Last night I watched the film "Fat Girl" that Winn recommended in an earlier post. In doing some light research (that is, a few google searches) it seems that the writer and director, Catherine Breillet, has faced controversy over the way she depicts sex within her films, particularly the violence involved. Since most people haven't seen the film I won't detail the content here, but I'd rather like to address it's depiction of sexual violence. Throughout the film I kept thinking of Lorde's distinction between the erotic and the pornographic. Catherine Breillet's film is not categorically a pornographic film, and while it still includes explicit sex, it really doesn't go beyond any untraversed boundaries (at least not for a European film). I think the controversy lies in the films overall thematic bent towards focusing on the violence that's connected with sex. Breillet draws attention to the violence and this takes all the fun out of the way sex in film is typically enjoyed by viewers. And now the film is controversial because people feel a slightly unnerving implication that they may in fact enjoy something they principally reject.

I suppose this thought doesn't directly segue into Lorde's articulation of the erotic, but her essay was on my mind during my viewing of the film. I think the controversy that surrounds a work that is explicitly sexual, but deviates from our standard depiction of sex in such a way as to call attention to that standard, illuminates an unspoken line society draws between what is hot (for lack of an ability to use erotic in it's colloquial sense now) and what is profane. And it seems the drawing of that line has a lot to do with the thinking about sex. Which reminds me of the part of Lorde's essay that talks about the necessary "looking away" that those of the european-american tradition need to do when satisfying their erotic needs. She writes: "To refuse to be conscious of what we are feeling at any time, however comfortable that might seem, is to deny a large part of the experience, and to allow ourselves to be reduced to the pornographic, the abused, and the absurd." I think that "Fat Girl" puts the viewer in the uncomfortable position of either thinking of their own relationship to sexual violence in film, or of refusing to consider it and feeling reduced to the absurd.

It's a great film, I definitely recommend it to everyone too.