boo.
…this.
Anyways, the point is that I was, like, twelve years old. Lost Highway seems less shocking and terrifying and more fascinating now that I can understand it but at the time I was enthralled by the sheer craziness of the whole endeavor. The images in the film were decidedly not mainstream. And I was hooked. In fact, because I came from a small midwestern town that was devoid of culture (unless you like antiquing) it is probably the Independent Film Channel's fault that I enjoy anything interesting at all. Channel 58 was the only way I would have been able to see Argento's Inferno, or Babbit's But I'm a Cheerleader, or Cronenberg's Crash before the age of 13 (though I was arguably not nearly old enough to really understand any of these films, I think the most important part is that they introduced me to a world where I would actually have to try to understand a movie; that the form was actually an art form). It was Lynch's films though that remained my main draw to that 'scene'.
And that's my long and circuitous way of marveling at how I didn't see Mullholland Drive until a few months ago. Critics are normally pretty divided when it comes to Lynch but Drive seems pretty universally loved, which, given that it was still supposed to be pretty uncompromisingly Lynchian, should have been intriguing enough for me to hunt it down earlier, but what can you do?
I'm not going to really unpack the movie here (because that would take forever and probably still not get us anywhere) but, because we've been talking about heteronormativity and depictions of gays and lesbians on film I think Mullholland Drive should be applauded for the way it depicts the relationship between Naomi Watts and Laura Elena Harring. I think what I like about their relationship in the film is that while at first glance it may seem exploitative (I mean there's really no reason these two women all of a sudden have a sex scene [though, spoiler alert, the whole movie is a dream sequence so we could get into that whole can of worms about how there's no reason anything in this film happens I suppose]) but then, most sex scenes in most films are exploitative. Lynch ironically (and I'm not suggesting this--or anything in this film--is accidental) does a great thing for depictions of gays on film by giving them a perfectly tawdry, meaningless sex scene the same way that most male and female leads are given perfectly tawdry, meaningless sex scenes in most mainstream movies.
The frustrating thing though is that Drive is still undeniably an arthouse film. Lynch isn't really winning any converts. I have to imagine that most people who willingly sit through one of his films aren't rabid Christian fundamentalists. We've talked a whole lot in this class about the lack of representation for almost everyone in regards to film. In a mainstream film though you can't have a gay sex scene without Making a Statement. You can't have a black bank manager without it Meaning Something. And while I don't necessarily agree with it, I can understand how sometimes a filmmaker would just want to Tell a Story w/o Making a Statement, and so defers to the status quo if only for simplicity's sake.
But the real world doesn't work like that. I would be willing to bet that as I type this there's a gay couple out there having a sex scene of their own. It doesn't always have to mean something in regular life, they're not doing it as some form of protest. So why do we treat it as such in film? Granted, when you go against the norm people are going to notice, and, as I've touched on above, maybe since I grew up watching things that subverted norms it doesn't seem so shocking to me. And is it a chicken-egg sort of thing? That is, does subverting norms become a Big Deal because it is so rarely done, or is it so rarely done because it would be a Big Deal? I of course don't have an answer to that (that's becoming a running theme in these blogs it seems) but I think it's worth looking at. I would hope that most people upon self-examination would be able to realize that there world will remain sufficiently un-blown regardless of the "norms" they see subverted in film.
Good call on the "as I type this" comment!
ReplyDeleteOf course, I too am joking!
You raise an interesting question here (as usual). However, I'm not sure the answer is important. We know for sure that when marginalized groups gain representation, especially in their own hands, it becomes more of a norm and less of a Statement. In other words, what causes this conundrum may be unclear, but the solution is pretty clear.
ReplyDeleteI also think it's possible, although difficult, to increase representation of marginalized groups, that is to represent real life, without it being encoded or even decoded as a Statement. Witness Dumbledore!