Upon reviewing the controversial, gross-out flick Wetlands and the pearl-clutching Fifty Shades of Grey, I was thinking about the movies I've seen that others might find appalling. I remembered a conversation I had in college with an acquaintance where I talked about how much I enjoyed the 2006 film (based on the exquisite novel by Patrick Suskind) Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. This acquaintance did not feel the same way I did about Perfume, describing it as "A disgusting movie with disgusting ideas." Not disturbing. Not bad. Disgusting.
This conversation has stayed with me ever since--whenever I watch a violent or gross movie (and believe me, I am not remotely a connoisseur of disturbing movies) I usually chuckle to myself: I'm watching a "disgusting movie with disgusting ideas."
Although I've never tackled some of the films out there that have reached cult status for their outrageousness (such as Martyrs or--God forbid--A Serbian Film), I've seen a fair number of movies which have been banned, boycotted, resulted in fainting, or are otherwise controversial and disturbing to many. Below, I outline a few of them and take a look at whether or not they actually add something to culture and/or art.
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Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Let's start with the titular "disgusting" movie. Perfume is, well, the story of a murderer. But not just any murderer. Ben Whishaw plays Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a young man in 1800's France with an almost supernatural sense of smell...and no conscience at all. He becomes a perfumer's apprentice, but creating scents from roses eventually bores him and he seeks to create the most magnificent, luscious, heavenly scent of all...by murdering delicious smelling young women and distilling their essence.
I think what is most potentially upsetting for viewers is not than Jean-Baptiste is an amoral, calculating killer, but the peculiar end of the film. It's pretty bonkers. Jean-Baptiste has been arrested and is about to hang for his crimes. As he is led to the gallows, Richis (played by Alan Rickman), the father of a noblewoman Jean-Baptiste murdered, comes up to confront him before he hangs. Jean-Baptiste whips out a handkerchief soaked in the perfume he created by killing thirteen lovely young women and waves it around. When Richis catches the scent, he is so bewitched by it that he bows down and kisses Jean-Baptiste's feet. But that's not the end of that--when the crowd catches the scent on the wind, they immediately begin disrobing and engage is a gigantic public orgy. I can see how my acquaintance saw this as "disgusting" (in fairness, Jean-Baptiste kills himself at the end of the movie by dousing himself in the perfume, leading a mob to literally tear him to shreds and eat him. So there's that).
Perfume is a movie (and book) that is equal parts bizarre and beautiful. The descriptions in the novel are gorgeous and the images in the film are equally dazzling. I considered Perfume, both movie and book, to be art (and I wasn't alone: Kurt Cobain wrote a song, "Scentless Apprentice", inspired by the book). But one person's art is another person's trash.
Disgusting level (1-5 scale): 3
Grade: A
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Salo, or The 120 Days of Sodom
Woo, doggies! Talk about a disgusting film! Salo, or The 120 Days of Sodom, directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini and based on the novel by--yes--the Marquis de Sade, is widely considered to be one of the most disturbing films ever made.
The story centers on a group of noblemen in Nazi-controlled Italy (in de Sade's novel, they were 18th century French noblemen) who round up a group of 18 teenagers--9 girls and 9 boys--selected for their beauty, and keep them captive in a secluded villa. They proceed to rape, torture, and humiliate said teenagers for months before killing most of them off (and those are the lucky ones) in the end. The film ends with two of the young guards dancing with each other while the torture and mass murdering goes on in the courtyard outside. Talk about the banality of evil.
Why was movie with such a horrible premise created? Pasolini was a well-respected director whose earlier films (he was murdered shortly after Salo was released) centered on religious themes and classic literature. There have been many interpretations of Salo, but at its heart I believe Pasolini's intention was to show how unbridled power can lead to unspeakable abuse. There is a scene in the film where everyone--the victims AND the torturers--dine on a meal of shit. Pasolini has said in interviews that this is symbolic of consumer culture--that we'll feast on whatever "shit" they tell us to. I also think it's worth noting that while the victims are disgusted by being forced to consume excrement, the noblemen love it and consider it a delicacy. If the shit stands for evil and debauchery, then this makes sense--an act of evil that would disgust a good, innocent person will feel wonderful to an evil person.
Salo is widely written about, if you want to learn more. Although it is definitely a disgusting film, the ideas behind it are important ones we should be able to discuss.
Disgusting level: 5
Grade: A-
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The Last Temptation of Christ
When The Last Temptation of Christ was released in 1988, it was the subject of many boycotts by Christian groups around the world. The Saint Michael theatre in Paris was attacked during a screening of the film by a French fundamentalist group who threw Molotov cocktails into the packed theatre (apparently, they forgot the sixth commandment...)
While violence is always an overreaction to controversial art, it's understandable why so many religious groups were upset. Last Temptation portrays Christ (played by Willem Dafoe) as all too human: tempted by lust, the promise of a "normal" life married to Mary Magdalene, and finally tempted to refuse to fulfill his destiny by dying on the cross. Last Temptation is not really meant to be theologically sound; it is based on the novel by Nikos Kazantakis. But religious groups don't take well to artsy-fartsy types messing with their Jesus. Plenty of other works of cinema, literature and art that use Christ imagery (artist Andres Serrano's Piss Christ) or tell alternative versions of the Gospel (Christopher Moore's hilarious novel Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal) have riled up religious groups left and right.
Personally, I don't find The Last Temptation of Christ disgusting or upsetting at all. I find it inspiring, actually, to see the Jesus portrayed as a normal man, not as a superhuman. Religion is a huge part of many people's lives and of our culture. I would wager that many people actually crave depictions of religious figures that they can relate to, that challenge them, and that make them think.
Disgusting level: 1
Grade: A
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Swept Away...by an Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August
Well, we've pissed off the Christians...now it's time to piss off the feminists! Directed by Lina Wertmuller, this 1974 film (NOT the wretched remake starring Madonna) concerns a wealthy, elitist woman stranded on an island with a lower class, communist sailor. Having treated treated Gennarino like shit, Raffaella is now at his mercy to survive. Gennarino believes that women were born to serve men and forces Raffaella to wash his clothes and serve him if she wants to eat. He also slaps her around, calls her a bitch, and attempts to rape her (but decides to wait until she freely consents to sex).
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Well, what do you think the prideful Rafaella thinks of all this? She loves it, of course! Well, she grows to love it. Not too long after the master/slave reversal, Rafaella and Gennarino fall in love and have insane amounts of sex on their island paradise....until the rescue team shows up.
As a feminist, of course I am horrified by the idea that women *naturally want* to serve and submit to men and that men and women find sexual and romantic harmony when these gender roles are fulfilled. But I don't find this movie disgusting. Not in the least. Mainly because I don't believe that the male superiority/female inferiority message is what Wertmuller truly believed, even if she used it as a lens through which to portray class conflict (the true heart of the film). The master/slave dynamic is, to my memory (it's been a while since I've seen it), firmly tongue-in-cheek, with a winking nod to kinky sexuality. Although a Men's Rights Activist could have made such a film in sincerity, in the hands of a female director (who I believe considered herself a feminist) it becomes something very different and almost satirical.
Disgusting level: 1
Grade: B-
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Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist
Very few people probably know about this documentary, directed by now well-known documentarian Kirby Dick (This Film is Not Yet Rated, The Invisible War, and most recently The Hunting Ground). Bob Flanagan was a performance artist with cystic fibrosis. Given what is essentially a death sentence at birth, Bob lived to age 41, which, at the time, made him the longest living person with CF ever.
Flanagan was also very, very into sexual masochism. For those of you who don't know, masochism is when you are sexually aroused by receiving pain. Flanagan explained in interviews that the moments where he received the most love in his childhood (adults fussing over him, holding him, etc) were the moments when he felt the greatest pain due to his illness. For him, love and pain were one. Subjecting himself to pain was also a way for Flanagan to exert control over his body. He couldn't control the agonies CF inflicted upon him, but he could control the agonies he inflicted upon himself...and by adding elements of sexuality to the pain, well, it makes a certain counterintuitive sense.
The film also gets real up close and personal with a dying man. Much like Marlon T. Riggs' wonderful documentary, Tongues Untied, Sick films a man literally on his death bed. And it's not lurid or melodramatic. It's just very sad. You see a man you've grown to love over the course of the film gasp and struggle his way into the next life...which you can only hope for his sake is filled with whips, chains, and nails.
Disgusting level: 4
Grade: A+
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Bamboozled
I'm including Spike Lee's 2000 film Bamboozled here because I watched it in a class called History of Popular Culture in America in college. The film is about a black television writer who creates an offensive minstrel show for TV to piss off his racist boss, only for it to become a huge hit. After we watched it a woman in the class said in a snotty voice, "I am so tired of apologizing for being white."
Well, color me baffled! I really had no idea that Spike Lee wrote and directed this movie to get this lady in my class to apologize for her skin color. But that's the response it elicited (another memorable response by a [white] guy in the class: "Spike Lee is the most racist director out there!").
Bamboozled is not Lee's best work, but it has an interesting premise. It begs the question: how responsible are artists and entertainers for portraying minority or disadvantaged characters in positive and non-insulting ways? What about the audience? What is our responsibility as consumers? What do advantaged members of a overall disadvantaged group owe to other members of that group? Lots of interesting ideas and potential discussion topics, yet the initial response by (white) college students was defensiveness and dismissal. If anything, that proves we need more provocative films and books to encourage conversation around sensitive topics.
Disgusting level: 1
Grade: C+
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Pink Flamingos
I love John Waters. He is equally adept at directing sweet, fairly innocent movies (Hairspray, Pecker, Cry-Baby) as he is at directing outrageous trash like Pink Flamingos. I don't even know how to brain when I watch something like Pink Flamingos. Is it funny? Is it perverse? Is it delightful? Is it horrifying? Yes.
Pink Flamingos stars the incomparable Divine as Babs Johnson, known as "the filthiest person alive", a title she wears proudly. When married couple Connie and Raymond Marble seek to knock her off her throne by sending her disgusting gifts, sabotaging her birthday party, and attempting to be even filthier than she is, Divine/Babs doesn't go down without a fight.
It's kind of pointless to explain the "plot" of Pink Flamingos because the film is so surreal and purposefully shocking. It's the film equivalent of Andy Warhol pissing on a blank canvas and calling it art or Duchamp turning a urinal upside down and naming it "Fountain" (boy, there's a big obsession with pee in the art world, isn't there?). Pink Flamingos features two people having sex with a live chicken between them (the chicken died. Sorry, PETA), a man lip-synching to "Surfin Bird" with his butthole, and Divine eating actual dog poop. Is this art? Well, the dictionary defines art as:
"the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power."
Pink Flamingos may not be beautiful, and it most definitely a disgusting movie (with pretty disgusting ideas), but it definitely has some emotional power (hint: the primary emotion is squealing in embarrassment as a man lip-synchs to "Surfin Bird" with his butthole).
Disgusting level: 5
Grade: C
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A Clockwork Orange and other films of Stanley Kubrick
Director Stanley Kubrick was an unparalleled genius. His films are splashed with brilliant colors, scored with unnerving soundtracks, and manage to be highly artistic while still massively entertaining. For some folks at least.
A Clockwork Orange is, for my money, Kubrick's best film. Based on the novel by Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange presents to us a surreal dystopian world where the streets are ruled by hooligans who speak in a strange slang called "Nadsat", relax at milk bars, and then go out and commit all manner of crimes and high-jinks. Alex (Malcolm McDowell) is the leader of his pack and is an unusual young man because he enjoys his rape and violence with a side of Beethoven. Burgess and Kubrick make a point to befuddle the reader/viewer by adding an intelligent, cultured element to a character that would otherwise just be a monster. When Alex has a chance to get out of a prison sentence by undergoing a procedure called the Ludovico Technique, which will strip all violent impulses from him, as well as the very things that make him human, the audience is forced to reckon with the idea that taming criminals might come at a cost.
I took a film class freshman year where we watched A Clockwork Orange and during a discussion following the film a girl in the class said that she was mad Alex went back to his "normal" self at the end. She wanted him to die. She wasn't the only person to hold this view, and A Clockwork Orange isn't the only Kubrick film to elicit consternation. Kubrick's final film, the beautiful and strange Eyes Wide Shut, explores ambivalence and secrets within marriage, as Tom Cruise cruises around town looking for some strange after his wife, Nicole Kidman, confesses an erotic fantasy involving another man. Similarly, Kubrick tackled the inanity of war in Full Metal Jacket--a war film that is anti-war.
Kubrick annoys some people not just because his films can appear pretentious at first blush, but because they often leave the audience with an unsettling sense of issues not being fully resolved. Bad guys get away with being bad. American soldiers who should be heroes act cruelly to their victims. Cruise and Kidman's marriage is not destroyed, nor is it fully renewed at the end of Eyes Wide Shut. Kubrick's only sin is showing the world as it actually is, not as we expect to be in the magic of the movies.
Disgusting level: 2
Grade: A+
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Shortbus, 9 Songs, and Nymphomaniac
Finally, I want to address the issue of sexually explicit films, which can be disgusting to many people. Shortbus, directed by John Cameron Mitchell, 9 Songs, directed by Michael Winterbottom, and Nymphomaniac, directed by Lars von Trier, are examples of "mainstream" (read: not porno) movies that feature actual sex. Their plots also revolve heavily around the sex lives of their characters.
Similarly, 9 Songs is an incredibly boring movie. The plot is this: a couple have sex and go to concerts. That's it. That's the whole plot. The actors have real sex, and it's actually pretty hot, and then they go to concerts (including a Franz Ferdinand--one of my favorite bands--concert). But despite the good music and sexy sex, 9 Songs is just...uninteresting. It, and Shortbus, prove that featuring explicit sex doesn't automatically make a movie worth seeing.
In contrast, I found Lars von Trier's epic story of a woman's sexual journey, Nymphomaniac, to be beautiful and fascinating. This is likely because there is plenty of plot to move the film along, although most of it focuses on the heroine's sex life. In 5 hours, von Trier takes us through lead character Joe's life, from childhood to lusty young adulthood, through her marriage to Jerome and the dissolution of that marriage. And, like Kubrick, von Trier gives no easy answers or explanations as to where Joe's self-described "nymphomania" came from and whether it adds to or takes away from her life. Is the film misogynist? Is it feminist? Is pro-sex or anti-sex? It's a little of all of the above.
Each of these films features explicit, real sex. But none (well, very little) of the sex struck me as "disgusting". The only moments that upset me were a few instances of violence and non-consensual sex in Nymphomaniac. Sex, to me, is not naturally disgusting or repellant, although of course rape is another story. Personally, I'm more likely to be grossed out by a PG-13 movie that treats female characters like shrews and prudes and male characters like lugs and man-babies (listen up, Adam Sandler) than an NC-17 movie where a dude blows himself in the opening scene. Sex is a private matter for many people--sacred, even--but my gag-reflex is triggered by stale gender roles and casual violence against women rather than making public the things people do in private.
Shortbus:
Disgusting level: 2
Grade: C-
9 Songs:
Disgusting level: 1
Grade: C-
Nymphomaniac:
Disgusting level: 2
Grade: A
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Conclusion
In this essay I've taken a look at some of the more controversial, shocking, or disturbing films I've seen and weighed their merit against their level of "disgustingness". For me, disgust is measured not in violence, sexuality, or as the college acquaintance put it, "disgusting ideas", but in offensive tropes, lack of authenticity, and lack of creativity. For me, the biggest sin a movie can commit is to be boring. The second biggest sin a movie can commit is to rest on lazy, offensive stereotypes. For example: any movie starring Katherine Heigl, an actress who once disparaged her role in Knocked Up as anti-feminist only to go on to star in roles that portray women as shrewish, uptight bitches. Also: the Tucker Max movie and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. In my opinion, these are the films that truly have "disgusting ideas".
I realize that there is more than a bit of elitism and snobbery in my assessment. While I look down my nose at the films of the masses, I adore films that are "art". I won't deny that I can be a film snob. However, a movie doesn't have to be directed by Kubrick, or be 3 hours long, or have subtitles to be a quality film. All a movie needs is creativity, authenticity, and a fun or interesting premise.
As for "disgusting movies with disgusting ideas"--I've found that these are often the most interesting movies of all, and whether you love them or loathe them, you can't pretend they don't have a place in our culture.
