On movie sex and movie love...

Tag: Toxic masculinity

La La Land

  • YEAR: 2016
  • DIRECTOR: Damien Chazelle
  • KEY ACTORS: Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone
  • CERTIFICATE: 12A
  • IMDB SCORE: 8.0
  • ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 91%

SEX SCORE: 4/5
✔️ This is very rewatchable, and I get something new from it each time.
✔️ The cast are incredibly fuckable. When are either of them ever not?
✔️ And it did inspire fantasies. Who doesn’t want to dance with a beautiful partner above the LA sunset?
✔️ Technically it passes the Bechdel Test but it’s a close call. Are characters truly ‘named’ if they’re only named in the credits? Is one conversation really enough?
❌ There isn’t really any sex in the movie to work out sex positivity but the gender politics haven’t really aged well so I can’t give it a mark!

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300

  • YEAR: 2006
  • DIRECTOR: Zack Snyder
  • KEY ACTORS: Gerard Butler, Lena Headey
  • CERTIFICATE: 15
  • IMDB SCORE: 7.6
  • ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 61%

SEX SCORE: 2/5

❌ This clearly fails the Bechdel Test – there is only one named female character!
✔️ But it is rewatchable! Even now when I can see how problematic it has become, it is still very enjoyable and very watchable!
✔️ And I would fuck the cast. I’m sure that they’re all absolutely insufferable but they are good to look at…
No fantasies though – I’d like to look at them but I don’t want to actually be in that world.
❌ And it’s not sex positive. There are too many problems, too much objectification and too much toxic masculinity!

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The Apartment

  • YEAR: 1960
  • DIRECTOR: Billy Wilder
  • KEY ACTORS: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine
  • CERTIFICATE: PG
  • IMDB SCORE: 8.3
  • ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 93%

SEX SCORE: 4/5

✔️ This passes the Bechdel Test, although the site I use to check described its passing as ‘by accident!’
✔️ And it is definitely rewatchable. I’d even say that I’ve not watched it enough!
✔️ Just like Mad Men, it did inspire fantasies of being wined and dined in 1960s New York but they are probably not very healthy fantasies…
❌ But I didn’t want to fuck the cast. Although Lemmon is less sycophantic and more likeable by the end, he’s still not for me!
✔️ I thought a lot about the question of sex positivity and I’ve decided that it is sex positive. Even within the constraints of the Hays Code, the women are having consensually fun sex lives and any consequences are blamed on the toxic men rather than the sexually liberated women!

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