Behind those blue eyes.
Lately I've been noticing a trend. What's the deal with the romanticized prostitute-heroine?
I saw Memoirs of a Geisha at the theater a few weeks ago. It was a good movie. I rooted for the protagonist, and I even cried at one point. Then yesterday while I was mopping the kitchen floor, I dropped the Moulin Rouge soundtrack into my CD player. Even though I only watched the movie once, I remember enjoying the experience. As I hummed along to the music, I began to think about the stories I have been hearing.
Memoirs of a Geisha and Moulin Rouge follow the lives of upscale prostitutes. Both films focus on their heroine's career and present it as something ultimately beautiful and powerful (although certainly with the highs and lows of any well developed plot). If I'm remembering correctly, neither woman regrets her work, nor do the plots deal with many psychological ramifications from her profession.
So tell me, what is with the fascination, no, the heroic personification of the female sex worker lately? These immensely popular stories show the lives of prostitutes through rose colored glasses. We watch, and we hope for them to find love with the highest bidder. Somewhere in the back of our minds we know that their plot in life is anything but desirable, but we still cheer to see them bought by the "right" man.
Disclaimer here: I have a lot of thoughts on the sex trade. While we each make choices for our own life, I know that many women (and children) aren't given the option to make a decision. I do not think prostitutes are bad people, nor do I think that their lives are incapable of producing stories to be told (for heaven's sake, read the book of Hosea). I just don't think that field of work is one to be envied or emulated. And if we are currently working so hard to rescue individuals from that work, why would we turn around and make movies that glamorize the lifestyle?
Well, it could be something to do with expressing female autonomy. Both story lines take place a century or more ago. These women had an extra element of control and flexibility that their trade afforded them. In a culture where women had no voice, they walked alongside the powerful. But in the very same way, they are some of the most limited of all women. The ability to choose one's own sexual partner- to fall in love- is a dearly held personal freedom in our culture, and they are refused that choice. The slang for women who do not is evidence enough of a prostitute's disgrace in our society.
After chewing on feminism these last few years, I understand the danger of marginalizing women into purely sexual beings. It is that attitude among others which has kept women from being educated, and it continues to infect our media with images of plastic faces and bodies. Not only is it dangerous to be projected onto us, it is also a very limited lens for we women to see ourselves through. So why do we allow these heroes to be created for us?
I don't mean to sound overly critical. I did enjoy the films, and it would be hypocritical to pretend that I am somehow immune to appreciating the narrative of "love conquers all" underneath. It just seems that these stories have been preoccupied with a rather tragic element of female history, and we have tried to mask it with a pretty face. That makes me sad.
I feel like my thoughts are still underdeveloped. Why is this such a theme lately? Do we ever see a reverse of these gender roles in a love story? If not, why not? Are there more hopeful themes in all this that I'm missing?
Help me out here. What do you think?
I saw Memoirs of a Geisha at the theater a few weeks ago. It was a good movie. I rooted for the protagonist, and I even cried at one point. Then yesterday while I was mopping the kitchen floor, I dropped the Moulin Rouge soundtrack into my CD player. Even though I only watched the movie once, I remember enjoying the experience. As I hummed along to the music, I began to think about the stories I have been hearing.
Memoirs of a Geisha and Moulin Rouge follow the lives of upscale prostitutes. Both films focus on their heroine's career and present it as something ultimately beautiful and powerful (although certainly with the highs and lows of any well developed plot). If I'm remembering correctly, neither woman regrets her work, nor do the plots deal with many psychological ramifications from her profession.
So tell me, what is with the fascination, no, the heroic personification of the female sex worker lately? These immensely popular stories show the lives of prostitutes through rose colored glasses. We watch, and we hope for them to find love with the highest bidder. Somewhere in the back of our minds we know that their plot in life is anything but desirable, but we still cheer to see them bought by the "right" man.
Disclaimer here: I have a lot of thoughts on the sex trade. While we each make choices for our own life, I know that many women (and children) aren't given the option to make a decision. I do not think prostitutes are bad people, nor do I think that their lives are incapable of producing stories to be told (for heaven's sake, read the book of Hosea). I just don't think that field of work is one to be envied or emulated. And if we are currently working so hard to rescue individuals from that work, why would we turn around and make movies that glamorize the lifestyle?
Well, it could be something to do with expressing female autonomy. Both story lines take place a century or more ago. These women had an extra element of control and flexibility that their trade afforded them. In a culture where women had no voice, they walked alongside the powerful. But in the very same way, they are some of the most limited of all women. The ability to choose one's own sexual partner- to fall in love- is a dearly held personal freedom in our culture, and they are refused that choice. The slang for women who do not is evidence enough of a prostitute's disgrace in our society.
After chewing on feminism these last few years, I understand the danger of marginalizing women into purely sexual beings. It is that attitude among others which has kept women from being educated, and it continues to infect our media with images of plastic faces and bodies. Not only is it dangerous to be projected onto us, it is also a very limited lens for we women to see ourselves through. So why do we allow these heroes to be created for us?
I don't mean to sound overly critical. I did enjoy the films, and it would be hypocritical to pretend that I am somehow immune to appreciating the narrative of "love conquers all" underneath. It just seems that these stories have been preoccupied with a rather tragic element of female history, and we have tried to mask it with a pretty face. That makes me sad.
I feel like my thoughts are still underdeveloped. Why is this such a theme lately? Do we ever see a reverse of these gender roles in a love story? If not, why not? Are there more hopeful themes in all this that I'm missing?
Help me out here. What do you think?
posted by Erin 10:32 PM
7 Comments:
Very interesting thoughts, JR. The temptation of power is seductive in its many forms. I really like your comparison of these films to war films. Hmm...
When in high school I often envied the "popular" girls who I perceived as beautiful and more desirable than I. In their short skirts, with tans, and perfectly applied make-up they seemed like supermodels. With maturity, I discovered that many of them were unhappy and found most of their self-worth in their appearance and exploited that to gain relationships with men. My attitude changed from envy to sadness. I realized the times in my own life that I had fallen into the temptation to use my sexuality to draw people in or push them away. I, too, agree that though these stories Moulin Rouge & Memoirs of a Geisha are lovely and enticing, there is a tragedy to both of them as well. The tragedy of missing the opportunity to be loved for whom one is on the inside and to give that love in return.
i've got to say that i'm pretty skeptical that women's sexual power somehow balances the scales. especially in the case of prostitutes (excluding male prostitutes for the sake of this argument), i would say that their sexual 'power' is anything but -- at best they might exchange it for a more comfortable lifestyle, but i'm willing to guess that aiming for survival is an ambitious enough goal.
in short, i think that it's an illusion that these are strong women willfully using their sexual power to attian their personal goals, manipulating the system to get their way. the reality is, i think, that they are allowed to operate in this gap in the system which those who support prostitution have agreed to create and sustain. that is, prostitutes are always more in need of clients than clients of prostitutes. thus, the role of the prostitute is by necessity one of subservience and not one of power. an individual prostitute may have power over a single client or a number of clients, but in her trade, she is always subservient to her clients as a collective, to the concept of the client.
the exchange of sex for something else -- no matter the gender -- is a dangerous one because there's an immediate disparity of power made all the worse by the fact that there's a lot at risk for the party on the giving end. as sophisticated, modern thinkers, we might want to downplay sex as a gross physical interaction, but there's a lot going on there psychologically. it's tied very strongly to our primal natures, the root of our being that ultimately underlies a lot of things we might be consciously aware of. it's a murky area of our psyches, one of the most difficult to penetrate with the intellect.
i don't want to sound like a prude; all i'm saying is that it's not the first thing you want to be bringing to the bargining table. because, as last sunday's epistle reading reminds us, all other sins one commits are outside of oneself, but in this, one sins against oneself. that is to say, it'll change you. and what's the price tag on that?
What an interesting discussion! A woman having to exploit her sexuality in order to survive is anything but glamorous in my opinion. Also, I don't think that a woman's sexuality should be ever be her "power" in the world. Society becomes corrupt when women use their sexuality as power over men and men use their physical strength as power against women.
Oh, such great comments! Thank you all for your thoughtful responses.
Stacy- You're so right. Not only do these stories glamorize a tragic lifestyle, they do it to the detriment of their character’s interior worth. Even in the middle of a romance, their love hinges on (underlying, but present) physical nature of what it can offer.
David- Such great points! Thanks for turning the focus to our assumptions about power and sex. I really agree with you, and I think you helped put some words around the frustration I was feeling.
I think part of the reason I was feeling unsettled by these narratives is that they neglect to show how the sex trade really does leave these women powerless. It is an act of desperation, not one of self determination.
Our assumptions about the appeal of beauty and power don’t exactly fit the prostitute love story. While power is enticing to all humans, it is a lie to pretend that prostitution can actually offer that platform of influence. Your comments about sex and the psyche frame that well.
Bethany- Yes, and that brokenness is somehow turned into fairy-tales through these films. It just seems like there are more hopeful stories to be told.
David's comments were great! I pretty much want to echo what he already said so well.
I don't buy the notion of women wielding "incredible power" over men with their sexuality. If it were so, we would be living in a very different place. That strikes me as a male fantasy, anyway. In this patriarchal world, female sexuality is still constantly reviled with epithets like "slut" and "ho" - and that's in this liberal society where women aren't stoned for committing adultery. I didn't see either of the movies you mentioned, although I read the book Memoirs of a Geisha. Her life was tragic in the book. She was a child, and she was sold into slavery, and no matter how beautiful or glamorous the trappings, that's what it was. There was another movie I saw some years ago, "Dangerous Beauty." The discussion reminded me of it - in that story we see a woman who was able to lead a much freer life as a "courtesan" than she would have had she become a normal married lady of the times. And the movie dramatized her use of her sexual power to even change the course of a war in one case. To have that power, she had to sacrifice her relationship with the man she loved, so there was definitely the message that she couldn't have it both ways. Still, I didn't find that movie to be any kind of mirror of the reality I live in. I'm sure there are exceptions, but prostitution is a harsh way to make a living, trading not just your body but your boundaries for a little bit of money. And I think the vast majority of sex workers in the world didn't choose prostitution out of a number of employment options.
Funny how no prostitution movies show what happens to the "beauty" when she gets old and saggy. Instead we leave the prostitutes at the top of their "careers" or they die a glorified death. I wonder if one of these women ever got a bank account and actually lived a comfortable life as an older woman . . . doubtful.
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