Friday, May 11, 2007

You And Me And Everyone On The Radar

Miranda July has given a predictably provocative interview to Radar. Key quote:

If the sexuality of a 6-year-old could be something we can acknowledge exists, that would be a really great achievement—in a way, the best achievement of the movie. That space is so fraught—child sexuality. If it can be okay, and even funny or warm ... After I wrote that, I remember thinking, This needs a symbol like Coke has a symbol. It needs this thing so that people can consume it. I remember telling a friend that this is like the Nike swoosh, but it's back and forth, pooping back and forth forever. And she's like: I will be really impressed if that happens.

'In a way' the best acheivement of the film? Blimey. If a film made 'us' acknowledge the sexuality of a 6-year old in any real way and the film had other comparable acheivements... that would be one blindingly great film. 'We' are just not about to see 6-year olds as sexual.

Truth told, I'm pretty lukewarm on
Me and You and... I'd go for her boyfriend Mike Mill's film Thumbsucker instead, without spending a heartbeat on deliberation. Go on - say it's a gender thing.

[EDIT: I wanted to include ))<>(( as a label for this post, but <> are not allowed]

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think there is a problem with some people confusing the issue of what 'sexuality' is. I don't know whether by sexuality she's referring to the perception of the child or the child' s perceptions, but either way, its questionable that whatever she identifies as sexuality is really sexuality at all.

According to some people, all sensuality is sexuality, all intimacy is sexuality, all fantasy is sexuality, all love is sexuality, etc., until you can no longer distinguish how these things can also not be sexuality.

A problem is an adult may see a child different than the child sees herself.

And I think a lot of this has to do with really over-eager attempts to mount an argument in favor of sexuality against repression. But sexuality is not sexuality unless there is repression, self-repression of desire, sexuality is the tension and the fetishism of the tension.

If sexuality is ANYTHING ELSE, of course we can see a 6 year old's sexuality. But if sexuality is that in particular, we'll just have to have different opinions from Miranda July. One of the particular facts about sexuality, is that individuals have different fetishes, so we'll be more likely to see the -sexualization- of the 6-year old, than the 6-year old's sexuality. The attempt to universalize sexual desire should seem odd to anyone.

For the same reason its presumptuous to assert sexuality on a 6-year old who doesn't even recognize anything as sexuality.

Brendon said...

Brian, you made so much sense there. I hope people read that.

Le Ted said...

I could debate this, but I'd much rather just say "Back. And forth. Forever."