I know it when I see it

Jon and I also went to see Shortbus last weekend. We found a fabulous independent movie theatre in downtown DC-- all by our non-native selves, thank you very much. I was struck, however, by the distinctive crowd that this particular film elicited on its opening weekend, though it was, of course, Sunday night. It was showing in a rather small theatre that seated maybe 65 or so-- and besides Jon and I, there was, I think, only one other male/female pair. Everyone else was part of a duo or trio of gay men. This is not so odd, I don't suppose-- the director, John Cameron Mitchell, also directed Hedwig and the Angry Inch-- a "delightful romp" about a tranny who had her sex change botched (hence, the, um, remaining inch was... angry). Now, I really and truly loved Hedwig when I saw it a couple of years ago. It's a heartfelt send-up of drag culture and also a raw and rebellious tearing-apart thereof. Mitchell himself stars as Hedwig and, legend has it, when this story was just a little crazy off-Broadway play, it sent shockwaves through the Village when Mitchell tore off his girly get-up and sweated and sobbed off his make-up-- thus breaking the illusion of the female-- with a spitting sort of rage. And this is a moment rather like the magician telling the secrets of his tricks-- it Just Isn't Done. But frankly, I think it's a genius movie-- it sparkles itself bare! But, anyway, Mitchell's known for gay-themed filmmaking... hence the audience. But entering that theatre was a moment in which I was self-consciously, outwardly heterosexual. Is it strange that I felt left out of a club of which I'm technically a member? Oh, well...I could really spend all day writing a post in which I break down the weirdness and political ramifications of my own sexual identity--in which I unpack my frustrations about how I can't even think about my own amorphous orientation without conceptualizing it in a socio-political context.... But I'd never get around to talking about Shortbus ...and I've already bored myself with the notion of launching into such a diatribe... so, instead, let's talk about something else:

OK, so I have to acknowledge that this movie has real sex in it. Lots of it. In every position you can think of. With every sort of grouping of humans you can think of. Nary a scene goes by without a tit or a dick. But it's not porn. Mitchell's published enough excuses in various venues that I'll leave it to you to google all about it. I'll just say that I buy his argument- I don't think this movie is pornographic at all-- but not really for the same reasons as our director. What I mean is this movie is just so goofy and celebratory in its kinkiness that it just winds up presenting varied and multitudinous sex as so much wholesome fun. And really... well... three cheers for John Cameron Mitchell!

But there are a couple of things I want to note in particular: There's a scene in the beginning where our protagonist, a hetero female sex therapist who is "pre-orgasmic", has a discussion with a big queen named Justin about all the young crazies in New York. She asks why so many are moving there when it's so notoriously expensive to live in The City. And he says "It's 9/11. It's the only real thing that's ever happened to them." Gut-punch, right? And another reference to the same thing: there is much panning over an animated landscape of New York in this movie. At one point, the camera pans over a mess of purply brown paint... it's amorphous and you don't recognize the animated representation until the paint turns into the real thing... the pale concrete hole. Ground Zero. And then the camera moves on and we're in the apartment of some young brat who's making inappropriate small talk with his dominatrix and then allowing his cum to land smack dab in the middle of Jackson Pollock (sigh). It's like everyone's running around having "post"-AIDS era giddy sex... but the anxiety is still there. It's just focused in a different direction. This thing? This atrocity... folks, our generation is never gonna be able to mention New York City without its specter, are we? And Mitchell's suggestion for coping appears to be "Let's all fuck like crazy in what was once the shadow of towers." And that's great and all... but isn't there something else? Something more to be done?

And then there's the matter of the sex therapist who can't get off. Ha ha. Old joke. But even if it weren't, I think I'd still feel a little funny about why a gay man would choose to place this primarily female problem front and center in his story. Let's face it... ruling out extreme old age and all of the diseases listed in the Levitra ads, it's not that hard to give a guy an orgasm. And women are notoriously trickier. And this concept of the female orgasm (wow, I'm really writing a post of female orgasms???) is a thing that alternately grants women undue power or puts them at a distinct disadvantage. Whether a woman's lack of ability to come renders the man inadequate or the woman (oh, how I hate the term) frigid, it's CENTRAL to the heterosexual power dynamic. And in the hands of Mitchell, Sophia's dilemma is Romanticized in this way that, from where I sit, displays little understanding of the anxiety that would inevitably accompany the problem at hand. He never really delves deep enough to enlighten the audience as to the actual source-- whether it be physiological or psychological-- of a situation that is doubtlessly abstract and distant from Mitchell's own frame of reference-- and his lack of heterosexual experience shows here. And this isn't to say that Sophia's anxiety isn't a palpable presence in the movie-- it's just that she spends a lot of time spinning her wheels (or, maybe, more accurately, poking her wheels with a vibrator) and then she sorta happens to eventually blunder into an orgasm. And this, like everything else, has a context that's bigger than Sophia, bigger than her relationship with her husband (poor sap) and Mitchell displays little awareness that female orgasm is a kinda (oh, forgive me) hot-button issue for those who think along feminist lines. Basically, I didn't buy the discussion as an authentic one. He doesn't GET Sophia... and so, neither do I.

All of this is not to say, though, that I didn't enjoy the experience of this movie. It's really very funny (Justin, the queen, sings a ridiculous song entitled "We All Get it in the End" (Ha! Puns galore!) and as Jim Ridley puts it, "when a man can still sing the national anthem into another man's asshole, the terrorists haven't won") and it does a little of that subversive cuteness thing I've talked about before. But the best thing about this movie is that not a single character, not even Sophia, whose sexuality is clearly in crisis, expresses the slightest under-the-hat, up-the-sleeve prudishness. The movie really believes that good clean, multifarious, exploratory, wild, passionate, gentle, inclusive, orgiastic sex is the answer to all the ills of the world. It's a lovely thought, really. Who's with me? Who's up for trying?