Sexual Politics in Film

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses how media is particularly dependent on sexual politics as a thematic representation and as a guiding force for human emotion and how this is particularly true with regard to dramatic representations in film. It focuses on two movies, which pay particularly close attention to sexual politics, "Swept Away" (the original 1974 and the newer 2002 versions) and "Pulp Fiction". It looks at how "Swept Away" pays particular interest to social class with an emphasis on sadomasochism and how "Pulp Fiction" deals with the inner workings of the sexual politics in a complicated subculture of sex, drugs and crime.

From the Paper:

"The cinematography and setting of Swept Away in both film versions detail the loneliness of man in a world where individuals and whole societies express love and longing through materialism and end courting with violent and absurd expressions of pain and pleasure. The film, is similar in tenor to Nine 1/2 Weeks (1986) another cult classic film dedicated to the idea of sexual politics driving personal relationships and leading to not real love but love that is expressed through dominance and possession as well as objectified bodies. "

Sample of Sources Used:

• Cohen, Eric S. "To Wonder Again." First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life May 2000: 23.
• "Films That Go Thud; Some Actors Can Survive Bomb or Two." The Washington Times 5 Aug. 2003: B05.
• Green, J. Ronald. "Always Already: Affinities between Art and Film." Afterimage 25.5 (1998): 8.
• Hausladen, Gary J., and Paul F. Starrs. "L.A. Noir." Journal of Cultural Geography 23.1 (2005): 43.
• Kipnis, Laura. Bound and Gagged: Pornography and the Politics of Fantasy in America. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999.

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