"from the cunt to the head is/ a Mobius strip/ that connects us to death" --Eleni Sikelianos, excerpted from "Notes Toward the Township of Cause of Trouble (Venus Cabinet Revealed)"
I have a poster of this Araki photograph tacked to the side of a bookcase at home. When my mom was visiting not too long ago, she cast a sidelong glance at the poster and said, "OK, Marjorie. What is this? Is that somebody's anus?"
Putting aside the fact that my mother asking me if I decorate my house with pictures of assholes makes my chest tight with mirth, I do truly love this image. It's so simple, this decontextualizing. All he did was turn a mouth on end and it became the Everyorifice. And by extension, I imagine, the Everywoman.
In the post from which I reaped the image over on Beautiful and Depraved, there's another Araki photo too:
Here's what Kasia, author of said blog, has to say about the both of them:
These two photographs by Araki are the most erotic pussy shots I've seen in a long time. It didn't sink in, at first glance, that I was looking at pussy, but a little tremor went through me and then I smiled.
She sees pussies in visual metaphors of burst watermelons and rosebud lips. My mother sees buttpucker. See? The Everyorifice. Kasia, however, goes on to talk about how it's this "oblique gaze"-- this askance allusion to sex-- that is the real eroticism.
I agree with her up to a point. They are beautiful photographs. And hot. And sly.
However, there's also something pretty erotically compelling about less metaphoric visual depictions of sex. And those can hardly be discounted.
My own erotic fantasies are hopelessly biological. Technical, even. I think my several years spent kissing, exclusively, girls seem to have created a situation in which I may never get over the sheer novelty of being penetrated. In deplorably unkinky fashion. And just that? That strangeness of seeing one body part disappear into another? It's usually enough for me. And sometimes, pretty porn and layered sexual associations just get in the way of this fascination that just doesn't wear thin -- not for me. There you have it: my enthrallment with the mechanics of plain ol' hetero intercourse.
Fuck, that's dull.
And it's certainly not to say that I don't love a metaphor. It occurred to me, as I've been buying little things here and there to finish out my new living space, that I reflexively buy vases. Not expensive ones, really... because I have quite a lot of them. But I do love a good vessel. I favor squat round ones that whittle into necks and widen back out again. Teapots, too.
How silly do I feel that I am so drawn to objects that are hollowed out in the middle? That must speak to some deep self-involvement, no?
When I was an undergrad art major, my senior project involved hundreds of little wire sculptures. I carried needle-nose pliers and a spool of wire in my purse with me everywhere I went. On the train, during lectures, watching TV, I'd model these little bottles and tubes and pots, resembling, in some primitive fashion, those beautifully designed containers for cosmetics-- other vessels that I covet assiduously.
Why on earth is it just now, 10 years later, occurring to me that I was doing nothing with that project if I wasn't making womb after womb after womb?
The above painting is Courbet's Origin of the World. It's a beautiful painting, no?
Now. Imagine a world of idyllic Americana. A world of abstinence oaths and scrubbed-clean blond girls. A world over which two nuclear cooling silos keep watch, like the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg, over so much suburban gloss. A world in which every man is a deviant predator, but you still want, no, NEED to see him naked. A world in which all the victims are monsters and no one's really a monster.
In that world, you've got pretty much all you need to get a grasp on the conflicted and muddy imagery within the movie, Teeth. This is a very, very bad movie. There are so many things wrong with it that I'm fumbling for the starting line. In this post, I plan to tear it a few bonus assholes. But make no mistake. I LOVE this movie. I've waited and waited and waited, panting, for the release of this film. And finally, finally, it's here. It's available to one and all on DVD. Blessed be. This film and this blog are fated lovers, I'm afraid, though the affair is destined to be populated with barbed and sniping little trysts. The following shall be the savage, roiling swell -- after so many months of delaying the gratification. Let it ensue:
I love this movie because it so pointedly illustrates so many of things upon which I've been harping for, like, my whole life. It purports to come from a feminist place, and yet it insists that all women are victims and all men are predators. It thinks it's a story of female empowerment, when really, it's a story of female estrangement-from-desire. And it really does think it loves women, but it's so squeamish about girl-parts that it shrouds them in mystery at every turn. I really do think the filmmakers are pretty fucking stupid, in that they don't have the first clue as to what the story they've told really means (as ascertained from some really inarticulate making-of footage in the DVD extras). But it's such a great example of so many things simmering beneath the surface of the communal discourse right now. If I get into grad school, you can bet that Black Snake Moan's gonna be the first chapter of my thesis. And then Teeth might very well take up the rest of the damn book. Bless its little heart.
For those who haven't baited their breath in anticipation of this release, I suppose I should offer a quick synopsis: Teeth is a movie about a girl with teeth in her cunt. In the beginning, she's part of one of those creepy cults of virginity. You know the ones I mean-- the ones in which the members swear off sex but are so consumed with sex that they do nothing but wax rapturous on all the permutations of sluttery and debauchery. Sure, they all call it dirty, but their derision is glazed over with the ecstatic cum-lust of the whore-iest among us. So, then, she gets raped. And subsequently, she severs her first penis. And then another. And another. She is afflicted with the much-mythologized phenomenon of the Vagina Dentata.
There are about a million websites dedicated to the pan-cultural stories of women with toothed pussies. I'll leave it to you to do your googling yourselves, as I couldn't narrow it down to just one for linkage purposes. The image is certainly ubiquitous enough that it's a wonder a million films haven't been made about it. So, as the myth goes, the vagina dentata is a imagistic shorthand for the overly aggressive and/or avenging female. Or it's an embodiment of male shit-your-drawers terror with regard to the female. Or, it's the hellmouth. That is, the myth teaches us that the quickest route to the fall of man is via coitus with woman. In short, it's a myth that paints women as scary, toxic, evil-doing Others and men, alternately, as weaklings who can't resist the Power of the Pussy or as fraidy-cats, who fret over being subsumed into the female (i.e., it's that trusty ol' Freudian castration anxiety). It's a win-win, for all involved! OK, it's not. At all.
This film tries its damnedest to flip the myth on it's head. Oh, how it tries. And oh, how it fails. In the bonus materials, the director/writer, Mitchell Lichtenstein explains how he hoped to re-envision the myth and make it into an emblem of female empowerment. The most prevalent resolution of the conflict in this myth involves a "hero" taming the vaginally toothed monster. To do so, he must break or remove her teeth (most often, he does this by raping her with his colossal and legendary cock-of-steel) and then she marries him out of gratitude at being freed of her monstrosity (and who could fault her?). It's your average quelling-the-female-savage story. In Lichtenstein's version, Dawn, his eponymous character, never gets quelled. She becomes something of an avenging angel against predatory men everywhere. And that's all fine and good except that Dawn's lonely. I'm not sure I really understand how Dawn is made any happier or empowered at all by an affliction that does nothing but distance her from other humans.
Beyond that, every male character (except, kinda, Dawn's stepfather) is something if a dickhead. Even the ones who initially seem sweet-- and seem to actually admire Dawn for her convictions-- wind up attempting to predate upon poor Dawn. Try as they might, they cannot see her as something other than a thing to be fucked. And she, of course, is anything but empowered because she's a shivering little bunny (well, Bunnicula, perhaps) running scared through hordes of groping, lecherous men. Sure, Dawn quickly learns that she has a special defense against all these men, but in what way is she empowered? She lives in a world in which she'll never experience pleasurable sex (so long as she remains "untamed" and her teeth intact) and in which she must constantly remain vigilant against the ever-present male threat. I've said it before and I'll say it again: fear is not empowering. And Dawn has always been and will always be scared. She is so very victim-y-- even when she figures out how to do a little victimizing of her own. So, if the story is, as is so obvious, an allegory for the war between the genders, it seems to imply that women are inherently victims and men are inherently predators. How is that an even remotely feminist sentiment?
Now, much has been made of the fact that Lichtenstein is a gay man. And to be fair, prior to my viewing of this film, I instinctively raised an eyebrow, wondering, what the fuck could a gay man possibly have to say that could be at all relevant to hetero female sexuality? I mean, he's got nothing at stake! He doesn't want to fuck us and he's not one of us, so why does he even care? Just the same, it didn't have to matter. I imagine that some gay man somewhere could write a story of this subject matter that could be convincingly authentic. But, man, does Lichtenstein ever miss THAT boat! There are tell-tale signs of his queer aesthetic every where you turn in this film.
Firstly, let me address the gratuitous quantity of dick in this film. For a movie about vaginae, seriously... it's a hell of a lot of cock. There's one scene, in which Dawn and the object of her affection have a telephone conference from two different locker rooms. In the boys' locker room, several totally naked dudes mill about in the background. In the girl's locker room, several chastely toweled girls chat and flip their hair behind Dawn. And every time a male character gets castrated, we are treated to a special shot of a prosthetic "decapitated" crotch with blood spurting out... and then, a sad little severed member not far after. Do we ever get to see Dawn's parts? Why, no! Of course not.
This omission strikes me as an egregious one, particularly when there is no shyness at all about having dicks in the film. I'd read enough reviews of this film so that I knew in advance that I wouldn't be getting any good visuals of the vagina dentata, but, by the end, I was aching for one. I mean, there was such a build-up about it that I think it's pretty stupid that Lichtenstein chose not to satisfy the audience's curiosity. I mean, how hard would it be to have, maybe, included something reminiscent of the famous shot of Marky Mark's prosthetic at the end of Boogie Nights? But no, clearly this writer/director was far too squeamish about vaginae to actually make good on the implied promise of his premise.
Sculpture by Gail Neke, as part of her "Facing the Vagina" series.
Now, the hysterical part is that he really does try to address this issue of the general cultural discomfort around the dark and mysterious recesses of female anatomy. He has one scene that takes place in a health class. As the teacher wraps up his discussion about the penis, the students all turn the page, expecting their next lesson to regard all that is pussylicious. But what do we find? A giant gold foil sticker covering up the textbook's diagram thereof, of course! The class twitters and one of the kids asks why they can discuss the penis, but not the vagina... and the teacher says something like, "Well, it's just different." And we're all supposed to have a good laugh at the prudery of the establishment, right? So, Lichtenstein is clearly aware of the cultural anxieties regarding depictions of female anatomy, but instead of really taking any strides to demystify said girl-parts, he just perpetuates the anxiety by continuing to not show them.
So, Mr. Lichtenstein. You've made a movie that you thought was about female empowerment but is really just about male castration anxiety. Do you really think it was wise to make our cunts seem even scarier? You might have noticed some of the lovely art with which I've decorated this post. They are my antidote to the notable absence within this film. As I said, all this talk of the vagina dentata really made me just want to see one. So here they are. And no, they don't scare me.
In any case, there are myriad other patently anti-woman details in this film. For example, there's a big rottweiler who eats one of the cut-off dicks. Guess what *her* name is? "Mother." Yeah. I know. It would be funnier if it weren't so over-the-top, wouldn't it? And also, the only way for Dawn to "exact her revenge" is to submit herself to rape after quasi-consensual sexual interlude after rape after quasi-consensual sexual interlude. And, particularly in the beginning, she's fairly horrified by her, um, super-power-- she feels guilt and dismay and, you know, like there's something wrong with her (which there is!). So there is little doubt in my mind that Lichtenstein was taking some voyeuristic joy in allowing his so-called heroine to be battered and violated time and time again. It's a more subtle misogyny, perhaps, but it's still there. And you can't really enjoy the humor of this film (because it really is pretty darn funny) unless you accept that it's there. Bring your grain of salt.
Ultimately, however, it's not really all this inadvertent misogyny that's the real problem with this film. The real problem is its muddled thinking. It wants to be pro-feminist, but it doesn't know how to do that without getting mired in an outdated version of the feminist narrative. It wants to hold men responsible for eons of mistreatment of women, but it doesn't know how to do that without indicting them all with a fell swoop... and then indulging their perfectly irrational anxieties about becoming emasculated through their relations with women.
Furthermore, the film really doesn't understand with which of its characters it wants its sympathies to lie. I think the character of Brad, Dawn's step-brother, illustrates this point pretty effectively-- in that I see in him a potential to be a much meatier, complex character than the film itself allows him to be. Clearly, he's set up to be her foil. He's dark-haired and tattooed where she is blond and milky. He keeps this random fish-netted woman corralled in his bedroom, always available for his sexual whims-- and as I mentioned, Dawn is repressed... uh, I mean, a virgin. And yet, he confesses pretty early on that he's in love with Dawn-- and has been since they were children. He's drawn to her restrictive ethics and feels emptied out by his own libertinism. He both wants her and hates her for denying him. For my money, he's probably the most compelling character in the film. But he's VERY poorly realized. I blame the script much more than I blame the actor. The script tires to make him glib and sinister while the actor tries his damnedest to make him soulful. The film wants him to be the villain. So, ultimately, Dawn gets her opportunity to exact her punishment upon him. (It is his cock that Mother eats.). The actor plays the scene as though he's heartbroken that the love of his life has finally let him near her, but only so as to give herself the opportunity to mutilate him. The context, however, is far more sanctimonious and would have us believe that Dawn is, at last, vindicated against the years of harassment from this sad, conflicted step-brother of hers. It refuses to see the depth in poor Brad that the actor attempts to instill in him.
Perhaps I'm engaging in a little wishful thinking and giving this character too much credit, but my intuition about Brad tells me that he's the only one that really "gets" Dawn. He, more than everyone else, sees that all her celibacy pledges and promise rings are really only (dental) dams and firewalls put in place to prevent her from acknowledging her own natural libidinous drives. He's the only one that sees that she's as human as he is-- and not some angelic eunuch (what's the female equivalent of a eunuch?). And yet, in his castration, not only does she cut off his cock, but she also cuts off her connection to the only person who might lead her down a path of self-evaluation that just *might* deposit her in the midst of a realization that sex is NOT a thing to be guarded and withheld any more than it is a weapon to be wielded against those who transgress social boundaries. In this way, Brad's castration becomes tragic... as does Dawn's missed opportunity for sexual awakening. She'll never enjoy sex and she'll never become a full-fledged autonomous woman because, from her perspective (and Lichtenstein's), the world is out to get her. She may be able to defend herself against this predatory existence, but it's still pretty sad that she'll never live peaceably within it.
So, I really do love this film because it so clearly illustrates so many of the ways this thing I call "paleo feminism" (i.e., second-wavery)-- the philosophies that put folks of both genders at a disadvantage-- excerbates already painfully-felt fissures between us. And it also reflects our culture's lack of clarity of thought surrounding so many of these issues. I expect Lichtenstein probably did want to tell a feminist story. But he really had no idea how to truly empower a female character, without slogging her through the dregs of victimization. I can fault him, yes, for not doing enough homework on contemporary gender theory, but I'm almost kinda glad he didn't. This film reflects how confused we ALL are about this stuff. A film that came straight out of some tower (that may or may not be made of ivory) might not be so illustratively muddled... and therefore, it probably wouldn't have given me so much to pick at. Nor would it have generate such a lengthy blog-gasm out of me!
Oh. Oh. And I do love that.
One more picture? OK. Here.
Photo by Andres Serrano, "The Interpretation of Dreams (Vagina Dentata)" (Yes, this is the guy who got famous for the "Piss Christ" piece back in the '80s.)
(Please excuse the weird spacing. I can't seem to fix it.)
On the car ride to Cleveland this last Christmas, with me and my screamingly injured hip wedged amidst suitcases and wrapped gifts in the back seat and my parents arguing about a banana peel in the front seat, I read Laura Kipnis' new book The Female Thing. Actually, I have a lot to say about all the issues upon which she touches in that book, but I'm going to save a lot of that for some other posts.
I bring up that book today, however, because she cites statistics about how hetersexual vaginal intercourse creates a pleasure deficit on the female side of the equation. Apparently, somewhere between 60% and 75% of women are unable to come via the ol' in-out-in-out method. Now, as I find myself among the blessed 25-40%, I kinda always figured it was something that could be taught and/or learned. I mean, it was certainly something that I didn't know I could do until I had some help learning how (more on that...maybe... if you're lucky... in future posts as well). Kipnis doesn't ever come out and say that she doesn't think that it's possible for women to learn to come that way, but her assertions that some women just "can't" suggests that she either hasn't considered whether it's a learned physiological response or an innate one or that she just plain thinks it's a matter of anatomy and that, no, some of us just aren't built for it.
And then along comes this article. Please excuse the ridiculously inappropriate and trite photo of Meg Ryan faking one in When Harry Met Sally. God, that's such a tired movie reference. I mean, surely women have faked it on screen better than that by now. Let's take, for instance, my own former classmate, l'il Laura Jean Reese Witherspoon in an atrocious movie called Fear. Who didn't know she was Oscar-bound when she quietly faked her little death on a roller coaster? Yeah, it's a bad movie, but so what? I can't say, however, that I anticipated her Oscar win when she was shooting me in the boob with a water gun out in front of our high school library building, but, you know-- shooting stuff onto boobs-- maybe it was anticipatorily symbolic of faking orgasms instead. Hmph. It appears I've digressed.
Anyway, I find the article interesting because it suggests that some of us are physiologically predisposed to being capable of g-spot orgasms and some (most) of us are not. And that explains a lot. But it's real sad, ain't it? Perhaps there is no teaching or learning to be had! Kipnis talks about how acts that perpetuate the species are, due to anatomical considerations alone, just plain more pleasurable for men-- and how fucking unfair that is. But while she acknowledges the ongoing debate about the existence of the g-spot, she never said one way or the other whether she personally believes in its existence, choosing instead to focus on the pleasure deficit. Now, all-in-all, Kipnis does a pretty good job of not presenting the female as a victim of a culture that privileges maleness... but she does give in to a little bit of frustrated teeth-gnashing that so many of our bodies are so unrelenting in their refusal to grant us internal orgasms. And that's fair, I guess.
I, too, am sorry about those bodies that lack thicker tissue between their vaginae and their urethrae.
I know what you're thinking. And yes. I do spend all day trolling the internet for crap like this. Why? What do YOU do all day?
Maybe I really only love strippers when they're good and angry. It's not that I don't *like* them at other moments-- but there's something truly heady about catching a (former) stripper in a delicious moment of righteous indignation. Case in point.
Once again, Chelsea G. has hit the nail on the head about why I-- and others-- find the insipid euphemism "va-jay-jay" truly repugnant. Really, ladies. There are just better words! Hell, I've even got one of the best right up there in that shimmeringly punny Eleni Sikelianos quotation in this blog's title banner. In fact, here's a colorful list! Yes, the offensive moniker is included in this list, along with several other cheesy, annoying ones, but there's also a healthy mix of sexier ones. Knock yourselves out. Profane on, my sisters!
Now, it should come as no surprise that I'm incredibly comfortable with the word "vagina." But really, what gives about this impulse to dumb down, demystify and sanitize female genitalia? Especially with a word that has rapidly become such a favorite amidst my own gender? Honestly, no self-respecting MAN would ever call one (especially one he was desirous of penetrating) by such an effacing nickname. And if some guy ever tells me I have a pretty va-jay-jay, you can bet he ain't ever seeing it...ever...again! (Yes, that's both advice and a threat.)
Jen had a great post on this very topic on her old, now-defunct blog... and I'd link to it because she's every bit as pissed off and resplendent as Chelsea G. is... but alas, it seems to have disappeared into the great information ether. Sad.
Jen, mon cheri, care to reprise your wise and witty assertions?
Goddamn it. It's really no wonder why I get so damn many hits from people looking for porn. I'm sure I'm a sad, sad, SAD disappointment!
NB: I did not mean to suggest that Jen is like Chelsea G. in that she is a former stripper, but rather, only that she is equally effulgent when feeling incendiary. Not that she couldn't be a stripper if she felt like it... and not that she feels like it... Shit. I'm digging myself a huge hole. (Ha! I didn't really intend that pun, but now that it's here, I'm happy to see it.) Ugh. Sorry.
Of the new crop of Sundance movies, there are certainly quite a few calling my name. Oh, how I wish I could have my very own little Sundance in my living room... Or you know, take one of those vacations where I go to Utah and do nothing but go to movies all day for a week... *sigh*. Oh, to dream... Meanwhile, I'm tentatively considering spending a week in Nashville in April so that I can go to a whole slew of movies at the NAFF. Last year I got a sneak preview of The Notorious Betty Page (it was ... um... awfully cute, considering it's about an S&M queen) and Beyond Beats and Rhymes: A Hip-Hop Head Weighs in on Manhood in Hip-Hop Culture (one of the MOST fascinating documentaries I've ever seen) and some other movie about the loss of the father (I can't remember the title... Jon? Any Clue?). In general, it was a very positive experience-- one that I hope to repeat. We'll see, my Nashville friends, we'll see!
So here are the little tidbits to which I'm looking forward from this year's crop:
Hounddog
Yep, the famous Dakota Fanning rape movie. I've read all sorts of crazy reviews about this thing... everything ranging from debates about whether pre-adolescent kids have sexual agency to snark-fests that claim the director is pro-rape (this is an assertion I find unlikely, at best). Regardless, issues of childhood and sex are of particular interest to me and so I'm breathlessly awaiting this thing. I'm prepared to both love it and hate it.
Teeth
At last! How long have we all awaited a film about the physiological anomaly known as Vagina Dentata? Seriously. Anyone? Ok, it's just me, then. I very much want this to be a movie about the female confusion that surrounds our simultaneous desires to worship and mutilate the most obvious symbols of maleness... but, alas, I hear that it's yet another attempt, by a gay man, to define female sexuality. Yeah, the director's a big homo. And I am just SICK and TIRED of gay men, who are often afraid of vaginas, thinking they have something relevant to say about the politics of heterosexuality. OK, that's harsh, I realize, but I don't think John Cameron Mitchell did it all that well in Shortbus, so I'm really rather skeptical here. But, regardless, it's interesting fodder and I do, indeed, plan to spend money on this ticket.
Grace Is Gone
For a long time, I've tried to claim that my crush on John Cusack was really just a crush on Lloyd Dobler, the uber-optimist from Say Anything, but now, I'm pretty sure this movie is gonna solidify my bid for Mr. Cusack's heart. Apparently, it's a story about a guy who loses his wife to the Bush-administration-generated bunch of bullshit going on over in Iraq. In every clip I've seen, Cusack just looks so soulfull and so grown-up... goodness, it IS hard not to love him!
Padre Nuestro
An illegal alien gets his identity stolen-- and he didn't even throw away one of those credit card come-on letters! I dunno-- I hear this is supposed to be good. Could be in a similar vein as Maria Full of Grace, which was rough and moving and well-acted by one of the most gorgeous women I've seen in a long time (Catalina Sandino Moreno). We'll see. Looks promising.
Once
It's billed as a musical but it's a movie about immigrant buskers singing for their bread on the streets. I gather music would not be quite so disruptive in a story of that nature, yes?
Sweet Mud
Life on the kibbutz isn't as sweet as it could be, you know? Really, when was the last time we had a good kibbutz movie? Anyone?
Rocket Science
Oh, please let this be another Thumbsucker! Please!
So, we'll see how it goes. Oh, how I love it when little indie curiosities in film form get front-page coverage. It gives me hope.
I seem to be becoming more and more aware of a certain brand of humor that is more invested in making its audience squirm than it is in entertaining them. I don't suppose this is a new tactic-- I mean, sure, there are shows like The Office that have become hugely popular lately... but then, isn't this also a little of what Andy Kaufman was doing back in the '70s? And I'm sure he wasn't the first... but, truth be told, my frame of reference here is full of holes. I haven't made any sort of historical study into who invented cringe-inducing comedy... all I did was watch Sarah Silverman's Jesus Is Magic, and this thing certainly fits the bill.
After having felt like SS stole the show in The Aristocrats, I imagined that her feature-length stand-up/musical/pseudo-documentary would be worth watching. But here's the thing: I can't, for the life of me, figure out who she's making fun of!
If you make a lotta jokes that make you seem racist, are you a) making fun of racists, or b) making fun of your PC audience members who are likely to be made uncomfortable by such jokes? Probably both, right? So, really, then, I don't know quite how to feel about that -- other than feeling, somehow, implicated in some sort of social mis-step just because I'm pretty likely to find myself smack in the middle of the latter group. And because Sarah Silverman's act is simultaneously navel-gazing and lacking self-awareness, it's as though her curious arrangement of assorted self-involvements are then indicative of larger, more general social ills. Her personal and political issues are so conflated with each other that they begin,likewise, to conflate with MY issues!
My experience of watching it then becomes one in which I'm doing nothing but parsing out the parts of it that I think are funny from the parts just make my skin crawl... and then trying to figure out why I'm having all these confusing reactions to it. And I can't simply laugh at it because, really, my bleeding heart doesn't think it's all that funny. And I'm loathe to condemn it as un-funny because I think she's provocative in this way that's making me question all my bleeding-heart-related biases. And then I think I'm totally self-involved for thinking that this is a movie about me. And then I think that SHE'S totally self-involved for writing a movie that's all about her personal hang-ups... And then I come back to feeling like I'm totally self-involved for writing a blog that's not really about this movie but, rather, about me watching the movie. And I can't figure out who's to blame for my discomfort in watching it... Me? Her? American Culture? Me? Women? Men? Black people? Jews? Me? The KKK? Nazis? Anne Frank? ...me? Who, dammit!? Who???
Ok, so that's an exaggeration of my great big tizzy. But there was, indeed, a little tizzy going on in my head.
And she doesn't just deal with issues of race... she touches on so many stigmatized groups that I can't even remember them all. And she talks about buttholes and vaginas a lot. She's a fan of orifices. Well, and boy parts, too. And, as one might ascertain from previous blogs, I'm interested in these things as well.
But do I enjoy sitting through this sort of thing? No, not so much. Does that make it a bad movie? No, not so much. After all, we've got Epic Movie on our theatrical horizon, and I doubt there's much out there that could overtake that thing, that very puddle that Tinsel Town puked up, which is enjoying its sovereignty over Bad Moviedom, no doubt.
Nobuyoshi Araki, via Beautiful and depraved
