Women's genitalia are terrifying, especially to men; that's according to French director, Catherine Breillat. And that is why conventional Western social morality prohibits showing women's genitalia on the movie screen. We don't want men to be frightened. Of course, she remedies the taboo by making films (Anatomie de l'enfer, 2003) that show a woman having intercourse with a man, with full screen shots of the labia, penis, and penetration.
I learned this tidbit of French anthropological profoundity on the Independent Film Channel's program, "Indie Sex: Extremes" (Wedesday, August 22, 2007). The program (which I began watching late and did not see in its entirety) interviewed directors who have recently made films that present "unsimulated" sex between adult men and women, showed brief and explicit clips from their films, interviewed critics about the effort of some directors to "push the envelope" of explicit sex in legitimate theatrical film, and provided some brief historical background to such movies.
Among the topics discussed was the difference between pornographic movies and theatrical films that show expicit sex. The consensus among critics appeared to be that pornography shows sex acts for no other purpose than to arouse the audience, whereas legitimate theatrical films show sex acts as part of a story. In a pornographic movie, "Big Sausage Pizza Man", to take an example provided in the program, the movie shows the pizza delivery guy with the big sausage having sex with the woman who takes delivery of the pizza simply to show the sex for the gratification of its audience. In a theatrical film, "Big Sausage Pizza Man", the explicit sex is shown in the context of a story. The pizza delivery guy is having a life crisis and has sex with the woman who takes delivery of the pizza because it symbolizes a turning point in his effort to find meaning in life. Ahem! In other words, in pornography, graphic sex is for gratification and in legitimate theatrical films, graphic sex is for edification.
Okay, now let's go back to Breillat's theory. She is not asked by the interviewer what it might be that is horrifying about women's genitalia. I infer Breillat's point to be that, ultimately, women's genitalia are horrifying, because they are powerful. They are the beginning of life. Men, who cannot create life on their own, are under the spell of women's genitals' power. If this is what she is saying, this is pretty standard feminist critical fare.
Nonetheless, such a theory doesn't seem terribly convincing to me. While explicit display of sex acts has been generally prohibited in legitimate theatre, it certainly has not been prohibited in the illegimate theatre of pornography. And it has not been prohibited in the private theater of home photography and movies. And not on the Internet. It is difficult to believe that men are horrified by women's pubic hair, labia, and the other parts and functions of their genital anatomy, when they devote much time to viewing them, pursuing them, and adoring them. The genitals of both men and women, sexual congress between men and women, and sexual gymnastics are celebrated in innumerable Western households in a succession of private media, from Polaroids to digital snapsnots to digital cams.
There are three real issues, I believe, in the conventional prohibition of showing explicit sex acts in legitimate theater. The first is the distinction between public sphere morality and private sphere morality. Western bourgeois culture is based upon the notion that there are things that we can and may do in private that we should not do in public. Having sex is one of them. This distinction has many functions, but surely the major one has to do with protection of innocence and protection of the right of privacy. The second is money. There is a lot of money in pornography. Legitimate theater wants a piece of that money and the way to get it is to show explicit sex.
The third issue has to do with power. I mean explicitly the power of the director. How does the director's power come into this? Let's back up. All sex acts involve arrangments of power between the partners. Presentation of sex acts for viewers also involves power. I mean simply by power, the ability to command others to do what you want.
The issue of who has power in sex acts is very important to nearly everybody. In Western culture, in the Victorian period, the Victorians gave all power over having sex to women. One result of this huge cultural shift was that the frequency of intercourse between married couples declined dramatically, bringing down the fertility rate with it. I mention this only to provide evidence of how dramatic this shift in sexual power was. There is nothing here historically controversial. Having passed power over sex to their wives, men reacted in a variety of ways to their new situation. One reaction was increased interest in pornography. We know this, because in pornographic fantasy for men, men have power over women, just what they ceased to have in real life. Display of such power (in sex acts) is one of standard motifs of this pornography.
In the making of movies about sex, who has power? In the production of regular movies (not involving explicit sex) for legitimate theater, power seems greatly diffused and not really located anywhere. The inability of financiers, producers, directors, writers, and actors to have absolute say over a movie is a common complaint. Everything is continually negotiated. Audiences tend to think that star actors and actresses have power in conventional movies, but actors often have no idea what is going on while a movie is being made, so it is difficult to see how they could have any power. In the midst of this ambiguous situation over power, showing explicit sex scenes in a movie (in this era of conventional disapproval of such displays) is one of the few means available for directors to have power over the production of their movies, over the actors, and over the audiences.
The director is in a unique position to punch the envelope of social taboo. Most star actors and actresses won't act in sexually explicit scenes, I suppose in part because it would remove the mystique from their public persona and make them no more valuable than porn actors. (Hence second rate actors, beginning actors, and porn actors are often used in sexually explicit scenes. A porn actor was used by Breillat.) Producers and financiers can't directly touch making explicit films, because it would taint their relations with bankers and other sources of credit that are tied to conventional social morality. I'm willing to bet that few of the financiers of porn are invited to country clubs or lunch in the Big City with bankers. Look, for instance, at the handstands that Disney must go through to produce and market movies with just R ratings--setting up separate production companies that don't have the Disney name.
That leaves the directors as the only persons who can lead the legitimate theater to the big pot of pornographic gold. And to do this, to keep sex movies as legitimate film, they have to have a fancy theory. Hence, Breillat's rendition of familiar feminist critical refrains. Making legitimate movies today with explicit sex is about the director having power.
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