Creation and masturbation. Human beings have been engaging
in both activities so liberally and for so long that you’d think we’d have a
really clear understanding of both by now. And yet, the debate between what is
“art” and what is “pornography” continues to confound. In fact, the debate over
the two mediums’ respective definitions, morals, and merits is so scattered
you’d think they were both just invented last week.
A
common objective of art (as embodied by film) is to portray the human
experience truthfully. In order to be truthful, the artist must be uninhibited
and unafraid. And what is more truthful than the human body performing the act
of love? There is no activity that so thoroughly evinces all that is animal and
all that is ethereal in humankind. For years film directors striving for a
truly unflinching look at raw humanity seek to portray the deed in increasingly
graphic and at times unsettling ways. Yet if they get a little too truthful, they risk the red stamp of
PORNOGRAPHY and all the negative associations therein. It’s a delicate
balancing act, and the question is raised every time a sexual explicit movie
hits theaters: where do you really draw
the line between art and porn?
Does
it have something to do with the experience of the performers? Anti-porn
activists paint an ugly picture of exploitation and abuse on porn sets. Many
believe that porn stars (in particular although not exclusively the females)
are coming out of desperate circumstances, or being forced against their will, or
otherwise unfairly coerced. While this is certainly the case for some, there are
more than enough positive personal accounts to show that it is not universal.
And
just as the label “porn” doesn’t guarantee that performers are being exploited,
the label “art” doesn’t guarantee that they’re not. Nothing says Film (with a
capital F) like winning the Palm D’Or at Cannes. The honor this year went to
Abdellatif Kechiche’s Blue is the Warmest Color, which
featured a lengthy lesbian sex scene. One of the lead actresses, Lea Seydoux,
later said that she felt “humiliated” and “like a prostitute” while the scene
was being filmed.
While
the actresses in Blue may have been
uncomfortable, they were not required to perform literal sex acts on one
another. So can the line been drawn when actual sex is being had? In 2006
director John Cameron Mitchell released Shortbus.
Shortbus, like many films before it, is about people coping with alienation
and looking for love in New York City. Except in Shortbus, when the characters have sex, the actors are really
having sex. Mitchell explained this decision by asserting that sex was “too
interesting to leave to porn.” In response to the inevitable accusation that he
had a porno on his hands, Mitchell argued that the primary purpose of porn
was sexual arousal, whereas Shortbus “de-eroticized”
the act so as to focus on the emotions and ideas behind it. One may be tempted
to think that Shortbus was merely a
pit stop on the road to full-on porn for Mitchell. But his next major project
was the adaptation of Pulitzer-winning play Rabbit
Hole with Nicole Kidman, so evidently not.
So if we’re seeing real penetration, real orgasms, and it’s still not
porn, then when does it become porn? Is it porn when there’s no story? Well, plenty
of pornos have stories. At least enough of one to set the scene and establish
the characters. These stories tend to be ludicrous, unrealistic, and thrown
together at the last minute, but if that’s the only criteria then Adam Sandler
has been enjoying an illustrious career in pornography for the last ten years.
As
the line continues to blur, directors find new ways to depict sex while dodging
the “porn” label. Lars Von Trier has taken the ambiguity to science fiction-like
lengths in his upcoming Nymphomaniac. To
shoot the movie’s graphic scenes, he first had the big name actors simulate the
sex. He then had body doubles actually have sex with each other. The movies
release has been substantially delayed due to the painstaking process of
superimposing the doubles’ bits onto the movie stars’ bodies using CGI. In
keeping with Mitchell’s distinction, Nymphomaniac
is not intended exclusively to arouse. It uses sex as a means of examining
philosophical quandaries, mysteries of the human condition, and other such art
house maxi-themes. Still, it was important to Von Trier to get as close as
possible to the real thing.
Ultimately,
it would seem that whether something is art or porn is in the eye (or the
pants), of the beholder. Of course this is hardly a clear delineation. The
existence of sexual fetishes means that something that registers as completely
unsexual to the general public may be highly arousing to someone out there.
Furthermore, many movie scenes are remembered for scenes that featured arousing
material. We’ve been so long debating where precisely to put the line between
art and pornography perhaps its time to abandon the line altogether.
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