Recently I was in conversation with a friend of mine about the Sexy International Film Festival.This friend, an intellectual and cinephile in the true sense of the word, took me by surprise when he expressed his incomprehension of the festival’s theme. “I just don’t see what the point of a film festival devoted to ‘sexy’ is when people can download as much pornography as they want for free” he told me. As far as I was concerned, he answered his own question: if sexy has become synonymous with pornography, then that clearly reflects the urgency of having a film festival dedicated to it’s exploration as a concept.
Using the word ‘sexy’ as opposed to ‘eroticism’ seems to be a deliberate decision by the festival organisers. By using ‘sexy’ they attempt to re-appropriate the word out of the hands of advertisers and marketeers who have (especially in the last few decades) always sought to align notions of sexiness with consumerism. This is where modern pornography comes in. Sexy, according to the standards porn and advertising set (there’s no denying how mainstream fashion and beauty in the last 5 years have been strongly influenced by the aesthetics of porn) equates that women have to spend money bleaching their hair and putting in extensions, fake nails, breast implants etc. Without this financial dispension, you aren’t conforming to what apparently constitutes sexy these days. In pornography, ‘sexy’ is homogeneous. Female porn stars resemble one another eerily, like alien robots whose sole function is to fake pleasure. There is no sensuality or eroticism and sadly we seem to be falling for it.
For me sexiness in the cinema has always been about well executed anticipation and the presence of crackling chemistry between actors (Bogart and Bacall in Key Largo for example). Watching a sex act onscreen (either simulated or unsimulated) is more often than not incredibly dull and terribly unerotic. Films which avoid this route altogether are usually far more provocative and effective. Meanwhile, as porn becomes more and more embedded into mainstream culture, we seem to have forgotten entirely how diverse sexuality can be (again as a result of porn aesthetics) and to that end, that sexiness in cinema doesn’t have to necessarily mean onscreen sex. I’m optimistic about the potential of the Sexy International Film Festival which as a general theme has unlimited possibilities. Certainly it will be a festival to remind us that the true meaning of sexiness in the cinema has really has nothing to do with fake breasts and the money shot.
By Darcy Harrington
(Not her real name)
Using the word ‘sexy’ as opposed to ‘eroticism’ seems to be a deliberate decision by the festival organisers. By using ‘sexy’ they attempt to re-appropriate the word out of the hands of advertisers and marketeers who have (especially in the last few decades) always sought to align notions of sexiness with consumerism. This is where modern pornography comes in. Sexy, according to the standards porn and advertising set (there’s no denying how mainstream fashion and beauty in the last 5 years have been strongly influenced by the aesthetics of porn) equates that women have to spend money bleaching their hair and putting in extensions, fake nails, breast implants etc. Without this financial dispension, you aren’t conforming to what apparently constitutes sexy these days. In pornography, ‘sexy’ is homogeneous. Female porn stars resemble one another eerily, like alien robots whose sole function is to fake pleasure. There is no sensuality or eroticism and sadly we seem to be falling for it.
For me sexiness in the cinema has always been about well executed anticipation and the presence of crackling chemistry between actors (Bogart and Bacall in Key Largo for example). Watching a sex act onscreen (either simulated or unsimulated) is more often than not incredibly dull and terribly unerotic. Films which avoid this route altogether are usually far more provocative and effective. Meanwhile, as porn becomes more and more embedded into mainstream culture, we seem to have forgotten entirely how diverse sexuality can be (again as a result of porn aesthetics) and to that end, that sexiness in cinema doesn’t have to necessarily mean onscreen sex. I’m optimistic about the potential of the Sexy International Film Festival which as a general theme has unlimited possibilities. Certainly it will be a festival to remind us that the true meaning of sexiness in the cinema has really has nothing to do with fake breasts and the money shot.
By Darcy Harrington
(Not her real name)