Friends With Benefits
Aug. 13th, 2011 06:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rsadelleI loved Friends With Benefits. It's a movie about people who have sex and then fall in love, which is totally a story I love. It's also by the guy who made Easy A, and like Easy A, I laughed all the way through it, except for the parts where I cried.
There are two things that make it very, very interesting as a mainstream movie:
First, the sex. There's a lot of it, and for the characters, part of what just sex means is that they don't have to engage in their usual patterns. Specifically, they can give directions to get what they want - and that goes for both of them. Yes, that's right, a woman in a mainstream movie gets to direct her own sex life for her own pleasure without ever being slut shamed for it. How often do you see that?
Secondly, one of the themes of the movie is that love should be a partnership, that happily ever after isn't being swept off your feet - although that can be fun - but walking through life together. In case you haven't figured it out from reading my LJ, that is exactly my belief, and you don't see it enough in the standard romance narrative.
There are two things that make it very, very interesting as a mainstream movie:
First, the sex. There's a lot of it, and for the characters, part of what just sex means is that they don't have to engage in their usual patterns. Specifically, they can give directions to get what they want - and that goes for both of them. Yes, that's right, a woman in a mainstream movie gets to direct her own sex life for her own pleasure without ever being slut shamed for it. How often do you see that?
Secondly, one of the themes of the movie is that love should be a partnership, that happily ever after isn't being swept off your feet - although that can be fun - but walking through life together. In case you haven't figured it out from reading my LJ, that is exactly my belief, and you don't see it enough in the standard romance narrative.