Kretyen Etranje

Liberated: The New Sexual Revolution triggered some reasonably vituperative criticisms on different platforms. Very few rated this film highly. These responses raise a few interesting points about our culture and reveal a lot more about the people making the criticisms than might be expected. In this post, I will be exploring one or two of those criticisms.

The film uses the US Spring Break as a back drop to explore and expose the sexual issues of a hook-up culture. In the process, the makers interview both young men and women attending these celebrations to gain their perspectives. It also interviews noted scholars and thinkers, such as Gail Dines and Tony Porter, to gain a more scholarly viewpoint. In the process, the viewer is confronted with more than a few instances of groping and more that occured to young women while filming was being done.

NOTE: Before you go and watch this film, it is confronting and uncomfortable in its imagery.

The most common criticism levelled at Liberated has been its alleged misogyny. This has been because the film does not seem to place the blame simply and totally with the young men who carry out these assaults on women. To address this, there are two main issues. The first, and the weakest, is that the people the film makers interviewed include reknowned thinkers like Tony Porter (try not to squirm during his talks...I challenge you) and Gail Dines (author of Pornified, among others). If both of these people do not just slap the blame on young men, we should pause before we do.

The second point is that Liberated, like Dines and Porter, takes a big picture view of the issue. People are raised and grow as people in a cultural context (you can mutter “No sh**, Sherlock” here). The film states that it is not only the early-twenties douchebag uni student who is to blame for this. It is all of us. We, as a society, have allowed this to happen. We, as a people, have allowed these influences to teach our young people sick and twisted ideas about sexuality and the roles of men and women in our society. We are all responsible. And that includes said douchebags. For example, in one filmed encounter, a staff member of a club spent a great deal of effort to pressure a young girl to bare her breasts to the crowd of boys. The entire Spring Break industry, and those of us who silently stood by and said nothing, is collectively responsible.

Is the film victim-blaming? Absolutely not. In no way does it state that the women “really want it”, nor does it exonerate the young boys who force themselves on these young women. It is consider the wider culture we have allowed to develop and asked us the hard question: what are we doing to change this?

Those using the label “misogynistic” exhibit a phenomena that is relatively common in our society. Placing the blame on the young men along removes from us the responsibility of having to actually do something about it. The state has used this tactic for decades to great effect. For example, if the poor are responsible for their own poverty, rather than an exploitative economic system designed to enrich the wealthiest one percent, then the state and society can still feel good about themselves when thousands a day die needlessly. It is easy to blame others. The real guts, the real challenge, is to acknowledge our own complicity and actually take action. This tendency is everywhere I have been, including within the church itself.

Another criticism levelled at Liberated is the depiction of very uncomfortable experiences that some of the girls endured at the Spring Break. One African American girl was surrounded by young men groping her bottom, her breasts and between her legs. People's expressions of disagreement, in my opinion, are warranted. I fully admit to being extremely uncomfortable with it. However, I understand the reason for it.

Let me try to show why. Bear with me in this. Think about war. How can we, who have never experienced it, begin to understand those who have? The sounds. The screams. The sights. The smells of your comrade's innards as they have been ripped from his body and scattered over the jungle. Sometimes, we need to have a certain reality shoved into our faces until we choke with revulsion to even begin to understand what other people have endured. The makers of Liberated made a call, and personally, I think it was the right one. To have that reality, those experiences, shoved in my face made me understand just a little more.

Oddly, I have seen one or two people dismiss Liberated as “Christian fundamentalist propaganda”. This took me a little by surprise. Two key messages of the film are:

1. Respect a woman's decision about her own body.
2. Stop jerking off to pornography and other media influences.

If these are propaganda, I would be very concerned what these individuals consider to be healthy messages.

Liberated: The New Sexual Revolution is controversial. It was never meant to be anything but that. It was made to be confronting. It was designed to make you squirm. It is there to get you thinking. In these, I think it is remarkably successful.

All that said, watch with caution.