment. Does this imply there is an Afro-Caribbean identity locked into the body of this otherwise Caucasian-looking pirate? It’s a definite possibility.

There also seem to be clothing stores catering to those at a height disadvantage. A buccaneering dwarf in the movie is, by pirate standards, reasonably well dressed in a shirt of green burlap and stylish baggy pants. From what I can tell, the community planning for Caribbean towns probably went something like: 1) allow for a constant supply of fresh water; 2) erect fortifications to ward off attacks from unfriendly natives; 3) import a number of merchants servicing under-represented segments of the colonial and indigenous populations. A model of cultural sensitivity.

Another, equally praiseworthy aspect of Dead Man’s Chest is its recognition of diverse value systems. Take, for instance, its philosophy towards the taking of things that don’t belong to you (so often referred to judgmentally as “stealing”). The movie accounts for the rich cultural heritage of two diverging views on the matter. On one side is the Judeo-Christian tradition that stealing is wrong because it deprives the rightful owner of the object possessed. But on the other side is the equally valid and rich bandit tradition that stealing is good because it enriches the taker. By the movie’s end, value normalization is overturned completely. Thieves walk free while a traditionally “honest” man - a governor - is jailed; the film’s writers playfully implement a society of kleptonormalcy.

The final and perhaps boldest societal contribution of Dead Man’s Chest is the way it erodes the traditional boundaries of masculinity. The firm’s central concept seems to be that there are diverse offerings of what it means to be a man - ranging from the alpha male William Turner to his half-monster father Bootstrap Bill to the wholly crustacean Davy Jones. If cross-dressing Elizabeth (a roguishly dressed Kiera Knightly) is counted, there is also a fourth competing notion of manliness in the movie. The constant dialogue between the different types of men leads to mutual understandings on all sides. And these dialogues aren’t even peer-mediated! What originates as understanding between the different types of men eventually becomes respect. Do Jack and Will Turner challenge Davy Jones’s right to co-exist as a man as well as some sort of anthropomorphic mélange of sea creatures? No, of course not. In Dead Man’s Chest, all characters are open-minded to diverse concepts of masculinity.

Despite the movie’s strengths, Dead Man’s Chest is riddled with a number of historical errors, as previously alluded to. These errors are small as well as large. For instance, there is a scene in which a paprika-coated Jack Sparrow flees an army of natives hoping to capture him and offer him as a human sacrifice. Of course in reality, 17th century indigenous tribes did NOT resort to appeasing their gods by sacrificing unsuspecting Europeans seasoned with paprika. The more subtle rosemary was the seasoning of choice.

A more grievous error is the near-complete omission of the important sorceress-mediator class. As detailed in the classic Fear Alleviation through Peer Mediation, sorceress-mediators emerged in the mid-17th century to facilitate disputes arising between pirates and governing authorities. Fabled in cultivating inter-personal understanding, sorceress-mediators were thriving in the late 17th century, the period in which Dead Man’s Chest takes place.

It’s a tragedy that only a single sorceress-mediator – the impeccably coiffed Tia Dalma - is represented in the film, and that Dalma is portrayed more as a sorceress than a mediator. (N.B.: the film is accurate in portraying the sorceress-mediator’s complex hairstyles. Sorceress-mediators were in fact the main patrons of ethnic hair shops). Historically speaking, in a situation involving as much conflict as the movie does, governing authorities would have provided multiple sorceress-mediators to facilitate discussions between Jack Sparrow’s pirates and Will Turner’s sea creatures. Dead Man’s Chest redeems itself somewhat at the end as Dalma brings together Will Turner with an old adversary from The Curse of the Black Pearl. But the fact remains that sorceress-mediators are conspicuously (some might say conspiratorially) not given credit for being the founders of modern conflict-resolution techniques.

Recommendations:

That you allocate $5,000 to bring Johnny Depp to campus to talk about the need for ethnic hair shops. He would have to be wearing dreadlocks, of course.

( ) Accept ( ) Decline

That you provide a mandatory viewing of Dead Man’s Chest for all new students during freshman orientation. It would be followed by a presentation on masculinity by a lecturer to be named later. Copious pizza would be provided along with complimentary copies of Fear Alleviation through Peer Mediation.

( ) Accept ( ) Decline

Signed,
[redacted]