I fancy myself an intellectual, the equally passionate and jaded American youth born of a hodgepodge of F. Scott and Zelda, Stephen King and Thomas Jefferson. I am supposedly above the WASP prudery of my elders and my peers who, I can’t help but assume, take little interest in anything but investment banking. Nothing shocks me. I look at sex and violence with a critical eye, and if I can’t find a deeper meaning, I generally keep it to myself.
We don’t watch much television in our house. We share a pair of rabbit ears with the boys next door, a pair over which we have bitterly fought on more than one occasion (I, for instance, once bit a friend in my hunger for Dr. McDreamy—not that I would ever watch anything as superficial as Grey’s Anatomy). However, we do watch a lot of films (not movies), and our assessment of Beauty and the Beast is as highbrow as an essay on Thoreau might be.
One film in particular is forever etched on my mind. My roommate Sarah had promised us an array of what she termed “French porn” that she had to watch for an independent study. These films, to be clear, were not actually intended to be pornography, but we sat down to watch with the expectation of more than a little titillation nonetheless.
What I saw shocked me. I hadn’t thought it possible, but this film, Catherine Breillat’s French-language Anatomy of Hell, while hailed critically for its biting challenge of gender norms, shocked me. Brutal misogyny, graphic nudity, frightfully inappropriate uses of lipstick—all of these combined to utterly undo my belief that I could appreciate what the less-cultivated never could. I actually had to hide my face once when the male lead used the end of a garden tool to penetrate the female lead.
I don’t mean to imply that this was a worthless film, or even that it overstepped some invisible line of decency. But each time I recount the most memorable moments—and I’ve left out one or two juicy ones—I am reminded that what really shocked me was the raw power of the thing, and its ability to both alienate and entice me. Though it took so much to produce this visceral reaction, watching Anatomy of Hell made me understand how others from less liberal upbringings must feel when confronted with much milder material.
I have always disdained the sexual mores of moderate America, censorship and the unwillingness to talk about something as natural as sex. This film didn’t change my belief that our society should be more open about sex. On the contrary, I think that talking about sex might help reduce tragedies like sexism and homophobia. What Anatomy of Hell did do was make me empathize with those whose reactions to overt sexuality are so confused and dismayed they can do nothing but protest.
Last month, several young women from a Westchester, NY high school were suspended for using the word “vagina” in a reading of The Vagina Monologues. The girls pointed out that this is a scientifically acceptable term for a part of the female body, and the play itself is meant to emphasize this. They are correct, of course, but where I once would have simply dismissed the principal who suspended these girls as vindictive, stories of outcry against sex now consistently bring to my mind my own dismay at Anatomy of Hell’s stunning scenes. He is simply trying to keep his world of sexual values intact. I still think he’s wrong, but I understand the impulse.
