MovieChat Forums > Shame (2012) Discussion > It IS about incest.

It IS about incest.


Brandon seeks constant sexual pleasure from other women to forget about something that happened in the past.

His sister is a major character, and when she moves in with him he clearly begins to feel uncomfortable

The movie is called "Shame", people.

A guy who's troubled by something, so much so that his sexual adventures seem like a way for him to try to lock his demons away? His sister, who not only makes him very uncomfortable, but definitely demonstrates rather weird forms of affection towards him?

It all adds up.

Great job on the director's part, cause it's never fully stated, but it's there, right in front of us the whole time.

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Great job on the director's part, cause it's never fully stated, but it's there, right in front of us the whole time.
No, McQueen never stated that, in fact he's said; "It’s not a case of sex or all this kind of stuff, but it’s a case for giving audiences something to f.cking think about."

In every interview I've seen and read, he mostly emphasises the same thing; what the availability of pornography on the web have contributed to, but especially, the time we live in. The film's narrative is not a completed template, and McQueen does definitely not serve a solution on a silver platter.

There will always be differing interpretations of Shame, but mostly based on what you, yourself have as references. And to make you think.

Sissy and Brandon were linked by something more than a sibling relationship, yet seemingly not close enough to discuss it. Yes, something had happened during their childhood, that's quite obvious. But I don't think it's about incest, at least not between the two of them.

The best example is when Brandon walks in on Cissy in the shower, and neither of them are embarrassed. There's no sexual tensions whatsoever, at least I didn't see any. The way they both reacted to each other, while Sissy was naked is crucial, in what the scene says about the characters.

I've saved a link years ago, an article by David Poland. Who has the ability to capture the nuances of the film, and who doesn't believe in the incest theory either. Because if that is the message - which I doubt - it's a way too easy solution of a film, which is much more complex than that.

It's a long, well-written and interesting article, which is an accurate way (in my opinion) explains what most likely is behind Brandon and Sissy's behaviour, far better than I would ever do. Although I've cut some of it, and kept what I think is essential in the case of their behaviour, and especially the question of incest between the two.
I went into Shame at TIFF expecting a movie that hinged on incest between a brother and a sister.

I found a movie that was clearly about a sex addict who is, at the start of the film, managing his addiction rather well without even acknowledging that he has a problem. He isn’t putting his work or his life in jeopardy nor is he seeking particularly extreme behavior on the part of his conquests. But he is not in control. He is compulsive. And he is emotionally disconnected from all of his sexual behavior.

The meaning of sex is a bit different for each addict, but like many addictions, there is an element of power, control, and confidence from the behavior involved.

Following the line of the movie, when the Fassbender character, Brandon, attempts to “clean up,” and gets rid of all of his porn and toys, then attempts to have something real with his office mate who has made clear that she is not interested in just blowing him on a subway platform and saying goodnight… he can’t get it up. The idea of it being something other than a f.ck… not matter how sexy she is or how many tools he may have to control the fallout if it goes bad… no matter how willing she is to leap when he takes her to The Standard… cannot be overcome at that moment. So he calls a prostitute and everything works just fine.

Is he having a crisis of conscience as much as he is having his person issue? Possible. When he pulls her out of the office, she goes. His powerful ability to overcome her resistance to a situation like the one he puts her in haven’t failed. In spite of protests to the contrary on their date the night before, she has made herself open to being used much the same way the blonde woman who picks him up and gets f.cked under a dirty bridge does. But he cannot take advantage. His mind, and by extension, his body, will not allow it.

Lots of room for conversation. But the juxtaposition of the woman from work and the paid prostitute is clear from the behavior of his genitals.

Now, getting to the sister, Sissy, played by Carey Mulligan.She is trying to find him repeatedly in the first minutes of the film, leaving the same message over and over. He doesn’t respond. This could mean a million things, but as we later find out, she has some serious boundary issues and a history of clinging to her older brother.

We will also learn that both seem to be playing out adult responses to childhood trauma. Again, that trauma could be many things. Is there anything yet pointing to incest between the brother and the sister? No. There’s nothing pointing away from it either.

The brother and sister first lay eyes on one another in the film when she has already broken the boundary of getting into his home without letting him know and when he breaks into the bathroom, bat in hand, thinking it’s an unknown intruder, she stands and talks to him for a minute or two while completely nude. The image created by the director and DP is agnostic.

As distracting as seeing Carey Mulligan naked may be for the audience, the major breech in this scene is her breech of his order. For a man like this, nudity and sex are secondary to control… even if having sex is part of his disorder.

Is this a sign of a previous sexual relationship between the two? Not particularly. She clearly has major boundary issues and he is getting over the trauma of thinking he’s about to fight an intruder. It does suggest that they are not particularly uncomfortable with one another’s nudity. I don’t think this stands as evidence of sex between the two either. Some people are arguing the opposite and suggesting this is the proof of their past incest.

I would argue that at this point in the movie, skillful artist who offers subtextual information that he is, McQueen would not have a moment as sexually confrontive as this feels to the audience without any hint of attraction, repulsion, or serious consideration between the two siblings if they had been sexual partners in the past. I don’t understand how someone can argue that inaction by both characters is proof of a major previous event, like incest between brother and sister. There is no clear residual of the moment, there is no indication that either person has been triggered in their issue by the moment. So I don’t get the argument.

The other popular “proof” of incest is her wanting to snuggle in bed with him after having f.cked his boss on the couch with little consideration of her brother.

I don’t understand why his anger at the events taking place in his home are proof of more than what is right in front of us. A. She’s f.cking a guy she’s known for a couple of hours. B. It’s his boss C. She’s doing it where he has no choice but to listen. Oh, yes… and D. He’s a sex addict and his sister is behaving like the women he uses and discards.

Even without “D,” what brother would be okay with this behavior from his sister? Especially when trying to avoid it means cock-blocking the boss when he’s been wing-manning the boss, perhaps a prime strategy for not ever being threatened with losing his job over his odd behavior.

But with D, there is also the other element of her pushing his addiction buttons with her desperate need to be close to someone, even if it’s temporary. He may well be feeling the urge to sleep with her… to take what is his. And that may be driving part of his anger. But while jealousy between siblings about their non-family companions isn’t rare, the idea that a former incestuous relationship is now creating, essentially, romantic jealousy… I just don’t see why we would jump to that… except “because we can” and “McQueen is about subtext.”

Also note, there is no indication in the film that she is, by the standards set forth above, a sex addict. She is all kinds of trouble. But sexual addiction does not seem apparent. She only has sex the one time in the film.

Getting back to her attempt to smooth things over by getting into bed with him… a behavior shown earlier in the movie without any sexual activity or threat of activity resulting… when he decides to get her to leave… whether because he might find himself unable to control sexualizing her or because he is so angry at her behavior earlier in the night… he raises his voice forcefully. I am pretty sure it’s the only time he shouts in the entire film.

Why is this so effective? Because it’s clearly her trigger, which he knows as well as she knows his.


I would argue that this is the best evidence in the film of her history. As soon as he shouts at her, she runs like a little girl trying to get away from a monster. There is no real threat of violence in that moment. Just that bark. I don’t know how you get incest there. But an abusive father? A man who scared the *beep* out of his little daughter each time he yelled at her?

Even her version of New York, New York suggests an inability to handle aggression. She is small and vulnerable. She internalizes a song that’s all bravado for most performers. And when her brother sees this, he weeps. It is her sadness and pain expressed.

And as soon as a man pays positive attention to her, she is a pushover. The boss (David) has no game. But he is scoring fast. Why can he seduce Sissy so effortlessly? His masculine impotence is attractive to her. He is safe. He is not mean.

Her brother, on the other hand, seems to be the only parent on whom it is safe for her to rely. (The film doesn’t tell us much about the folks.) And when he no longer offers safe harbor, that is when she attempts suicide.

Now… one of the central themes of the film is Fassbender/Brandon’s focus on married women. The vagaries around the multiple scenes involving this are where I would suggest a lot of the mystery in the film is… not with his relationship with his sister. No question that she stirs the pot and changes this moment in his history. But his story is mostly his own. He never “closes’ on the married women and when he chooses to try to assert his sexual power on the woman’s boyfriend at the bar, it ends up with him getting beaten in the alley.

One could argue that he is heading for bottom at that moment and with his actions afterwards. Again, an interesting conversation. My take would be that he’s not close to bottom… even after he finds his sister bleeding out at the apartment. He might be ready to seek some real help though.

So in conclusion, for now, I think that both or either sib might have been molested as a child. But the more central theme seems to be about control and an abusive male parent. She hides from that power. He embodies that power and then some. He is in extreme control. She has no self-control. I see them as opposite reactions to a similar abuse.

Obviously, there can be many variations on this notion. It doesn’t have to be dad, but dad makes the most sense. Other things could separate the manifestations of their emotional illnesses, but I don’t think one can argue about them being on different paths in response to their past as we meet these two in the film.

I have taken a strong position on this not being brother/sister incest because I just don’t see any indicator of that. I have heard the arguments. If you strongly believe that there is an argument that incest occurred in this film, I would love to hear the argument. But the fact that he is a sex addict and that she has no boundaries… that she doesn’t shrink from him when naked… that she wants to cuddle with him when she is scared or lonely… and that he is upset about her screwing the boss on his living room couch… I don’t see those adding up to much of anything except detritus of the rest of the story.

Why don’t they “get it?” Maybe because as a society, a good looking man who randomly f.cks gorgeous women and never wants to see them again is not a sick man, but something to which men aspire. (And no doubt, the blonde in the sports car at the beginning of the film will proudly tell her girlfriends the tale of the beautiful man who took her under the bridge.)

Flip side, scared, needy, boundary-challenged women (and men, for that matter) are hardly a rarity and no one is going to want to identify with Sissy. So something extraordinary must have happened to them.

I certainly do not have all the answers about Shame. And it is a work of art. I shouldn’t ever feel I have all the answers.

But on the specific issue of incest in the film, I have yet to read a serious argument about why it is a part of this story. Every argument i run into, all well-intended, seems to be based in a kind of disbelief about the lives of sex addicts and other broken people.

But perfectly happy to be proven wrong…

http://moviecitynews.com/2011/09/shame-incest/

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Thank you so much for sharing this article. It's a wonderful and incredible intelligent read-up on the movie (I just watched it for the first time). I'm going to look up more about what this journalist wrote, it's incredible engaging to read his words.

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You are most welcomed! I'm really glad to hear that you liked it, it really is an incredible intelligent read-up on the film, he's one insightful journalist. And just like you, I became very engaged in what he writes.

If you find something interesting, just drop me a line!📫

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Well! That website is hard to make your way through. I cannot seem to find a way in which I can find a specific poster's articles :|

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It's definitely not about incest and I agree with what is pointed out above. Mostly, as I see a couple major issues she causes to "Disrupt" his life, so to say...

With addiction, life is very routine. Idc if it's Smack or Sex, her intrusion on his life is the first boundary broken. Hence his ignoring of her calls, that's not "Past Trauma" as the OP noted, it's actually what every addict does. I've ignored family members for years because of my past addiction. Now, all addictions aren't the same but they share many emotional responses. While she may trigger a certain confusion, it's definitely not necessarily incest but for seeing more to Women than he's used to. Her love makes him uncomfortable. The first breakfast scene is a good example. He's more upset that his life of routine has been re-routed. Here's what my life was like, Drugs, Work, Drugs during Work, Drugs, Sleep and start again the next day... Here, just insert Sex for Drugs. It still plays. Her behavior is only viewed uncomfortably because we are shown it through HIS POV. So much above makes this all clear. Great post.

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Thank you, and sorry for the late response, but I don't think that I've got an email notification at the time. Anyway, you're right, it's not about incest between the two. Which you also made very clear when talking about your own situation. That's a good comparison, but also courageous of you to to say, even if one is anonymous on a message board.

Addictions come in various forms, and it's no news that the neuroscientists have learned that drugs or gambling for instance, alter many of the same brain circuits in similar ways. Same with sex. And the best way to hold it in check is the routine, as you rightly pointed out. And Sissy is intruding on Brandon's territory, disrupting his routines.

But someone said in the "What was Brandon ashamed of?" thread, that there's apparently one single line in the first draft, that alludes to them both being abused by their father, but they took it out for the final film. Which actually works better with the ambiguity, as they probably didn't want an unintentional allusion into the film. After all, McQueen states in every interview, that this is a film that focuses on sex addiction, which not necessarily depends on underlying causes.

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A lot is left ambiguous, for many reasons—perhaps because it allows the film to find a deeper meaning, with more people, than if all its energy were directed toward a single moral allegory.

I think it’s safe to assume the movie is not about incest (as beja-4 did a good job of explaining), but, if that’s what resonates with you after seeing it, so be it. I can’t imagine McQueen judging anyone’s take on his movie as “right” or “wrong” so long as the interpretation is honest and reasonable.

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Great essay on this movie. Somehow though for me I did not like
this movie at all. And despite all that puzzle solving you did, and
did well, I just did not care about either character or the plot. I
don't really understand why anyone would either. I just found this
movie boring or irrelevant to me, not interesting. I would usually
be interested in psycho-drama and internal conflict and such, so I
don't know what it was, but maybe they just tried too hard.

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wow thanks for posting this article

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Not incest. SHAME because his sister's presence makes him realize that he is living a perverse life of sorts perhaps.

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Great write up Beja-4. I really enjoyed reading your take on this controversial area of the film. I have read both sides and find your argument very compelling. This is a reason why this film is so clever and as McQueen has says himself, destined to make people think which is something so absent in many films these days.

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Thank you, some replies simply makes your day! :)

He's clever, I guess that's why I'm impressed by McQueen, and how the narrative is designed. He doesn't take a stance in this film, he doesn't write something on the viewer's nose, it's up to us to form an opinion. And not about obvious things within the context, but morally correct or not. That goes especially for the bond between Sissy and Brandon. But he's not aiming for that, because the film is so much more complex.

🐬 As a side note, Susanne Bier is one of my favourite directors, and she works much in the same way. She tells a story, more or less straight off, and doesn't shy away from something, whether it's uncomfortable or not. But she never lays any morality into the questions she indirectly asks. And she consequently never answers these questions either, because it's up to us (and what we ourselves have experienced – or not) to form an opinion.

After the Wedding is such a film, and if you haven't seen it, I warmly recommend it :) 🐬

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After the Wedding I liked ... Shame, I did not.

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"We just come from a bad place" =/= incest

Try again.

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My first thoughts on viewing the film was that incest was not the main theme anyway...but a small part of a larger narrative.

Perhaps at some point they were forced, as children, to be together or to act out together but that was never the core of the abuse. The abuse could have been a combination of both physical and mental abuse (beatings, manipulation, molestation...maybe even child porn or prostitution)..and their experience together was only a small part of a legacy of abuse. But a part that further scarred them both.

Brandon may have his addiction somewhat under control because he's working and successful and we know many sex addicts can screw up any kind of success up because they have no boundaries and tend to sabotage themselves. He has managed to compartmentalize everything pretty well. Until he's sister shows up.

But anyone that envies him should notice how miserable he is. Sex can only work for him when it's unrelated to any feelings and he lives every day without the benefit of enjoying any real moments in his life. He's incapable of any real intimacy. When feelings are brought into the equation sexually he's impotent.

He feels any kind of feelings are dangerous for him. He's afraid of losing control. His sister makes him feel and that frightens him.

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I think you make a good point and it is probably why I dislike
this movie. A dislike a movie that is pointlessly or capriciously
like a Rorschach test. They put enough images and fuzziness
in a movie and everyone sees exactly what they want to see
and think it is brilliant.

That is what I see with this movie. A lot of innuendo and cues
for people to latch on to, but no real point, statement or plot.
No character growth, just a kind of soft porn fake study.

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It is about incest, there's one line that sums up the siblings incestual relationship - Sissy's final voicemail in the beginning of the film. When she tells him she has cancer, she says she "has cancer of the vulv-" and then Brandon cuts her voice off.

She was going to say vulva, if any of you didn't happen to catch that.

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A tough topic to handle

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