Sex, Love and Videotape

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Tag: 1/5

The Power of the Dog

April 4, 2022 / / 0 Comments
  • YEAR: 2021
  • DIRECTOR: Jane Campion
  • KEY ACTORS: Benedict Cumberbatch, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons
  • CERTIFICATE: 12A
  • IMDB SCORE: 6.9
  • ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 94%

SEX SCORE: 1/5

❌ I’m sad about the low score for this one as it’s a better film that my score will reflect, but I didn’t want to fuck the cast…
❌ …and it didn’t inspire fantasies. It’s an emotionally manipulative and repressed film, and I didn’t really like any of them.
❌ And it also fails the Bechdel Test. There are at least two named women, Rose and Mrs Lewis, but I can’t recall them talking, and the other women don’t have names.
❌ I also can’t give it a mark for sex positivity. The relationships are strained and abusive, and sexuality is repressed and harmful.
✔️ But I think it is rewatchable. I didn’t initially, but I can’t stop thinking about it and now really want to see it again…

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Kramer vs. Kramer

April 10, 2021 / / 2 Comments
  • YEAR: 1979
  • DIRECTOR:  Robert Benton
  • KEY ACTORS: Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Justin Henry
  • CERTIFICATE: PG
  • IMDB SCORE: 7.8
  • ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:  88%

SEX SCORE: 1/5

❌ Sadly, this fails the Bechdel test.
✔️ But I do think that it is rewatchable, although it isn’t an easy watch!
❌ I don’t want to fuck the cast. They’re not portrayed as very attractive and it’s not a story about sex or successful romantic relationships
❌ And so it also didn’t inspire fantasies. Quite the reverse!
❌ In the end, I can’t give it a mark for being sex positive. Joanna is judged for having partners and Ted isn’t even questioned, and that’s too outdated a view on sex!

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1960s

Lolita

February 9, 2020 / / 0 Comments

YEAR: 1962
DIRECTOR: Stanley Kubrick
KEY ACTORS: Sue Lyons, James Mason, Peter Sellers
CERTIFICATE: 15
IMDB SCORE: 7.6
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 93%

SEX SCORE: 1/5
✔️Lolita does pass the Bechdel Test.
❌ But that may be the last mark this movie gets in my sex score!! It certainly didn’t inspire fantasies – the sexual premise is not supposed to be attractive!
❌ And I don’t want to fuck the cast for similar reasons. Lolita is too young and Humbert is too distasteful!
❌ While this film doesn’t overtly judge the character’s sexual choices, instead leading the audience to make that judgement themselves, it is not sex positive. In its simplest form, it is about a non-consensual sexual relationship.
❌ It’s a good film; better than I expected. But it’s not rewatchable. It made me too uncomfortable to want to watch again.

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American Beauty

February 2, 2020 / / 3 Comments

YEAR: 1999
DIRECTOR: Sam Mendes
KEY ACTORS: Kevin Spacey, Annette Benning, Thora Birch, Mena Suvari
CERTIFICATE: 18
IMDB SCORE: 8.3
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 87%

SEX SCORE: 1/5
✔️ It does pass the Bechdel Test. There is a lot of talk of dating and men but there are enough examples for it to easily qualify.
❌ But I don’t want to fuck the cast. Are we supposed to? They’re all flawed and difficult to take seriously. These don’t necessarily make someone unfuckable but here they really do!
❌ And it’s not that rewatchable. It’s not a film I’d watch from halfway through if I found it on TV and it’s kind of intense!!
❌ It also didn’t inspire fantasies. There is something in being totally and utterly desired, as Lester desires Angela, but the power dynamics on display are all wrong for me.
❌ But is it sex positive? I’ve thought a lot about this and I can’t give it the mark. The portrayal of teenage sex was pretty accurate, lies and exaggerations included, and it wasn’t exactly negative about the sexual needs of its characters, but even the slightest hint of sympathy or justification for homophobia and statutory rape is unforgivable.

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2000s

What Women Want

July 7, 2019 / / 5 Comments

YEAR: 2001
DIRECTOR: Nancy Meyers
KEY ACTORS: Mel Gibson, Helen Hunt, Marisa Tomei
CERTIFICATE: 12
IMDB SCORE: 6.4/10
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 54%

SEX SCORE: 1/5
❌ Not sex positive – I suspect this was supposed to be sex positive – or at least vaguely feminist – but it hasn’t aged well at all and the male gaze is too infuriating for it to count.
❌ I don’t particularly want to watch this again – I fear that it will only age further…
❌ It didn’t inspire any fantasies – it’s more of a romance than a sexual film, but it’s certainly not a romantic trope that I’d like to be involved in: misogynist undermines professional woman, almost destroying her career, and yet she falls in love with him anyway!?
❌ I don’t want to fuck Mel Gibson. Helen Hunt, maybe, but not enough for a point…
✔️ Somehow this does pass the Bechdel test, but I’m giving the mark very begrudgingly – women talk to each other about something other than men but they rarely both have names and are almost always interrupted by men. Urgh.

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Fifty Shades of Grey

June 9, 2019 / / 10 Comments

YEAR: 2015
DIRECTOR: Sam Taylor-Johnson
KEY ACTORS: Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan
CERTIFICATE: 18
IMDB SCORE: 4.1/10
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 25%

SEX SCORE: 1/5

✔️ Passes the Bechdel test – if you can believe it!
❌ Definitely not sex positive – oh my gosh, the shame that is built into this plot! It is so clear that EL James is not a kinkster.
❌ Unfuckable cast – Jamie Dornan is undoubtably hot but Christian is such a knob that I would never want to fuck him. Dakota Johnson’s Ana, maybe, but only if she leaves Christian and discovers her sexuality without his toxic influence.
❌ No fantasies – see above.
❌ Unwatchable – I’ll listen to the soundtrack. I don’t need to see this again and I’m not rushing to see the sequels.

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