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Sunday, Nov 22, 2009
Libido-less Politics
Welcome to the American presidency, the sexless years. Trying to picture either George Bush or John Kerry having sex may be more psychologically scarring than the image of your parents doing it. For all the Swift Boaty testosterone coursing through the campaign, there were zero pheromones being emitted from the presidential stump.
John Kerry may have had a slim erotic edge simply because countless instances of hand-grasping and gazing adoration provided evidence that he was hot for his wife. Unfortunately, Teresa's passionate devotion to husband John Heinz, dead for 13 years, sapped Kerry's mojo.
Hope stirred when John Edwards joined the Kerry ticket, since he seemed to have a hint of that winking Clintonian appeal. But it only took a few weeks of staring at those dimples and that cherubic smiley face to conclude that John Edwards was in fact an animatronic doll escaped from the "It's a Small World" ride at Disney World. Candidate for First Beefcake Chris Heinz showed some promise, but the real Kerry family sexpot award goes to stepsister Alexandra Kerry, who donned a long black frock for a screening of her film at Cannes and faced a phalanx of flashbulbs, unaware that all the light would render her dress translucent. Hello, titties! But by May, we were immune. Another day, another set of mams.
Back at the White House, Laura Bush -- who, were she not married to an eunuch, might have been a bad-ass-librarian-who-puts-out first lady -- was allowed off the lithium drip long enough to get her daughters involved in the campaign. Like the Kerry offspring, Jenna and Barbara lent their father's campaign the only spark it had, mostly by dressing in slinky tops, getting loaded, and showing signs of lifelike exuberance, like the time Jenna stuck her tongue out at the photographers. Still, if this counts as sexy, we are seriously strapped for entertainment. At least Patti Davis posed for Playboy.
One mercy plea for future campaign strategists looking to squeeze a drop of sex appeal from their candidates: Avoid the term "flip-flopper." It doesn't matter who's saying it, being it or refuting it: It just makes people think of a dying mackerel.
Why Won't Anyone Say This Is the Worst Year in Hollywood in Recent Decades?
I just wanted to get that off my chest. And in addition to there being no great movies this year, there were very few hot ones either. Mostly we got culture-war combatants like decidedly un-sexy "Fahrenheit 9/11" and "The Passion" (no, not that kind of passion, silly. It was a Jesus snuff film.)
The three big "relationship" movies: "We Don't Live Here Anymore," "Closer," and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," offered such a bleak outlook on what comes of sexual congress that they could be packaged as an encouraging gift set for those considering taking the veil.
The year's big sensualist film was Bernardo Bertolucci's "Dreamers," touted as the most shocking and lubricious movie of our lifetime because it featured lanky siblings who almost have sex with each other and a perplexed friend. "The Dreamers" was graphic, and it had a number of uncomfortably bloody scenes, but the truth is that incest simply doesn't rank high on the list of common turn-ons. If you want to do taboo, please bring back James Spader, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and some light bondage.
"Kinsey" dealt directly with sex. But when the end of your movie involves Liam Neeson doing his "Schindler's List" "I could have saved one more" shtick while his penis, pierced in the name of scientific investigation, drips blood on the bathroom floor, your loins are not exactly engorged with desire.
The most revelatory thing about this year in pictures is the way in which the Hollywood leading man has been re-envisioned. Where once Clint Eastwood and Paul Newman stood proud and erect, daring us to find anything squishy beneath their firm, potent exteriors, 2004 brought us men who were allowed to feel.
Behold this year's crop of movie heroes:
Hrrrrr! Hot, hot, hot.
