Breaking conventions? Political ideology of films with explicit sex

Abstract

Explicit sex in films on general release remains rare, even if it has significantly increased since the late 1990s. Commentary on explicit arthouse films has tended to focus on those also containing sexual violence, and debates have often revolved around whether explicit imagery constitutes art or pornography. Relatively little attention has been paid to explicit romantic films, and to what leads some of them to gain notable international visibility, while others languish in obscurity. This article examines 9 Songs and Love, two of the most discussed and financially successful arthouse films with a romantic storyline that also devote significant screen time to explicit images of sex. It argues that their success can be attributed in part to their conservative sexual and gender politics, and their ideological proximity to conventional heterosexual pornography. They are contrasted with The Story of Richard O. and Daughters of Fire, two explicit films that struggled to gain critical attention or financial reward. These latter films are shown to have fundamentally different ideological foundations, including radical ideas about sex and gender, and an embrace of the artistic value of the pornographic. Such an ideological gap can be considered a contributory factor in the divergent destinies of these explicit romantic films.