the language of cinematic sex

Question 1

The ethics of filming sex scenes

Answer 1

• ethical development bc of MeToo movmeent and TimesUp - role of INTIMACY COORDINATOR and ensuring consent on a film set
  –> intimacy coordinators were super new in 2017, but now they are a standard
• sexual representations appear everywhere
• erotic dimensions of fantasy and desire in spectatorship -> viewing sex on screen is erotic - act of viewing looking
• spectatorship - is like voyeurism - basically cinematic conventions are designed to produce pleasures for the viewers while they are engaged in acts of seeing

Question 2

cinematic conventions of sex

Answer 2

• article analyses major cinematic conventions of staging sex on screen
• conventions in mainstream cinema - results from marketing concerns and censorship restrictions, can also be artistic to fuel audience’s imagination
• this means that restrictions can lead to creativity

Question 3

The Ellipsis

Answer 3

omission […] when leave something out - all narrative films need this to propel action
- the ellipsis - meaning/imagination is activated - in the absence of something
- Moonlight - choice - to get us to think about a film - Chiron’s connection with Kevin - from them talking to head on shoulder - staring at ocean - to stimulate our own imagination

Question 4

during and after the Hays Code Era

Answer 4

• adopted from 1930-1960s in Hollywood
• no visual depiction of sex allowed - no extramarital affairs depicted in a positive way

Question 5

The stand-in and visual barrier

Answer 5

• it is supplement of ellipsis - but filmmaker wants to lead to…
• it replaces the sex and stands in it, puts something else in it
• whether a scene acts as a stand-in is interpreted to the individual
• 1st way - metaphor - symbol of sex
• 2nd way - metaphorically - as a part of the sexual act standing in for the whole

Question 6

examples of stand-in

Answer 6

• brokeback mountain
• the motel - aesthetic choice - them laying together
  1) the motel sign - metaphor - cheap and concealed
  2) intimate talk - super intimate - post-sex intimacy

Question 7

examples of stand-in

Answer 7

• brokeback mountain
• the motel - aesthetic choice - them laying together
  1) the motel sign - metaphor - cheap and concealed
  2) intimate talk - super intimate - post-sex intimacy

Question 8

what are the 2 formal and aesthetic rhetorics of cinematic sex?

Answer 8

• idealism and realism
• they both have the power to reproduce and challenge normative ideas about sex
• while they may seem like opposites, they can occur together in the same films
• they are dependent on the other - one needs another for contrast

Question 9

what is idealism?

Answer 9

underlies representation of cinematic sex in narrative, theme, ideology, and style
- mainstream romance is predominant filmed in this idealist register
- youth and beauty = norms of idealized sexual union (sex older people, ppl diverse abilities, “realistic” looking people are still rare)

Question 10

consumerism and the “ego-ideal”

Answer 10

exploits the gap between reality and aspiration: our pleasurable gaze at idealized romance momentarily relieves anxiety that ideal cannot be fulfilled in real life
- idealized representations also improve the transgressive nature of spectatorship: it codes the voyeuristic act of looking at sex on screen as “beauty”

Question 11

realism

Answer 11

• there are 2 types
  1. films that thematize realities of sex in context of social problems
  2. films that focus on the psychological and affective realities of sex
  3. films that use acts or indicators of arousal to mark the sex on screen as “Real”