In his provocative new film "Shortbus", U.S. director John Cameron Mitchell is seeking to demystify sex on screen by making it real.
Showing out of competition at the Cannes film festival, the movie set around a colorful underground cabaret-cum-nightclub called Shortbus is the culmination of a long-held ambition of Mitchell's to present sex as no more than a fact of life.
The opening sequence prepares audiences for what is to come, with three different sex scenes.
One features a young man performing oral sex on himself in front of a camera, another a young man masturbating as he is whipped by a dominatrix and the third a couple having acrobatic sex in their apartment.
These are the kinds of situations that really test my liberal bonafides. On the one hand I have nothing against a film like this being made. On the other hand I am not going.
Why? Well to be blunt I am not comfortable sitting through a movie showing two men having sex. I know that saying that might make me seem intolerant or "liberal" in name only. Well you can make of it what you will but I am just not terribly drawn to being a voyeur while two men make the "beast with two backs". I have nothing against it, I just don't want to be in the room while it happens. I also don't want to watch really ugly people have sex. Or really old people. Or anything where the somebody gets hurt. However once again, more power to you if this is your thing.
Now I have seen a film, not porn, where the sex was un-simulated and it was interesting in the way that documentaries are interesting. It was not very stimulating but that was alright. But it also did not seem to be terribly necessary or to help the story very much. So beside being ground breaking and taboo smashing, what is the point?
I don't want to seem too Cro-Magnon but when I see two people having sex I want to feel aroused by it. I guess in the same way that if I watch a comedy I want to be made to laugh. A horror film should scare me. An action film should exhilarate me. So a film with sex should give me a boner. It just seems like the whole point.
What do you think?
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The only real question to ask when testing your liberalism is not "Would I go see it?", but "Would I care if anybody else sees it?" Liberalism is not so much about what you personally like, but your belief that people should be free to like what they like.
ReplyDeleteYou answered that question. You weren't really questioning liberalism, just writing a movie review. Your liberalism is intact. You are still bonafied, even if you're not "boner-fied" by this film.