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A while ago, I let Netflix recommend something to me, added it to my queue, and when I was reorganzing the queue to space out movies and TV shows, I moved this movie up towards the top. I don't remember the name of it because I turned it off ten minutes into the thing. I think the Jimmy Olsen from Superman Returns was in it, and I know that Heather Mattarazzo was, too. It was supposed to be a rom-com, I suppose, given that the premise was the guy pretending to be gay in order to be friends with the girl. I know, Shakespeare, right? (Well, actually, kinda?) Long story short, it wasn't done cutesy, it was done raunchy, and I'd had enough of bimbos, boobs, and banging before it even started. I chucked it back in the mail and made sure to leave a scathing 1-star rating on it.
Coincidentally, at the same time, there was a thread at Pandagon about feminist-friendly romantic comedies, and after my bad luck with the aforementioned romp-com, I added a few titles to my queue. Someone recommended Coming Soon, which I watched last night. Ostensibly, this is female-empowered by dint of the three heroines all seeking the elusive orgasm that none have achieved despite all their sleeping around. To the film's credit, the fact that they have sex with people they don't like and aren't aroused by is not presented as slutty so much as curious and hormonal. The lead girl (ugh, her name is Stream, so guess what stereotype her mother plays?) doesn't care about romance or sex so much as pleasure. Which, hey, that's kinda cool. This consequence-free pursuit of sexual satisfaction should be great, right?
Well, no one ever asks a rhetorical question like that intending anyone to say "yes," so you've probably guessed that this is not the case. ( Why? Why are women such a problem in the movies? )
Why is it so hard to believe that women can have both emotional response and sexual ones, and that the two might not always have anything to do with each other? Or that they do have something to do with each other and are more intricately entwined than is commonly assumed? One is not a romantic who exchanges sex for love no more than one is automatically a slut if one exchanges sex for pleasure. We like sex. We like love. Sometimes both at once, sometimes one and not the other. It must be an astonishing thing for these writers that women? Get the equivalent of hard-ons for men they have no intention of ever loving. (Fucking, yes; lovng, no.) They objectify as much as men do (and some studies say more than men do). Their capactiy for romance is not inherently greater. Men suffer as much for these films as women because they are constantly cast as conquerors of female bodies, as manly man types with about as much reciprocal depth as is brought to them by their female counterparts. But just because one film allows guys to men and not just dudes does not make it a feminist-friendly movie. The women are allowed to be aggressive but not to have any other defining characteristics? Pssh, please.
This movie reminded me vaguely of Zerophilia, which I watched a couple of years ago. I had similar problems with tone, specifically the glossing over of non-traditional sexual desires in pursuit of romance. That film couldn't decide if it was a comedy or a serious film. Coming Soon couldn't decide how to feel about just ending on its heroine having a fucking orgasm, so they threw in some stuff about love. And lesbians. Like you do.
Mostly, it was goddamned distracting for the PEOPLE in it. The movie was made in 2000, but everyone sported early 90s hair, the sorts that most of them would have been wearing to middle school when they were in style. It's as if they never changed it even as they grew up. We're talking the Peter Petrelli emo-bangs hair. One guy had his slightly longer and kept it back with a thin headband. These are dated looks for 2000, let alone 2008. Then throw in the fact that douche-haired kid was Sean Spencer from Psych and headband-boy was Ryan Reynolds (coincidence! I swear!) and Ashton Kutcher was in there at one point, and that's enough now-famous, then-unknown boys to make my head spin. It's very telling about the compelling story of the three women at the center of the movie that not-a-one of them went on to even half-so-much fame as the least famous of those guys. Yeesh.
Coincidentally, at the same time, there was a thread at Pandagon about feminist-friendly romantic comedies, and after my bad luck with the aforementioned romp-com, I added a few titles to my queue. Someone recommended Coming Soon, which I watched last night. Ostensibly, this is female-empowered by dint of the three heroines all seeking the elusive orgasm that none have achieved despite all their sleeping around. To the film's credit, the fact that they have sex with people they don't like and aren't aroused by is not presented as slutty so much as curious and hormonal. The lead girl (ugh, her name is Stream, so guess what stereotype her mother plays?) doesn't care about romance or sex so much as pleasure. Which, hey, that's kinda cool. This consequence-free pursuit of sexual satisfaction should be great, right?
Well, no one ever asks a rhetorical question like that intending anyone to say "yes," so you've probably guessed that this is not the case. ( Why? Why are women such a problem in the movies? )
Why is it so hard to believe that women can have both emotional response and sexual ones, and that the two might not always have anything to do with each other? Or that they do have something to do with each other and are more intricately entwined than is commonly assumed? One is not a romantic who exchanges sex for love no more than one is automatically a slut if one exchanges sex for pleasure. We like sex. We like love. Sometimes both at once, sometimes one and not the other. It must be an astonishing thing for these writers that women? Get the equivalent of hard-ons for men they have no intention of ever loving. (Fucking, yes; lovng, no.) They objectify as much as men do (and some studies say more than men do). Their capactiy for romance is not inherently greater. Men suffer as much for these films as women because they are constantly cast as conquerors of female bodies, as manly man types with about as much reciprocal depth as is brought to them by their female counterparts. But just because one film allows guys to men and not just dudes does not make it a feminist-friendly movie. The women are allowed to be aggressive but not to have any other defining characteristics? Pssh, please.
This movie reminded me vaguely of Zerophilia, which I watched a couple of years ago. I had similar problems with tone, specifically the glossing over of non-traditional sexual desires in pursuit of romance. That film couldn't decide if it was a comedy or a serious film. Coming Soon couldn't decide how to feel about just ending on its heroine having a fucking orgasm, so they threw in some stuff about love. And lesbians. Like you do.
Mostly, it was goddamned distracting for the PEOPLE in it. The movie was made in 2000, but everyone sported early 90s hair, the sorts that most of them would have been wearing to middle school when they were in style. It's as if they never changed it even as they grew up. We're talking the Peter Petrelli emo-bangs hair. One guy had his slightly longer and kept it back with a thin headband. These are dated looks for 2000, let alone 2008. Then throw in the fact that douche-haired kid was Sean Spencer from Psych and headband-boy was Ryan Reynolds (coincidence! I swear!) and Ashton Kutcher was in there at one point, and that's enough now-famous, then-unknown boys to make my head spin. It's very telling about the compelling story of the three women at the center of the movie that not-a-one of them went on to even half-so-much fame as the least famous of those guys. Yeesh.
