Let’s Talk About SEX!
S is for substantial – no porn
E is for experimental, explorative and hopefully entertaining
X is for [insert sexual fantasy or taboo]
For once, I didn’t see a particularly sex-based film this month. Sure, Mr. and Mrs. Smith is a sexy-as-hell movie, Friends With Benefits is an entertaining rom-com with some sex in it and Sharknado features a lot of sexy women. However, none of these provide enough material for a substantial discussion. But then I thought of Mystic River.
Mystic River is a 2003 mystery/crime drama about three childhood friends who are getting involved in a murder case as adults. They are no longer friends after a terrible incident happened to one of them, when they were still very young. Now, Jimmy’s (Sean Penn) oldest daughter has been murdered, Sean (Kevin Bacon) is leading the murder investigation and Dave (Tim Robbins) is the main suspect.
The film deals with various sexual themes and questions, one of them being pedophilia, a taboo that has interested me since I ever read Lolita. Like most of our society, I think that molesting children is one of the worst crimes possible and should be punished well. However, unlike most of our society, I have come to the conclusion that pedophilia is a sexual orientation that people cannot fight – much like homosexuality. The difference is, they cannot and must not actively satisfy their sexual needs. Thus, pedophile people can be “nice” people who never harm anyone – and usually people with very high self-control.
The pedophiles in Mystic River, however, are not of the nice kind. Which always makes for an interesting plot point and certainly isn’t a bad choice for Mystic River, since the movie is much more about the traumatized adult that a molested child will become, than about the abusers or the abused child. Still, the film made me remember how much we need to see more stories that take a look at the “good” pedophile.
The other sexual theme Mystic River “covers” is… well, it’s Sean Penn and the fact that he used to be a babe. Of course, compared to the issue of pedophilia and child abuse, this seems like a trivial topic – and it is. However, it needs to be mentioned that people my age who have seen, say, Milk, The Tree of Life or Gangster Squad should go back and watch some of Sean Penn’s older films. Anythin pre-2004 should do. (May I suggest the 1986 Pearl At Close Range?).
See you next month when I will hopefully be writing about something more on-topic.