For those who haven’t heard, Cannes film festival favorite Blue is the Warmest Color has a graphic lesbian sex scene.
A sex scene that has been debated, cursed and praised for its real and explicit portrayal of two women being intimate. Apparently, the sex scene is ten minutes long, which is an issue for a lot of people. But what is the issue? The nudity? The lesbianism?
I am excited about the queer visibility that this movie promotes although it has been argued that the scene may cheapen that visibility. Either way, there is so much graphic sex in every movie and TV show that it’s almost laughable that critics are drawing the line.
When I was a little girl my parents would not let me watch the second half of Titanic because of the nude scene. While they were out of the house, I stuck the tape in the DVR and watched it myself. I remember how controversial this scene was at the time. Kate Winslet naked was this huge deal and now it seems tame in comparison to what we see every day.
I am going to see Blue is the Warmest Color because it seems like the kind of love story I have waited to see portrayed on screen. A lesbian one for starters, but also touching, intimate, and realistic. After reading the extensive press, the impression I take away is yes sex is a thing people do and teenagers, do it too.
Maybe living the densensitized media flurry that is 2013 means that we need to start caring about how a piece of art is crafted rather than the controvery. Because what is controversial anymore?
Miley Cyrus is grinding on foam fingers and the Vampire Diaries is a hodpodge of adults pretending to be teenagers boning.
I want to see a well-crafted coming of age story with interesting character development. Whether Blue is the Warmest Color is that movie, is yet to be determined. But my opinion will be based on how the movie made me feel, because isn’t that what art is supposed to do? Make us feel something?
Check out the trailer:
Thanks to NYmag.com
Image via NYmag.com
