Is this really porn?

This isn't the first time I've run across this argument. It has never held water. Only explicit actual sex can "establish [that] these are real people doing what real people do"--eh? Thus, every movie ever made withOUT that depiction has failed to establish the characters as "real?" There are literally thousands of films that have been made without resorting to displaying actual sex that have given us characters far more real than the cardboard cutouts we find in this movie. We have the further problem that if real sex is required to establish character, than why are we given at least 3 scenes of fake fellatio in this picture?

Hand jobs?--must be real in order for the characters to be authentic.
Masturbation?--must be real in order to fulfill the director's "artistic" vision.
Fellatio?--must be fake in order to make the characters more--um--real?

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, if someone wants to make a film that includes actual sex--more power to them (as long as no minors are involved and no coercion used). My only objection is to the insistence of some of those who make or watch these things that these explicit scenes are somehow "necessary to the artistic integrity of the film." This amounts to so much rationalization and self-deception.

Hey, you enjoy the movie?--fine. But you don't need to try and justify it by suggesting that the decisions to include ejaculating penises amounted to a question of artistic integrity on a par with, oh say, the decisions that went into the choice of shots for Citizen Kane or Vertigo (two films that developed character FAR more than is accomplished in "Ken Park"--and not one ejaculating penis in either!).

Real sex is used to appeal to our prurient interests--and that's a legitimate, bona fide appeal to many, many individuals (it certainly has its pull on my interest). Why is it that so many who like this film cannot admit to this? They must justify their interest by disguising the prurient nature of the film by covering it with all manner of verbal garlands denoting "art" and "beauty" and "honesty" and "integrity" to obscure their actual interest.

Strangely, some will insist that my views are puritanical, but let me suggest that the opposite is true. I found some of the scenes in the film VERY arousing, but I do not have to justify this interest by insisting it was "necessary." I hated the film not because of the sex scenes, per se, but because of the obvious dishonesty of the film, its clumsy attempts to hide the graphic depictions behind a facade of "art," its confused narrative, and its sometimes laughably ridiculous POV choices.

But, to each his own rationalization.



Fighting for Truth, Justice, and making it the American way.