Strange Bed Fellows: Female Sexuality and the Male Imaginary in Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac

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Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac (2013) sparked controversy even before its stateside release during a matinee screening of Disney’s Frozen (Buck/Lee, 2013) in Tampa, Florida. The usual routine began as the projectionist prepared to screen the film: the lights of the cinema began to dim, the projection screen turned black, and the usual filler of cartoons and trailers started rolling. And then something unusual happened. According to one unsuspecting grandmother, “They put in the filler, it looked like Steamboat Willie, the old Mickey Mouse cartoon, and then all of a sudden it goes into this other scene” (Guardian, “Nymphomaniac Trailer”). This “other scene” was the red-band teaser for Nymphomaniac, described by Julie Miller of Vanity Fair as “the most graphic movie preview of all time—thanks in part to visuals of former child star Shia LaBeouf nude and engaged in multiple sexual activities” (Vanity Fair, “Explicit Sex Film”). Miller’s description of the trailer, however, is mostly incorrect. Very little do we see of LaBeouf’s character in the red-band trailer, neither “nude” nor engaged in the act of sex. Instead we catch various clips of Young Joe, performed by Stacy Martin, who is at one point seen fully nude and whose vagina is superimposed against the film’s title (stylized as NYMPH()MANIAC) at the start of the teaser. Despite his intentions in line with the Puzzy Power movement, von Trier’s male gaze complicates his presentation of female sexuality in Nymphomaniac. The logic behind the metanarrative of the film suggests that Joe’s (Charlotte Gainsbourg) salvation is ultimately afforded by male characters, most explicitly through Seligman (Stellan Skarsgård), Jerôme (Shia LaBeouf), and “K” (Jamie Bell). Although Nymphomaniac ask... ... middle of paper ... ... with the understanding that “women like watching erotic or pornographic films if the presentation turns them on rather than off” (“Puzzy Power Manifesto”). Nymphomaniac is not a porn flick, nor is it affiliated with the Puzzy Power movement, but I would argue that von Trier’s participation as the producer of all three Puzzy Power films served as inspiration for Nymphomaniac. In particular, it shares similarities with All About Anna (Nielson, 2005), a Puzzy Power film that also focuses on a woman’s coming to grips with her sexuality within a metanarrative divided into a sequence of chronological chapters. Of the three Puzzy Power films released from 1998 to 2005, Anne G. Sabo commends Pink Prison (Lynghøft, 1999) for fulfilling the guidelines of the manifesto, both with respect “to cinematic quality and to upholding a progressive sexual-political commitment” (57).

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