David Duchovny, star of Californication, has apparently been told by his wife, the lovely Tea Leoni, that he must receive treatment for his sex addiction, or she's packing her heels and lipstick and hittin' the road. The film Choke, to be realsed in Australia soon, features a sexaholic protagonist who, during his 12-Step meetings designed to treat this addiction, can often be found 'shtupping' other similarly addicted members in the bathroom. In Will Ferrell's Blades of Glory, he plays a sex addict who uses such meetings as a bragging forum of what he's done to various nymphettes, given his druthers, and some of theirs.
Why is sexaholism so damn funny?
When ppl identify as alcohlics, or drug addicts, this is rarely met with gales of laughter. Indeed, the ppl living with and around these very ill ppl usually don't find anything funny about it at all. Both these conditions are recognised as serious, very dangerous, and very likely to shorten your life expectancy. Very rarely are they percieved as 'glamourous' conditions.
Sexaholism, on the other hand, seems to generally evoke a gritty, noirish fascination - can a disease really be so bad if all it consists of is bedding beautiful women, and living life at the edge? I would argue a bloody big YES. An addiction by definition is a relationship with a substance or process that is all consuming. Sure, sex is fun, but how much could you really enjoy its pursuit and practice if that was what constituted your entire life? What if that was what it was all about? It sure doesn't leave much room for establishing healthy relationship, functioning at a high lvl in other aspects of life, such as work or study, and probably alienates a fair few ppl - generally, friends don't stick around if you continually make sexual advances towards their partners.
This is the side rarely shown - it seems that public depictions of this addiction prefer stories that involve a blonde masseuse, a 40-gallon drum of baby oil, mood lighting, and a parrot. But sexaholism is real, just like alcholism and drug addiction. Yet no one seems overly prepared to make jokes about heroin addicts, or ppl so drunk they forget to check for traffic step out into the road, only to be knocked down and killed.
What's the answer, ppl? Do we need to recognise sexaholism as a serious illness, and then treat it, and its sufferers, with a little more respect? Or does someone need to come up with some awesome funnies about the one time, this heroin addict walked into a public bathroom, and...
Or is sexaholism just intrinsically funny?
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Long Live Bone Crawford
6 hours ago
8 comments:
I see both sides of this. You can pretty much make funny out of anything. The old maxim tragedy+time=comedy. Hogan's Heroes was set in a fricken prisoner of war camp for Christ sake. There have been plenty of comedy bits about addicts and alcoholics - take the movie Arthur - he's a lush, but a funny one so it's ok. Incidentally he's basically a rip off of the brilliant PG Wodehouse' creation Berty Wooster, but I digress. Sex is fun, so writers see that a sex addict is addicted to the good stuff, but ignore the addiction side. Reality isn't funny - just look at Big Brother. So, my opinion? Should sex addicts be portrayed as amusing? Why not? As soon as we start dictating what should and shouldn't be amusing we stifle freedom and that scares me. Anything is fair game, people's sense of morals will dictate if it's watched. Personally I loved the Chaser skit last year about Australian's idolising people after they are dead - not because they were great, but because they're dead. The skit wasn't about the individuals, but how the Aussie public turns to put them on a pedestal, whether they like it or not. People took offense. Fine. Turn off. I'll be watching the next one.
I'm in complete agreement that we can't, for the love of Christ in the marketplace, stifle creative vision. Should we do that, we become Stalinist Russia. Now, I've never lived there, bu I've read books, and it sounds puh-retty grim. So that plan's out.
And I also don't mind a laugh at things that, when closely examined, are truly fucking grim.
However, ALL that seems to happen is laughing at sexaholism. While there are comic alcoholic creations such as Wodehouse's Wooster, there are also deeply touching accounts ('The Lost Weekend', anyone?), recounts and creations that deal sympathetically with what is, essentially, a terminal illness waiting to happen.
Maybe I need to rethink the question... Is there room in a marketplace that enjoys grim humour for a portrayal of sexaholism that isn't playing for laughs, so much as trying to depict its story and characters realistically and sympathetically? Is a touching, well written fiction something we'd pay to see? Would anyone even care?
Ah, that changes the dynamic. Righto. Is there room for a touching, well balanced portrayal? You bet. But it has to be written. It has to be handled delicately, but it COULD be done. Should it? I say yes. The more you have balance out there, the less quickly it becomes comedic, it becomes real.
Nice reference to Lost Weekend. I do like an old classy movie.
So Dave, I guess the question is: are you up for it? I have heard rumour that you're a novelist in search of an agent... I'm thinking a touching, poignant bestseller, kinda like James Frey, but without the creepy Oprah endorsement. I'll even lend you my special rubber with the nice hard blue bit at the end!
p.s. We should totally have an awesome DVD weekend - have you seen 'The Lives of Others'? It's not old, but it's damn classy
Could be done, could be done. But I think my writing style is a wee bit less serious than is needed....you may have guessed. Am digging the one I'm writing now - different to what I've tried before. The Lives of Others eh? Nope haven't checked out....but will now. Have you seen Herbie Goes Bananas? Masterpiece. Moving, engaging and thoroughly overlooked by the Academy that year. Gypped.
Herbie Goes Bananas, you say?
And who says it needs to be overly serious, LD? I'd settle for something approaching the characterisation in a way that doesn't immediately invite complete and utter ridicule and humiliation. I know plenty of humourous stories that still manage to make you go, Hmmm.
p.s. Sum the new boo up for me in three words - GO!
Australian 1920's noir. Ha!
I'm so freaking in
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