It’s nice to see women over 50 getting a script that they can get their teeth into at last. One where she is the main protagonist, not just the peripheral character living life on the edges as most women do in life. It’s good to see women do more than pulling on American tan tights and a flowery pinny, it’s good that women are being seen as more than their sum parts.
The choice of the dominant/submissive subject matter is really interesting in this film and is making some really suggestive links with the role of women in society and how they should be perceived.
Basically, Romy has a few kinks (haven’t we all, secretly?), but even today, that’s just not acceptable for women and this film has caused such a stir because of that. And although her and husband’s sexual needs aren’t aligned, it was intriguing to watch her journey as she was brought to her knees by a much younger man, who has a much more lowly position in society, where she got the chance to abuse her power and fulfil her fantasy of being punished for that.
Great scenes of robots all working efficiently, no-one gets to know what they are doing, but I guess it’s a kind of an ‘Amazonian’ fulfilment centre, which is a telling euphemism but also represents the irony of the film, because women, from an early age, run around and do everything according to what society sets out for them, they become emotional and physically efficient and burnt out and things have to work like clockwork.
Romy steps into a lift full of men in suits, and she’s conscious of what she’s wearing and how she looks, as well as having to run a successful business and make all the decisions about what happens in her family’s life. The men. They just worry about what colour tie goes with their socks and I guess how to pay for all of the above.
Romy moves seductively and demurely through a sequence of events which mirror the fantasies she’s been having – who knows for how long, although her suggestion to her husband that she’s never had a single orgasm with him, means that she’s probably spent her entire 20-year marriage unsatisfied and unfulfilled.
Yes, she has all the trappings and trimmings. The great job, the beautiful house, the handsome husband, the stereotypical children. And the other irony is the casting of the handsome Antonio Banderas as her husband. Surely someone that good looking couldn’t be that bad in bed? But that’s not the question. Romy is searching for something different. Married sex is part of the robotic function, and it doesn’t always involve kinks. I guess people are too tired, or maybe just too jaded.
Seeing a much younger man tame a rabid dog sparks something inside Romy’s dead, glazed over eyes and starts a ball rolling that she can’t and doesn’t want to stop – so much so, that she needs a glass of milk to fortify her, and really wouldn’t mind getting on her knees to slurp it greedily from a saucer. She’s happy to be put in the corner. She wants to be a bad girl. I don’t think she wants someone to try to tame her. I think she just wants to be set free to pursue the things she wants to try.
The film doesn’t really delve into the psyche of any of the main characters, it’s all about face-value, what you see is what you get. And judging by some of the reactions in the cinema, people really didn’t know what to do with watching a 50-something woman try to fit kinks into her enviable lifestyle. In fact, some people found it rather hilarious. It was different with 50 Shades of Grey (which, apparently women absolutely loved!) because it was the man who brought the kinks to the table, and the woman who was dominated. This fits much better with the male/female power narrative, doesn’t it? So not really that much sniggering throughout that movie.
Isn’t is odd that women would snigger at other women getting down on her knees. We’ve all been on our knees for the duration of history. We are, it seems, still fighting for sexual liberation.
And isn’t that how we should be looking at the role of women in society, even today. It’s bloody hilarious. It’s madness that a woman can be ensconced in a marriage that gives her so much externally and takes so much away from her internally. Even her choice to do things differently in the bedroom.
She wants to watch a young man dance for her. She wants to dance for a young man. She wants to be dominated in her world where she spends all her time dominating. She wants to submit to her fantasies, not necessarily to a man, but she wants to please herself. She wants to be on her knees because that’s what she wants. She’s happy to drink her milk before bed and to be a good girl. She’s had plenty of practise up until now. Haven’t we all?
What do we make of it all? Is it anarchy to think that women could go around fulfilling their fantasies for a change? Is it all set to upset the new world order? Would the robots end up crashing into each other if this was to continue? Would the world end up in chaos? Would the fabric of society malfunction if strong, powerful women started to take what they wanted – you know, just like men have for centuries?
Well, no. The director pushes a lot of our conscious and subconscious bias and stereotyping to the limit, but it’s rather unsatisfying to see Romy and Antonio making love at the end, him taking on the role of the young dog tamer, while she loses herself in her own mental fantasy … thinking of the dog tamer and the dog lapping away at his hand as she finally reaches that elusive orgasm. But, is her husband really satisfying her, or are her fantasies still doing that? And is that okay?
Just, who, in this scenario, is being tamed?
Romy compromised and got there in the end, that’s what we all have to believe. Order restored. Marriage intact.
And I hear that milk sales increased enormously, so the nation’s teeth and bones won’t suffer either.
Mags Winthrop Blog 