Artcore

[JamesBr]

I am reminded of the South Park episode where the independent film festival comes to town.

I'm not denigrating the film, it's not a genre I care about, I just find it amusing that people still think "Euro-art-house film about lesbians exploring their relationship" is worth talking about.

Why not? It's a demographic that is vastly underrepresented in media. Right now our biggest problem is visibility, and if something comes along that doesn't turn homosexual characters as a fetish, that's a victory for a demographic.

I've yet to see Brokeback Mountain but it was treated as a big joke, and that breaks my damn heart.

Yet it happens often enough that you can make fun of it in a cartoon (years ago, might I add) and people know what you're talking about. I'm not saying the film isn't good, or even that it isn't worthy of attention, I'm saying that an erotic LGTB euro-art film is cliche, no matter how good, and isn't worth getting up in arms over the erotic bits. The article itself is less what the comment was directed at and more the hubbub that caused its response. I agree with the article. Probably could've phrased it better ^^

 

[Paradoxrifts]

Maybe it's just be, but I'm getting tired of every gay romance always being portrayed as this lofty, beautiful, uber-passionate, earth-shatteringly amazing power of the universe, a force no one can stop no matter what. But if the movie featured a straight couple with everything else exactly the same (the camera angles, the dialogue, the sex scenes, etc.) no one would bat an eyelash at it.

Of course that's true, that's so painfully obviously true I can't believe I have to explain it to you. Change the gender of one of the characters and you change the context of every scene, even if Adele insists on calling her burly counterpart Emma it's not fooling the audience. The character is different even if the script is the same, the context is gone, the meaning has changed and the audience is no longer watching the same movie. You've now got a painfully confusing comedy about a girl in deep denial and her unscrupulous paramour abusing her confusion for sex.

Obviously the semantics would be changed around to accommodate the character's heterosexuality. Now the real difference I think is that if the character of Emma were a man, then the movie would end by sending him to jail for statutory rape.

 

[Machine Man 1992]

It sounds like the only reason to watch it is for the one scene, and everything else is pure boredom, but in french.

Well, according to Bob:

Still, it's a bit depressing to see such a good film (and yes, Blue is a very good film in its own right) arrive with this spectacle hovering over it

... the film might actually have some merit. We won't know for sure until we've watched it ourselves, now will we?

Because one sentence, in parentheses no less, is such an endorsement of quality.

You and I both know that one of Bob's biggest fetishes is girl-on-girl. Take what he says with a a mountainous pile of salt.

 

[Evil Smurf]

My favourite film in the genre is a sweedish film called Fucking Åmål. Go see it, it is brilliant.

 

[J Tyran]

There was an alternative to arty movies for porn before the internet, don't forget the classic British sex comedies like the "confessions of..." series in the 60s and 70s

 

[feauxx]

I absolutely loved the movie. I wasn't bored or noticed the length at all while I was watching because the actresses are so SO good. I think it's the best acting I've ever seen in a film. Especially Adele is so raw and beautiful to watch, even if she's crying her eyes out. She makes you feel her pain, and bring up those memories from when you've experienced the same pain of a lost love.

It's too bad all the focus is on the sex and the drama surrounding this film, it does a disservice to the best things about it.

 

[grrrz]

well, I'm still surprised foreign films with subtitles are not a niche thing in the US (or is it only for palmes d'or?)
There never was such controversy about the sex scenes here in France, though one of the actress complained that the director was too rough on her during the shooting, which develloped in a entire new controversy. I haven't seen the movie yet but really want to.
For your information the movie is rated for people above 12 here (we have ratings for 12, 16, and 18 yo here, 18 being either extremely rare for "regular" films broadcasted in theaters, or reserved for pornography obvisouly not broadcasted in regular theaters.)

 

[grrrz]

The quirk of NC-17 being a death sentence is a very american phenomenon. The BBFC (formerly known as one of the stuffiest ratings boards in the world) has passed the film with an "18" rating, a rating that many mainstream films receive and are happy to receive. As all cinemas and stores will carry 18 certificate films no problem. It simply being a french art film will hamper distribution much more than it's rating here in the UK.

The fact that most films that depict any kind of female sexual pleasure are stamped NC-17 when torture porn routinely gets an R no problem is baffling. The simple fact that most places won't stock or show NC-17 films is also a 50s hangover of prudishness. All the while these films are leered at and muttered of in dark corners.

We laughed at Australia for their ratings flaws in video-games but the U.S. has effectively continued censoring wide distribution films all whilst warping the image of European cinema as purveyors of smutt and what we in the UK call "Wank fodder". It's immature and hypocritical.

Actually here in France the 18 rating used to be only for pornography. The hardest rating used to be 16 for regular movies. They had to bring back the regular 18 rating I think because of the movie "Martyrs" (Pascal Laugier, which I recommand by the way), which had extended scenes of torture.

 

[Nimcha]

My favourite film in the genre is a sweedish film called Fucking Åmål. Go see it, it is brilliant.

I absolute adore that movie <3 Mainly because I can recognise quite a bit of myself in both main characters

 

[Zydrate]

Why not? It's a demographic that is vastly underrepresented in media. Right now our biggest problem is visibility, and if something comes along that doesn't turn homosexual characters as a fetish, that's a victory for a demographic.

Actually the representation of members of the LGBT community in the media (referring to entertainment here) is about proportional with the portion of that population that exists in real life. Given a rough estimate less than one in twenty people identify as LGBT, so if "Blue is the Warmest Color" seems like a rarity that's because...well, statistically, it should be.

There's nothing wrong with having more, but it doesn't seem fair to say that there being less is a problem.

EDIT: Estimate is according to the US, other countries may differ.

Go ahead and look up the list of the biggest hits in the last DECADE if you'd like and point out the ones that have a protagonist that is homosexual, or falls under any of the LGBT+.
And yet homosexuality has exited since humans figured out there were at least two genders.
I never see them and they're delegated to these "indie" films that nobody really ever hears about or, according to this forum, give them a nice big "meh" and move on.
Which partly proves our point when people prefer (ogod alliteration) that movies like this don't need to exist or prefer them not to.

 

[UberPubert]

Go ahead and look up the list of the biggest hits in the last DECADE if you'd like and point out the ones that have a protagonist that is homosexual, or falls under any of the LGBT+.
And yet homosexuality has exited since humans figured out there were at least two genders.
I never see them and they're delegated to these "indie" films that nobody really ever hears about or, according to this forum, give them a nice big "meh" and move on.
Which partly proves our point when people prefer (ogod alliteration) that movies like this don't need to exist or prefer them not to.

Wouldn't it be kind of odd if any of the biggest hits of the last decade were about homosexuals (or LGBT)? Think about it, first you'd need a writer and director interested in making an LGBT movie, then you'd need a producer interested in footing the bill for it, then you'd need an audience that enjoyed it on a wide national scale to the exclusion of other movies. Doesn't that seem like asking a lot from a movie catered to and marketed for an extreme minority demographic? What's wrong with a film being niche if that's the kind of audience it was always made for?

I don't think that proves people don't want to see these kinds of movies either, the fact the movie this topic is dedicated to did so well and won the most prestigious awards possible (by Bob's standard) is - I think - a strong indicator that some people were very impressed with and wouldn't mind seeing more.

 

[UberPubert]

Why does having a homosexual protagonist make a movie a homosexual (or LGBT) movie, or a movie about homosexuals and instantly relegate the movie to a niche, minority audience? I don't know about you but if any of the major releases of the past year had had a homosexual lead role I don't think that would have really changed their genres, or their marketing, or their targeted demographics.

If the protagonist of a hit movie happened to be LGBT I don't think anyone would bat an eye but the sexuality of the protagonist in most movies usually doesn't matter, and if the protagonist was straight I still wouldn't refer to it as a "heterosexual movie". But if the movie is specifically about an LGBT's experience as an LGBT then yeah, I'd call it an LGBT movie, which would make it a movie for an extreme minority audience.

 

[UberPubert]

It's obviously not going to be hard to find LGBT characters in movies about LGBT characters, just like it's not going to be hard to find black people in Tyler Perry movies, but if there are no LGBT protagonists in anything outside of the niche market for those characters, there's a bit of a problem.

But why? What's wrong with LGBT or Tyler Perry movies?

LGBT members make up a much smaller amount of the population than even blacks and hispanics (though I'm not saying they're mutually exclusive), but we still recognize it's not a problem that protagonists of that ethnicity are significantly less common as far as movie hits go.

 

[UberPubert]

The problem is that LGBT protagonists shouldn't only exist in movies about LGBT issues, in the same way black protagonists shouldn't only exist in movies about slavery or civil rights or those made by Tyler Perry. Heterosexual white people shouldn't be the only protagonists in mainstream movies while everyone else, from homosexuals, to blacks, to hispanics, are locked into niche or indie genres and markets.

Lots of people recognize that the incredibly disproportionate number of heterosexual white protagonists in media is a bit of a problem, and claiming that everyone else should be happy with their little niche markets is really problematic.

Well blacks and hispanics aren't locked into niche or indie genre markets because they make up a larger amount of the population than LGBT members.

While I recognize the number of white, hetero protagonists seems disproportionate to the number of protagonists of other ethnicites and sexual orientation, I also recognize that these protagonists are written and made to appeal to what is still a majority white - and extreme majority heterosexual - audience.

You could argue that too many movies are written and produced to appeal to the majority demographic, but it doesn't make much business sense to do otherwise, and it doesn't represent a "problem" with minority demographics. It's just a simple numerical difference.

 

[Evil Smurf]

My favourite film in the genre is a sweedish film called Fucking Åmål. Go see it, it is brilliant.

I absolute adore that movie <3 Mainly because I can recognise quite a bit of myself in both main characters

I love the writing. It was the first teen drama film I saw that did not follow the conventions and tropes of the American teen dramas like "American Pie." It shows lesbians as people and not objects, I'm a fan of women so it apeals to me.

What about the main characters do you see in yourself? Is it the awkward drive to be socially accepted? Or the overcoming of societies norms?

I need to get this on DVD.

 

[shogunblade]

The quirk of NC-17 being a death sentence is a very american phenomenon. The BBFC (formerly known as one of the stuffiest ratings boards in the world) has passed the film with an "18" rating, a rating that many mainstream films receive and are happy to receive. As all cinemas and stores will carry 18 certificate films no problem. It simply being a french art film will hamper distribution much more than it's rating here in the UK.

The fact that most films that depict any kind of female sexual pleasure are stamped NC-17 when torture porn routinely gets an R no problem is baffling. The simple fact that most places won't stock or show NC-17 films is also a 50s hangover of prudishness. All the while these films are leered at and muttered of in dark corners.

We laughed at Australia for their ratings flaws in video-games but the U.S. has effectively continued censoring wide distribution films all whilst warping the image of European cinema as purveyors of smutt and what we in the UK call "Wank fodder". It's immature and hypocritical.

I do think it is stupid that NC-17 receives the stigma that it does, but at the same time, when a movie gets that rating, it can help people go and see it. I don't know anybody who wanted to see Blue Valentine (I have not seen it yet) before it came out that it was an NC-17, and later rerated "R".

I have my hang-ups with the US, I, being born in America, find a lot of what is considered "R" rated by the MPAA versus "NC-17" to be completely stupid. Saw is okay for a young child to watch if an adult is around, but Shame is not? It's a level of hypocrisy that makes no sense to me at all, when I wouldn't let a little child watch "Saw" anyway, and I'd be more inclined for them to see "Shame" or "Requiem for a Dream", if I found a decent way to show it off.

I think the ratings board needs new members to justify the change of the times, and then we might decently rated movies. I say "Might", in any case.