Midweek Mumble – When Does Art Become Porn?

This weeks mumble, by Rodney, discussed the fine line between porn and art, enjoy…

Today, I want to discuss the issue of sex. Specifically, sex in film. No, I’m not talking about pornography, which at the very least is a Mumble all on its own at some point, but rather, I’m interested in people’s thoughts on films that contain a large sexual component in their storytelling. I want to touch on two issues: the first, I want to know what you all think is an appropriate level of sexual display on a film before it verges into porn territory: at what point does sex on-screen stop being artistic? Secondly, are these kinds of films more, or less, appropriate to view than a film with a hundred corpses or torture-porn elements, as our society (read: Hollywood) seems to think they are?

I recently wrote a Midweek Mumble discussing censorship, and briefly touched upon the aspects of this argument that I think bear repeating: more often, it’s the sexually explicit films which come under the scrutiny of the censors axe, instead of a film showing dismembered, disemboweled and disfigured bodies and violence, and I’m not going to delve into that thorny issue in this column. Instead, I want to use my powers for good and try to get to the bottom of an argument one might easily have as a sub-heading of the censorship debate: when does art become pornography? When does sex on film cross the line into lewd, non-artistic trash?

Sex has been captured on film for ages – in some cases, porn’s been around on film well before “mainstream” cinema ever embraced the concept. Yet slowly, as sexual taboos wore away during the liberating 70′s and empowering 80′s, Hollywood began to explore this hitherto unbroached cinematic taboo – and sex became the new black, to bastardize a well-known phrase. Whereas nudity on film had never really explored human sexuality in any genuinely provocative ways (at least, not to our modern tastes), the explosion of the porn industry from backroom shadows to mainstream acceptance (proof of which came in the form of the first mainstream X-rated film, Deep Throat, in 1972), a movement which allowed Hollywood to embrace the exploration of human sexuality in commercial cinema.

Gradually, as sex became more accepted on cinema screens, the journey of sex on-screen became fraught with controversy – indeed, more controversy followed the depictions of sex in cinema than any amount of casual violence or smoking – leading to many films being banned in countries around the world, and all for a glimpse of genitalia deemed too provocative for our eyes. Whether you agree or not with what filmmakers choose to show in their films, there’s no denying that a filmmaker has the right to produce a film of content he or she might find entertaining – the modern examples I would immediately mention, Showgirls and Basic Instinct, provide two distinctly different levels of sexual artistry, although most people often just see boobs and go a little nuts. Showgirls was trash of the highest order, a titillation film designed to capture the teenage boy market and provide absolutely zero social commentary other than Gina Gershon’s vindictive bitch getting her comeuppance at the end. Basic Instinct, however, was a more subversive film, in that the lengthy sex scenes in the story were quite critical to the film’s overarching narrative. Michael Douglas might not be the man many want to see boning Sharon Stone, but that wasn’t the point – the sex in the story told us more about the characters involved than any line of dialogue could, and that’s the most impressive thing about that movie. Many folks argued that a rather explicit sequence between Stone and Douglas involved actual intercourse (untrue) and tried to have the film banned as pornography, but from a purely artistic standpoint, one could make a case against removing the offending scenes as it disrupted the integrity of the film.

From my own perspective, Basic Instinct revolutionized what could be achieved with cinema. No longer content to just have boobs as the go-to stopping point for sexual activity, it seemed to my young eyes that full nudity was on offer from then on, and anybody stopping short of that was doing the viewer a disservice. Oh, how young I was.

Ever since then (at least from my cinematic perspective) film-makers have continually pushed the boundaries of what can be achieved in cinema as far as sex is concerned. Actress Chloe Sevigny famously engaged in fellatio with actor/director Vincent Gallo for the 2003 film, The Brown Bunny. Catherine Brelliat, in making her (admittedly terrible) 1999 film Romance, hired famed pron actor Rocco Siffredi to engage in actual intercourse with actress Caroline Ducey, while Michael Winterbottom’s 2004 film 9 Songs showed not only its two leads engaging in actual sex, but for the first time in a mainstream UK film, a man…. ahem…. finishing. Here in Australia, both Romance and 9 Songs were banned initially, refused classification by our censorship board, although both refusals were overturned on appeal, and now each film is rated R (the highest rating allowed under which mainstream distribution is possible), taking into account the subtext of the sexual explicitness within each film. Less complicit in subtext was the 2002 Larry Clark film, Ken Park, which remains banned here in Australia – a film dealing with teenage issues of sexual experimentation (because God forbid teens experiment with sex), incest, suicide and other adult themes, and one which has divided folks from all sides of the cinematic debate.

The South Korean film Lies (Gojitmal), which tells of the somewhat misogynistic relationship between an artist and a student, is exceptionally explicit in its depiction of sex, while the gorgeously ethereal Sex & Lucia, directed by Julio Medem in 2001, is less reality and more fantasy even though the sex involved is quite explicit also. Recent films like Room in Rome and Antichrist, which have used sex in different ways to convey the character’s senses of isolation or freedom (having recently watched Room In Rome, I’ll say here that the two women involved were not as isolated physically as they were emotionally!) are also important explorations of humanity through sexuality, although the level of explicitness in each film can be considered controversial when taking subtext into account.

It’s become commonplace to consider that sex, as much as violence in action films, has its place in cinema, but one must ask at what point does it become less about the story and more about simple gratuity? Do directors deciding to go the route of having rather explicit sex on-screen  somehow have more to say than someone unwilling to show actual intercourse to get their point across? And at what stage did somebody on the set of 9 Songs think that the only people who’d get to see their film were ones going into a porn shop? What do we consider art, and what do we consider pornography, and where is the line drawn? What I consider to be artistic, you may find a reprehensible invasion of sexual taboos, a corrupting influence and one which bears little or no good will to society. Is there a line at which film, mainstream film which is legitimized by the popular masses, crosses the line into outright pornography? And what is that line? Is it subtext (I’ve alluded to this several times now, and I think the answer is “yes”) or something more? Is sex on film nothing more than cheap gratuity masquerading as art, a way to keep audiences complicit in the baring of the most intimate parts of those who participate under the guise of art?

Don’t get me wrong – porn probably has a place in society (although exactly where, I’m not sure) but mainstream cinema, heck, even independent cinema, has often come blindingly close to the other side of the exploration of sexuality, to the point at which we can often ask ourselves: when does art become porn?

About The Author – Rodney Twelftree

Aussie film fan Rodney has been writing about film, DVD and Blu-Ray since 1998, when he became Chief Reviewer at a now-defunct Adelaide-based online retailer. A fan of blockbuster and mainstream cinema, as well as dabbling in arthouse and independent forms of the industry, Rodney prefers to spend his nights and weekends in front of the television watching the latest release on Blu-Ray instead of out getting sloppy drunk like many of his friends. When he’s not out in the Front Room, Rodney can be found writing reviews for his own website www.fernbyfilms.com, helping good mate Al K Hall over at The Bar None, and dabbling in lists over at Top 10 Films.

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