The Shortbus came… and I went. And thoroughly enjoyed it. Everything about Shortbus was splendid: the character conflicts, the resolutions (some certain, some ambivalent, all representing personal breakthroughs), its hearty, spirited humor, its splendid poly-Salon where gay trannies can make out with straight girls and all body types are welcome, its action expressed in symbolic terms, and…
all those wonderful naked bodies doing all kinds of wonderful.
Which didn’t mesh at all with the salon’s tranny-host’s comment, “It’s just like the sixties but with less hope.”
Sorry dear, but the film was far more hopeful and celebratory and sex-positive than the bulk of films and pornographic novels of the ’60s. No one suffered outright annihilation; no one suffered the wrath of decadence gone too far. If anything, it was a wonderful reflection of John Cameron Mitchell’s views:
“I have seen so few films in which the sex felt really respected by the filmmaker. Hollywood too often shies away from it or makes adolescent jokes about it. … Sex is only connected to the negative because people are scared of it.”
“There is such a reluctance to address sex as an inherent part of the human experience in this country. … The true perversion to me is crushing it and hiding it.”
(courtesy imdb)
A number critics have commented that the “real sex” wasn’t really sexy… or erotica… or hot… or whatever. As far as I’m concerned the protrayal of sex is one of those “can’t please all of the people any of the time” things. Watching people have sex is like fetish fiction: It’s only as good as the reader/viewer imagines it in his or her daydreams. If the sex doesn’t match what you’ve imagined, it’ll fall flat. It it does, you’ll love it.
Me? I liked what I saw. A lot. Shortbus really hit the spot — its dominatrix, however, could’ve aimed better — but Shortbus itself was just fine. Ride it. Remember: “Ya gotta get on to get off!”
