Tuesday, March 23, 2010

SUPER ROUGH - Work in Progress

From the beginning of time, sex has simultaneously served the purpose of perpetuating the human race and creating an arena for pleasure and obsession. Every culture has a different view on what is deemed “normal” – some countries (like Amsterdam, Netherlands) are more liberal in what is seen as obscene and have commercial areas where sex shows, escorts and other related tangible elements can be sought; while others like Afghanistan and Iran restrict sexual relations for the sole purpose of procreation and as a means to control and persist gender barriers. In the United States today, the commercial value of the entertainment industry is held in high esteem. The economy is boosted when a big box office hit commands the attention (and wallets) of audiences who happily shell out upwards of $10 a ticket. Generally speaking, it is safe to say that sex plays a major role in movies, music, books and other artistic outlets. This is not a new development, as sexual scandal sold the story of the Greek Tragedy Oedipus Rex, deemed Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint one of the most controversial and banned texts, continually existed in the subconscious background actor/director Woody Allen’s movies and writings, and in the works of Chuck Palahniuk – master of the modern day perverse. Looking at all of these works, however, it is striking to notice the way the characters are portrayed. To be more specific, it is notable how age plays a factor in how the male brain is presented to an audience. According to Sigmund Freud, every male develops an Oedipus Complex. From the time of conception and nine months of being physically connected until birth when the baby looks into his mother’s eyes while breastfeeding, a sense of utter devotion exists. Just as a grown man would become protective of his girlfriend or wife, the young male feels compelled to protect and love his mother as if it is his duty and responsibility. As the child grows older, this mindset wears off but still exists in the subconscious. The Oedipus complex rears its head in all of the above texts. While Woody Allen’s works are entirely more cerebral and self-serving than most at the box office, bookstore or newsstand today, modern audiences are still presented with the idea of the sex-consumed male. As mentioned above, age is a master manipulator of the psyche and emotions. As entertainment and the culture industry thrives, we submerge ourselves into the escapist worlds of the characters created for the big screen and in the pages of novels. While women definitely exhibit more and more sexual freedom, for the purpose of this argument, males are dominantly portrayed and sexual minded creatures. The difference is, though, that grown men are often seen as sexually confused, plagued and consumed with the act resulting in being viewed as deviants, while teenage boys are seen as hormonal, normal and funny in their quest to get laid.
The semester began with the examination of Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint. Originally published in 1969, Portnoy’s Complaint was received as a scandalous, horrific depiction of a sexually obsessed young man. The audience engages with the main character, Alexander Portnoy. Portnoy is young, Jewish, neurotic yet self-loving (in more ways than one) and spilling his guts the entire length of the text to his therapist, Dr. Spielvogel. Alex’s “mommy issues” shine through very clear, paving the way for reflection of how people are portrayed in arts and entertainment.
Judd Apatow is undoubtedly one of the most successful director/producers on the planet right now. His works include Undeclared and Freaks and Geeks, both TV sitcoms exploring the emotionally and sexually frustrating lives of high school students. Apatow is more recently praised for his feature films, including Knocked Up, Superbad and Forgetting Sarah Marshall. His works are prime examples of the idea of sex as mechanism of young, male life. For example, the 2007 box-office hit Superbad follows two best friends, Seth and Evan. As graduating seniors, the boys embark on a mission to somehow score booze with their socially inept friend’s fake ID. The quest for alcohol does not exist in the hopes of a night of inebriation, but instead to garner the respect of Jules – Seth’s crush. Jules’ house is the ultimate destination – where the boys know they have sex as a reward for “bringing the party.” Shenanigans ensue throughout the film, all revolving around sexually charged jokes and references. The audience response was more than positive and is now considered to be a “classic.” In all honesty, if Apatow had asked the writers of Superbad to tweak their premise, possibly making Seth and Evan 35 year old men instead of 17 year old boys, it is highly likely that the audience response would find the flick to be less appealing. Why is that? For one reason – although almost everyone thinks about, wants and has sex, being a hormonal teenage boy hell-bent on getting some action while encountering unsavory characters and trying escape a drunken fist fight is much more acceptable than witnessing a 40+ year old man battle his “sex demons” such as in Choke – a novel by Chuck Palahniuk.
Youth has been stamped as a period of your existence where mistakes can be made and all dumb mistakes made are looked back on with endearment. It’s perfectly acceptable to be a pizza delivery driver at 17 years old, but not necessarily the most coveted position as an adult. When the plot of Choke unfolds, the scene is set for the main character named Victor Mancini. Mancini is a former medical student who now works as a colonial re-enactment park. He frequents sex addict meetings not to better his “addiction” but to take advantage of the women he meets. As a child, his mother provoked the law causing her custody to be turned over to the state. As Victor bounced from foster home to foster home, he found ways to be back with his mother who would announce her presence in places like drugstores (over the intercom, using a specially assigned code name.) Now approaching his thirties, Victor lives a menial existence of working a dead end job, having sex with anything that won’t walk away from him and tends to his mother – who is in a nursing home for the mentally unstable. Freud would suggest that the motivation for Palahniuk’s “Victor Mancini” comes from a place rooted in the Oedipus Complex. As a child, Victor adored his mother, only to have her ripped away. He rebelled as a youth and grown up, focusing his emotional distress into abundant sexual fetishism and “addiction” as a coping mechanism to fulfill his childhood desire of inherent sexual attraction to his mother.