The Girlfriend Experience

Let's take a break from my personal life. I need to bitch about a movie. I really tried to enjoy The Girlfriend Experience. I think it had a sympathetic director (Stephen Soderbergh) behind the lens, who gave it a human quality that isn't always applied to stories about escorts. Almost nobody was presented from a judgmental position. The characters seemed to be real people, not caricatures.

It was flat, though. The characters were real flat people. It seems like that shouldn't be possible. Sure, there are boring people in real life, but they don't get movies made about them. 95% of the film was spoken in a monotone. I like a quiet scene, but for the love of Frank Capra, display a little passion now and then! Show the audience that you care - about your scene partner, your situation, yourself. Tension and distress were implied through dialogue, but they didn't come through in tone or action. Not even during a lovers' quarrel.

I became interested in the film when I read an interview in Backstage magazine with Sasha Grey, who plays Chelsea, an upscale call girl in New York. Grey is primarily an adult film actress, crossing over into some mainstream (Backstage is geared to professional performers in the non-adult media). She was articulate and analytical about her career, so I expected greater depth than what she gave The Girlfriend Experience.

On an inappropriate note, I wouldn't be opposed to checking out her earlier work. She's likeable. Maybe she's just not cut out for drama.

The dialogue, I learned in that same article, was mostly improvised. Dammit... live improv is a wonderful art form, but when a work is made for permanence, like a film or a play, there's a lot to be said for the scriptwriting process. Especially the editing phase. Soooo many throwaway words and inane phrases.

I think the non-linear storytelling also had a lot to do with the way the movie didn't engage me. It's overused. It's one thing to tell large arcs out of their chronological relationship to each other, à la Pulp Fiction. This was just choppy, mixing all Chelsea's concerns as well as those of her live-in boyfriend like diced vegetables. I didn't know when anything was happening (and I even had trouble distinguishing the boyfriend from one of the clients). The synopsis on imdb.com says it occurs on "five non-consecutive days" in Chelsea's life. It all could have been the same day, or weeks apart, or months. Of course, more of the plot was backward than forward... it was a chronological mess.

There's a dig at critics, through a self-styled "escort connoisseur" who gives Chelsea a bad review. I liked how the scenario was treated (and wished I could have seen something bad happen to the douchebag), but I also feel a little stupid for writing this piece, like I'm saying the same things about the film that he did about Chelsea. And a bit like I've already been told to fuck off for having an opinion. Soderbergh has made a lot more movies (20) than I have (0). He can tell me to fuck off. It doesn't make the movie any better.

The tag line is "See It With Someone You ****." (That's not my editing. You know I'd say fuck.) Um... no, don't do that. It's peripherally sexual in topic, but Chelsea's marketing strategy is more important to the plot than any real sensuality. It's alienating - not in an "I hate it!" way, it just induces apathy. The person I "****" went to work on some AI code halfway through.

Happy National Coming Out Day!

Since 1988, October 11 has been recognized as "an internationally-observed civil awareness day for coming out and discussion about gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) issues." (source: Wikipedia, of course.)

You might already know this, but I'm bisexual. I'm a 2, maybe 2.5, on the Kinsey Scale, slightly more oriented toward the opposite sex than the same. It doesn't matter much: the person I fell in love with and am committed to for the rest of my life is a man. He has always accepted me for who I am (we wouldn't be married if he didn't), and doesn't expect me to find "us" a girlfriend or anything like that.

I'm not looking for myself either, really. I haven't ruled out a significant relationship with a woman at some point in my life (in the manner of historically notable married bi women like Frida Kahlo and Eleanor Roosevelt), but honestly I don't have the time and energy to put into it right now. It's hard enough to carve out time to spend with my husband, as busy as we've been lately!

I don't think of my female friends in romantic/sexual terms. I appreciate your cuteness, but I respect your straightness - it doesn't do anything for me to chase someone whose orientation isn't compatible with mine. There's an element of consent that would be clearly missing from that equation. Ick.

So if I'm not looking for a girlfriend, why am I bothering to come out? Simply put, I do this to honor the fallen. I am extremely lucky in that most people in my life probably won't blink twice at this new information. When I think of people who are outcast, disowned, beaten, murdered, for being who they are and loving who they love, I know that it is my duty to stop hiding.

If you are, in fact, still blinking, and suddenly concerned for my and my husband's emotional welfare or afterlife status, I'd be glad to talk with you, answer your questions, and even listen to why you might disapprove. (Unless you're one of those spammy blog trolls who doesn't know me personally.) Remember: I am the same person you've always known, and this has always been part of me. All that has changed is how much you know.

On the other hand, I'm also here to talk to if you need to sort out your own orientation. It hurts to have to keep yourself a secret, and we're all in this together.

Coming out is not a sudden decision, of course. I've known since I was about 20, and I've told a few people over the years, but I've never considered myself officially "out." I was working on a blog this past January, right after the one in which I said I wanted to be more honest this year. Then Grandma Sophie passed away, and it didn't seem like appropriate timing. I dropped it into a Facebook list meme, and a couple people noticed. I told my improv troupe in rehearsal, while providing the information for a "Day In The Life" musical game, and they sang a really fun song. It felt like a birthday party!

Upcoming: my feelings about gay jokes, queer characters in improv, and that sort of thing. The topic has gotten some press and discussion lately in the KC circles, and it would be remiss of me not to weigh in. For the moment, though, I think this blog is long enough.