What is it that’s so much fun about strangers getting intimate on film?
Several months ago, I covered Vice’s footage of strangers off the street, smooching on camera. The awkwardness and apparent authenticity made it captivating in that curl-your-toes-and-feel-mortified-for-them kinda way. So when this Masters of Sex thing popped up on my feed, I couldn’t help but watch.
For research. Obviously.
It’s interesting because I’m human, but I’m also a doubtful human. So whenever something purports to be real, I start looking for signs of people lying to me. This one feels like it was half and half. In that respect, it totally reminded me of the Warhol film with Edie Sedgwick – the New York Factory “It Girl” of the 60’s who was like Natalie Portman meets Marilyn Monroe. In that particular quasi-reality black and white piece, it was also half-and-half. Half scripted in that the set was arranged and they were probed with questions, but half reality in that there was no true narrative. Sedgwick and her pretty foreigner pal just got down to their skivvies, while laying on a bed. Most of the time, they’re drinking and smoking and playing with her giant chandili-earings. Then they make out briefly. But right when things seem to be heating up a little on the drama front, the film ends.
I haven’t seen the Masters show, but as these little amorous exchanges between maybe-strangers go, I’d honestly have to say the Warholian approach is so much more interesting (even though it came after the real masters did their thing in the 50’s) with its tension building. But that may be because in his work, there’s more than just the suggestion that sex on film might be imminent. There’s also the scandalousness of the era. And that prolonged rising anxiety the viewer feels – especially with Andy & Co. off set, coaxing Sedgwick’s friend Chuck to ask her inappropriate questions while she’s just trying to hang out. There arises this weird tension triangle where she’s trying to be sexy with her bedmate on one side, while trying to dodge the caustic inquiry being issued from in front of her. And through her drug-cocktail cloud of perception, she’s also wondering why her friend would be such a dick to her in the first place by asking such bullshiz, making fun of her style, and then insinuating that she needed to go get an abortion imminently… right before the footage cuts off.
Maybe it’s more fun because it’s dramatic – and because her real socialite life was publicized. As a Warholian darling, she was indeed kinda like an underground Kardashian.
Or maybe it resonates by serving as a neat metaphor for the ego internally ripping us a new one (albeit hidden from view of others – just like Andy and the crew were in the film) as we simply try to enjoy connecting with strangers.
In our underpants.
