What is the difference between pornography and erotica? Gloria Steinem tackles this inquiry in “Erotica and Pornography” . Most people picture Pornography as being hardcore. more likely to be sold in forte grownup bookshops or in certain plastic at the newsstand. Erotica. on the other manus. includes arousal. familiarity. and a mutually- satisfying experience. However. Steinem believes that the chief differences between erotica and pornography are that persons involved in erotica are merely looking for anything to fulfill their sexual demands. while persons involved in pornographies have a peculiar person in head. Gloria Steinem states that pornography is “in the thought of positive pick. free will. the longing for a peculiar person” ( 130 ) .
Erotica is a word picture of a love-making experience instead so merely holding sex. Steinem states that erotica is when the “subject is non common love. or love at all. but domination and force against women” ( 130 ) . In erotica. one person is a dominant force. and pornography is when both persons are on equal standing. 8 stat mi and Monsters ball are both featured on “Playboy’s Top 10 Film Sex Scenes” . Monsters Ball. starring Billy Bob Thornton and Halle Berry. exemplifies Gloria Steinem’s position of erotica. while 8 Mile. gazing Eminem and Brittney Murphy. corresponds to Steinem’s position of pornography.
In “Monsters Ball” . Billy Bob Thornton plays a white corrections officer named Hank working on decease row who oversees Lawrence Musgrove’s decease. Hank doesn’t get along with his boy or male parent ( both of whom live with him ) and finally quits his occupation after a decease in the household. He so becomes involved with Leticia. has sex with her. and changes his racialist ways. Leticia ( Halle Berry ) plays Lawrence Musgrove’s ( Sean Combs ) married woman and so widow who smokes. drinks and ends up falling for Hank ( with whom she has sex ) . ab initio incognizant of their fatal connexion.
Gloria Steinem would see this scene pornographic because both characters are used as objects. During Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thornton’s sex scene. Leticia ( Halle Berry ) makes some remarks about desiring Hank to do her feel better and experience good. and so removes her armored combat vehicle top. uncovering her bare chests. Leticia stating Hank to do her feel good shows that she merely wants person to hold sex with and that she is looking at Hank as an object. The manager shows a batch more bare shootings of Leticia. which makes her an object. She so partly straddles him while doing more remarks about doing her feel good. We see more positions of her bare chests and he so pulls off her underside. He’s behind her when she takes off her thong underwear and we so see him holding sex from behind her. We so see him between her legs as she sits on the border of the couch and they continue holding sex.
This goes on for quite a piece as we see more shootings of them holding sex with him on top of her on the couch ( with sight nakedness of his bare butt and her bare chests ) . We so see her on top of him on the floor. with more of the same and his custodies on her bare butt. all of which sums to a really steaming scene. In the scene Halle Berry is to the full bare. while Billy Bob Thornton is partly bare. The manager in the film tends to demo a batch of Halle Berry. which shows that there non on every bit land. Gloria Steinem provinces “It may be much more elusive: A physical attitude of vanquisher and victim. the usage of race and category difference to connote the same thing. possibly a really unequal nakedness. with one individual exposed and vulnerable while the other is clothed. In either instance there is no sense of equal pick or equal power. ”
Billy Bob Thornton is a more dominant force than Halle Berry in this scene. Hank. Billy Bob Thornton’s character is a racist decease row corrections officer. The fact that Leticia is a hapless black widow. and Hank is a racist corrections officer who executes her hubby. proves that Hank has a batch more power than Leticia. She works at a diner that Hank often dines and besides picks her up on the side of the route. Hank comes into this relationship with a batch more power than Leticia.
Unlike Monsters Ball. 8 stat mi is a great word picture of Gloria Steinem’s position of Erotica. In 8 stat mi Eminem plays a immature rapper named Rabbit who leaves his girlfriend because she says she’s pregnant. gets into several battles. hit a constabulary auto with a paintball gun. commits incendiarism ( with his friends ) . and has sex with Alex ( Brittney Murphy ) . Yet. he’s besides really caring for his younger sister and eventually becomes a good worker at the works and wants to break himself. Brittney Murphy plays a immature adult female who drifts into Rabbit’s universe and has sex with him.
Gloria Steinem would categorise 8 stat mi as an titillating scene. Alex comes to Rabbit’s occupation at the mill in hunt of him. Rabbit takes Alex ( Brittney Murphy ) off into a abandoned portion of the mill where the two passionately make out while standing and clad. Her coat is opened and we see her in her panties and bandeau ( that shows cleavage ) . His bloomerss so come down and her bare thigh is up along his side. They have sex while standing with motion. sounds and groping ( he feels her bra-covered chests ) in shootings that alternate between a caput and shoulders position of them every bit good as a close-up of their fork countries. This scene would be viewed by Gloria Steinem as Erotic because both persons in the scene have about equal sums of vesture on and there is no dominant force in the scene. The manager does non demo more of Eminem or Brittney Murphy. and he instead shows both at the same clip. Gloria Steinem would see this scene titillating. Alex comes in hunt of Rabbit. which means that they both had each other in head upon making this. This besides means that there is non domination sing that she approaches him.
Halle Barry won the Oscar for best actress that twelvemonth for her public presentation in Monsters ball. That same twelvemonth Densel Washington won best histrion for Training twenty-four hours. which was a really violent rated R film. which merely proves one thing: the American populace is interested in sex and force. Gloria Steinem states that “until we untangle the deadly confusion of sex with force. there will be more erotica and less erotica. There will be small slayings in our beds and really small love. ”
Plants Citied:
Steinem. Gloria. “Erotica and Pornography. ” Ms. Magazine. November 1978. Rpt. in 75
Readings Plus. Ed. Santi V. Buscemi and Charlotte Smith. New York: McGraw-Hill.
2002. 129-132.
Monster’s Ball. Dir. Marc Forster. Lions Gate Films Inc. . 2001.
8 stat mi. Dir. Curtis Hanson. Universal Pictures. . 2002.
