Indie Film's War on Sex

 I don't get it indie directors, are your skinny jeans so tight that they've cut off circulation to your private area? What is it about sex and being naked that is so repulsive to you that you always have to paint it in a bad light, literally. In every indie film I've seen recently either someone is portrayed full frontal nude because they're taking a long reflexive prison shower, or there's a painfully graphic sex scene between them and someone they don't like and are likely to shoot over tears later. Before you get all pissy and disagreeable yes, Blue Valentine (2010) is an exception. Moving on.

Sorry I'm going to be late. I have to existentially stare into the sunset and ponder the horrible decisions I made due to lack of options for someone in my current economic position before I go have weak and disconnecting sex with my semi-hot girlfriend. Still from Booster (2012) opened at SXSW in March.

Wait a minute...is sex only bad when you're poor and have to do it on a sleeping bag in the corner? Why is it the uptight clean shiny rich people only get to bust a nut romantically on Egyptian cotton while the breeze flutters the candlelight? Why is Ryan Gosling's bod a million times more appealing when he's in The Notebook (2006) but NOT in Half Nelson (2008), good to go in The Ides of March (2011) but not in Drive (2011). Do indie films try to sell the idea of sex being subversive and cruel? Is that they're point 90% of the time? Unless it's an indie comedy of course. But who cares about them when you can tell endless and monotonous stories involving inner-city youths struggling with the decisions to commit wildly audacious crimes and/or becoming drug dealers, all while having improbable awkward simulated sex with an actress who is always way hotter than they are.

Ooooh yeah, I'd give up my inheritance and family name for you, depression-era guy from the wrong side of the tracks.

Sorry, I don't date meth-heads...or do I?

Is this some kind of socioeconomic plucky satire you're trying to sell which states that independently funded films can only be about people in the same class diaspora? and why are they all miserable and living in the filthiest shit ever? I used to live in shitty apartments too but I at least spruced them up to seem lovely with all kinds stuff that created the illusion that I wasn't completely starving and miserable. You don't have to throw a dishrag full of holes over the window a as a curtain and put cracks in every single floor board. We get the point indie film, quit beating us over the head with it.

One example that keeps coming up is poor Melissa Leo, who is just inundated with playing these types of roles. She's poor, or just out of prison, or white trash, or something that will eventually force her to stand around naked (not a pretty picture) for long periods of quiet time, pondering the bullshit that is her life. Why is it that only poor people seem to have these instances when they're naked and troubled and not the wealthy, glowing, and groomed folks? 

Melissa Leo euthanizes dogs, cries about stuff, and walks around naked in Francine (2012), opened in SXSW in March.

I've seen a lot of these types of non-plot 'character pieces' drift through lately, and this is the trend I picked up on. Ironically, when an industry film with substantial financial backing comes out where the main characters are from unfortunate circumstances, sex is approached as a means or enlightenment and redemption.

I don't understand what is it about your place in the world in terms of the class system forces you to approach sexuality with such impunity and resentment, you would think that its the sublimest escape, but apparently it makes everything just spiral downwards uncontrollably until the protagonist kills him or herself, which is always a huge inevitability, or for the most part ends up staring into space again until it fades to black.