Popular Culture Review
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4 See in particular the novel Histoire de Juliette, in which a few crucifixions are the direct
cause for some particularly refined sensual pleasures.
5 There is evidence that these practices are not the exclusivity o f our late twentieth and
early twenty first centuries, only our awareness o f them has changed.
6 See Guy Debord's La Societe du spectacle , a fundamental work that presents the
modem mechanism o f consumer manipulation in modem economy. (Available in English
online.)
7 The list o f catholic martyrdoms is a long list o f ultra-violent tortures and mutilations;
Jesus's crucifixion sometimes seems pale in comparison.
8 Constance Penley, professor o f film studies at UC Santa Barbara, in her own words in
Real Sex: Pornucopia: Going Down in the Valley.
QAlthough a fair amount o f films were still shot in 35 millimeters, especially in Europe,
video technology radically transformed distribution by allowing direct sales to private
individuals and bypassing theatres. The arrival o f DVD has further promoted distribution
due to the derisory price o f the object itself: a DVD represents a fraction o f the cost o f a
VHS tape.
10 During my research, I have witnessed some extremely disturbing scenes from
"legitimate" X-rated films— i.e. distributed by a major cable company and available in a
subscription format— such as the lubrication o f a Philippine young woman’s genitalia
with motor oil; globalization has allowed the pom industry to seek fresh meat elsewhere,
participating in their own way to the organized exploitation o f third world and Eastern
European populations.
11 Rock music presents very clear illustrations o f this phenomenon; an artist such as
Madonna, for example, owes most o f her fame to the open expression o f her sexuality.
12 Sam Agboola, in his own words in Pornucopia : Going Down in the Valley.
13 Little children’s naked bodies on the ceiling and a barely dressed young man nailed on
a cross are indeed as current sexual narrative elements as they were a couple o f thousand
years ago; as far as the most extreme tales o f sexual fantasy, those o f Sade, our society
does not appear to be ready just yet to tackle the text directly, preferring instead to exploit
a cultural construction known as the Marquis de Sade in order to benefit from his ill
reputation; Peter Brook’s movie, based upon Peter W eiss’s play, Marat/Sade and
Kaufman's Quills are perfect illustrations o f this cultural construction. Both are Christian
sadomasochistic iconography and Sade’s greater novels are as current as web-sex; one
could even argue that Sade's narrations are still ahead o f us, since the coming o f
bourgeois morals during the Industrial Revolution marked a regression o f our capacity to
express sexual tension when compared to that o f the French Revolution generation.
14 Setting aside any consideration o f Bill Condon’s very convincing film, Kinsey , which
is above and foremost a biographical endeavor o f an undeniably informative nature; that
the movie only came out a few years ago is yet one more testimony to our sexual
ignorance as was the original Kinsey Report in 1948.
Works Cited
Basic Instinct. U.SA.: Tristar Pictures, 1992. Director: Paul Verhoeven.
Boogie Nights. U.S.A.: N ew Line Cinema, 1997. Director: Paul Thomas Anderson.
Brown, Dan. The Da Vinci Code. N ew York: Doubleday, 2003.
Caligula. U.S.A.: Image Entertainment, 1980. Director: Tinto Brass.
Conan Doyle, Arthur. “The Adventure o f a Scandal in Bohemia,” The Adventures o f
Sherlock Holmes. Unabridged facsimile edition. N ew York: A & W Visual
Library, 1975. (1-28).