Mixed Media

When Chris Anderson, director of The O Tapes, first read the findings of the Laumann study that made public the information that 43% of women experience sexual dysfunction, he was shocked. If this was the case for men, he thought, there would be a pill. Just a few months after reading the findings, one was released—for men, not for women. After doing a bit more research, he discovered that the incidence of sexual dysfunction in men was believed to be about half that recorded for women by the Laumann study.

Anderson, who had been working as a film editor, was in the market for a documentary film project, and after doing a bit of research into the subject himself, the elusive female orgasm became its subject. The only problem, he determined was that he was the wrong gender to carry this project through. But this didn't deter him. He hired an all-female staff and proceeded to interview hundreds of women and a few noted (or notorious) experts in the field about sexuality. Many of these interviews revealed that women just don't talk about sexuality.

Last night, I attended a sparsely populated screening of The O Tapes in San Francisco that was followed by a short panel discussion featuring the director and three local experts on human sexuality. Either San Franciscans think they already know everything about sex or the rainy weather served as a deterrent, because the Lumière Theater wasn't even a quarter full. But I guarantee that everyone in the audience learned something new, whether it was a historical fact or a point of view put forth by someone interviewed in the film.

While I would have preferred a more narrative approach, the organization of the film around subjects was effective. As Anderson pointed out during the panel discussion, the interview covered about 60 subjects, most of which could not be included in the final version of the film. Instead, he used his editing skills to define a more narrow set of topics including "orgasm" "foreplay," and "self image" to provide organization for the project.

The primary strength of The O Tapes isn't the film's organization, but rather, the diversity of voices that Anderson was able to capture during the interview process. The women in this film range in age from 25 to 84, and are from a range of racial and ethnic backgrounds. While almost all of the women are heterosexual, a few queer women are also given a voice. The project is more than reminiscent of The Vagina Monologues (click here for a Mother Jones interview with Ensler), but the diversity of voices and content goes beyond that normally attained in sex-positive film festivals.

Even though the so-called sexual revolution started something moving in the right direction, we have a long way to go when it comes to understanding female sexuality. For Chris Anderson, part of the solution might be found simply in talking about, rather than around, sex. Getting this dialogue going isn't an easy undertaking in a culture that has many taboos centered around female sexuality. Fortunately, as revealed in the film, many women do love to talk.

Click here for show times.

--Rose Miller

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Yesterday was the 200th anniversary of Britain's abolition of slavery. But since Hollywood doesn't release new titles on Thursday, it's waiting until today to launch Amazing Grace, a new movie about 18th-century British abolitionist William Wilberforce. The flick, directed by Michael Apted (creator of the mesmerizing 7-Up documentary series) and produced by the studio that did The Chronicles of Narnia, is getting enthusiastic advance reviews. But nowhere is the film more highly anticipated than among conservative Christians, who see parallels between Wilberforce's moral battle and their faith-based campaign against sex trafficking. But Wilberforce's unlikely victory is also viewed as a metaphor for the Christian right's struggle to remake the culture. Presidential hopeful Sam Brownback was dubbed a "Wilberforce Republican" by the Economist, and has eagerly accepted the title. And check out this email appeal I recently received from Ted Baehr, who runs MovieGuide, an evangelical movie review site:

One man, William Wilberforce, was used by God to abolish the slave trade in England and bring about a reformation of manners.

Imagine what you and I can do together to redeem the media and save our culture! [...]

Because of Wilberforce's willingness to serve the Lord, a Victorian society where women and children were safe and where the Church was addressing social evils in creative ways saved a nation that was quickly falling into rampant paganism.

[...] you can help us bring about a moral reform in our nation that will set the captives free from the bondage and slavery of corrupt media.

This is the chance for the Church in our era to address social evils in creative ways!

Wilberforce has officially been recruited as a culture warrior. (BTW, MovieGuide gives Amazing Grace four stars, though it warns viewers that it contains "female cleavage.")

Of course, Wilberforce's story doesn't just resonate with religious conservatives. His against-the-odds struggle for social justice plucks liberal heartstrings as well—ours included. For a progressive interpretation of British abolitionism, see Mother Jones co-founder Adam Hochshild's most recent book, Bury the Chains, which argues that the anti-slavery movement was "the first great human-rights campaign." As Hochschild explained when I interviewed him:

In a time that feels politically grim, especially for anyone in the U.S. who cares about social justice, I hope people will take heart from a story of folks who started a campaign at a time when it looked even grimmer. The idea of ending slavery seemed totally utopian, crackpot, wildly too idealistic. But they succeeded. And they succeeded in 50 years, in the lifespan of some people [...] They went through some very grim times, one of them being the long wartime period like the one we're seeing now. Wartime is bad news for progressives, and it was the same thing [during the Napoleonic wars]. So I guess to the extent that it's possible for a book like this to have any effect, I would just like to see it have the effect of making people working for justice today feel heartened and to know that any big struggle will always be a long one with many setbacks.

I don't see anyone calling themselves "Wilberforce Democrats" any time soon, but that's no reason to let the right lay exlcusive claim to the legacy of abolitionism, or even Amazing Grace. So take a break from your usual pagan film fare and see if it lives up to the hype. (And for you history buffs/Afropop fans, it's your chance to see Youssou N'Dour's silver screen debut as Olaudah Equiano.)

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One of the GOP hard-hitting political campaign managers in California is a punk musician and one-time druggie who disappears for days at a time running from the police. Said chairman of the state Republican party: "Some of the more conservative (politicos) are taken aback by the tattoos and leather jacket, but that goes away as soon as they realize how good he is at what he does."

If only social conservatives could grant the rest of us the same largesse.

Read a complete (two-part) profile here and here.

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While there's much to love in the Sarah Silverman program (like this and this), I think my favorite characters are Steve and Brian, Sarah's "gigantic, orange and gay" neighbors. Played by writer Steve Agee and comedian Brian Posehn, the couple are a bit hefty, with scraggly facial hair and rumpled plaid shirts, and seem to love video games and, uh, farting, more than Cher and Madonna. This kind of portrayal of gays on television is indeed unusual, and one could argue the show is aiming for the simplest kind of comedy by using the least "gay" guys to play the gay guys; but oddly enough they end up being a pretty accurate portrayal of most of the queer dudes I know. Maybe this is just my bizarro world, but all my straight guy friends are hair-gelling, disco-dancing superfreaks, and my gay guy friends are shlubby geeks. (And I mean all that in the best possible way, guys). Are all the gay dudes just trying to act straight, and vice versa, until everything's backwards, or could the stereotypes be (shudder) wrong?

Just this weekend San Francisco welcomed the International Bear Rendezvous, an "annual gathering of bears and bear lovers." A bear, for the uninitiated, is, according to Wikipedia, a "male individual who possesses physical attributes much like a bear, such as a heavy build, abundant body hair, and commonly facial hair." My apartment happens to be situated on a street between two of the main host bars, and all weekend, buses pulled up and disgorged crowds (herds?) of large, hirsute men. And I'm not sure if this is related, but the distinct odor of garlic fries seemed to waft over the neighborhood as well. Do bears eat garlic fries? Anyway, as I walked up to the subway station Saturday night, I found myself assuming every bearded, baseball-cap-wearing, chubby guy I saw was heading for the bear festivities, until I realized: no, these are probably just, you know, Americans. Are Sarah Silverman and my neighborhood portents of a near future in which gay stereotypes are so mixed up nobody gives a damn any more, or are we just so deep in the subculture we can't see straight any more? Either way, I could really go for some garlic fries.

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