Come What May

If anyone has seen the musical movie, Moulin Rouge, you are probably aware of the main villain, the Duke. The Duke is the villain of the movie musical who wants Satine like a cat wants cat nip.

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Mreow.

For those of you who don’t know what Moulin Rouge is, it’s a musical with the overall theme of freedom, beauty, truth, and love. It’s set in the Bohemian artistic period of France and is centered on Christian, a young penniless writer just starting out in the world. He stumbles into a case of mistaken identity at the Moulin Rouge burlesque bar, where he is thought to be the Duke. Satine, the wannabe actress confuses Christian for the Duke, and the two begin a love affair. Their relationship is met with the challenges of the relentless Duke and the obstacles of life.

However, from the many times that I have viewed this film I have reason to believe that the Duke is a sufferer of molestation. He may have been a child when this occurred and is just experiencing the results as an adult. I say this because he doesn’t appear to be showing the symptoms as though it recently happened. Rather, it appears he’s suffering the effects as though it took place during his childhood. Below are my three reasons why I believe this claim.

          1)      He Has Possible Trauma– when he makes the deal with Ziddler about turning the Moulin Rouge into a theater, you notice he has his bowler hat is in his lap. This is a typical custom to remove a hat during an important event and place it in the lap or on the coat rack. At one point, we see him furiously fumbling with his hat claiming that he doesn't like “people touching his things.”  The camera focuses on his lap while he does this. The scene is below here from Nostalgia Critic's review of Moulin Rouge.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLqXH95rye4 - Youtube

I feel like this scene could be a personal, traumatic flashback he’s experiencing that the audience does not witness. How he delivers the line is in pure anger as well as his actions. However, we are constantly focused on his lap with the hat covering his groin. His things could refer to his genitalia if he was ever sexually molested. Even Ziddler has a reaction of pure horror at the Duke’s outburst.

           2)      He Confuses Emotional Needs With Sex – in Moulin Rouge ‘love’ is something understood by artists and not greedy businessmen, like the Duke. However, the Duke wants Satine for the reason of lust. He is immediately aroused by her dance moves and skimpy outfits. As a possible victim of molestation, the Duke would have a specific need for sex as a way of nurturing his pain. Sex is the only way that it can be cured for.

The things he was relating to in the previous number also relates to Satine because it’s who he wants in the Moulin Rouge. She is a prostitute, a woman whose job is to give physical pleasure to clients. He considers her as nothing more than a sexual object.  His lust comes to a peak when he attempts to rape her in the Gothic Tower. He no longer treats his relationship with Satine as something civil but as a horse that needs to be broken. The Duke performs threatening sexual acts towards her like ripping off her corset and throwing her onto the bed like a piece of luggage.

          3)      He Has Trust Issues  – in order to ensure that his deal goes the way he wants to, he holds onto the deed of the Moulin Rouge. When he discovers Satine is with Christian, he attempts to rape her. When he doesn't get his ending he tries to kill Christian and even orders Christian to be murdered by Warner, his body guard. These specific situations show the extremity of how far the Duke will go when not trusting others. Yet when we see him rehearsing the plays and popping in on Satine and Christian (who are constantly making out), he immediately trusts them without a thought.

Molestation often leads to an extreme range of trust from no trust at all to complete and total trust.

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