Feminists against porn need to get a grip
A Scottish women’s group is trying to organise the boycott of Tarantino’s new ‘torture porn’ film, Death Proof.
Women’s groups have accused the Glasgow Film Theatre of undermining’ their work on sexual exploitation and urged the independent cinema to scrap its screening of the Quentin Tarantino “torture porn” film Death Proof planned for tomorrow.
The acclaimed director will answer questions from the audience after the screening of his post-modern homage to 1960s and 1970s exploitation movies, Death Proof. Written and directed by Tarantino, this latest film focuses on a stuntman, played by Kurt Russell, who hunts down and sexually exploits various “voluptuous” women that he follows in his “death proof” car.
The Scottish Coalition Against Sexual Exploitation (SCASE), Scottish Women’s Aid, and the actress and comedienne, Elaine C Smith, a trustee of the anti-domestic violence charity, Zero Tolerance, are supporting a protest outside the theatre, organised by the Scottish Women Against Pornography group (SWAP).
SWAP co-ordinator, Catherine Harper, said the decision to screen the 18 certificate film damaged the GFT’s reputation with anti-violence campaigners, especially after screening sympathetic productions such as Lilya 4-Ever, a moving film about a 15-year-old Estonian girl lured into sex trafficking.
The GFT is a small, independent cinema in Glasgow, which is apparently one of Tarantino’s favourite cinemas. It struggles to compete with corporate megaliths like Cineworld, which has an 18-screen skyscraper down the road. If Tarantino offers to do a presentation, who are they to turn him down because a bunch of feminists will be pissed off? They need all the help they can get.
Presumably, the women’s groups haven’t seen the film, since it was only released yesterday. Here’s what they have to say about it:
“…it’s unacceptable that the theatre, of all organisations, want us to enjoy women being stalked, preyed on, stalked, tortured and murdered. This kind of violent, sadistic, women-hating content creates and continues to reinforce a society which sees rape and violence as normal and legitimate.”
Do they even know what the film’s about?
I saw it in Germany a few weeks ago. It’s an ironic look at 70s exploitation films.
Yes, it is about a serial killer who stalks and murders beautiful women, and a male establishment that doesn’t take it seriously. But (SPOILER NOTE) it’s also about a proto-feminist fightback by a group of women who refuse to be victims, take the killer on, and end up killing him.(/SPOILER NOTE)
If we suspend our ironic sensibilities and take an unsophisticated view of the film, the enjoyment we get is the enjoyment of a revenge fantasy, the same way we cheered for Phoolan Devi in Bandit Queen when she attacked her rapists.
What’s the problem?
It’s a mediocre film by a talented director who’s lost his way. And for the record, I don’t really like violence in films (unless it’s about Nazis being killed), and I don’t like torture films.
The women’s groups also attack the GMB union for ‘legitimising’ the sex industry by organising sex workers. This is shear hypocrisy: the sex workers organised themselves, and then approached the GMB for membership. Isn’t that feminism in action? They have chosen to work in the sex industry, and chosen to do something about their terms and conditions by unionising.
It also pisses me off when interest groups think they ‘own’ institutions. The GFT has shown films before that the feminists like – like the brilliant Lilya 4-ever – so they seem to think they can expect to see only films that they approve of.
(The same thing happens in South Africa with the Mail & Guardian newspaper, which the Left thinks it owns – anything critical of the Left is seen as a betrayal).
In fact, there’s a whole lot of sexual hypocrisy out there. Today’s Scotsman – a conservative paper – has a lead article in its women’s supplement about a new shop selling organic sex toys in Edinburgh, for the modern woman concerned about pesticides in her vibrator. There’s nothing in the article (which I can’t find online) that suggests there is anything unusual or even risque about buying organic vibrators, which is a good thing.
But why are women’s sexual fantasies considered empowering, while male sexuality is portrayed as sleazy or exploitative? I haven’t seen any Scotsman articles advising the discerning gentleman on which fake rubber vagina, or porn DVD, to buy, have you? Vibrators objectify a certain part of the male anatomy just as much as porn objectifies women. Why is one OK and the other not?
A lot of porn is really distasteful. That’s because people have been sexually repressed at least since the start of Christianity, so we have 2000 years of sexual issues to work out. The sex industry is often disturbing – but that’s more to do with power relations than the sex itself. A greater openness is what we need, not making people feel guilty for their desires, and not forcing sex work into back alleys where it will be controlled by gangsters.
I am sick of this boys against girls bullshit. We’re all complex individuals, and all of us have a weird mix of desires that we should feel free to explore.
Anyway, by way of an antidote to the prudes, Louise has an excellent take on pro-sex feminism here.
