...For female readers, “Ablutions” could be hard to take — particularly during scenes like the one in which ugly prostitutes are penetrated from the front and back, and “everyone is on cocaine and cannot ejaculate and the prostitutes . . . are being worked like plow horses.” Or the later scene with a woman “so unattractive” a wink would be harmless, but “now without even a kiss to share she is on her knees.”
A part of me thought, if Jane Austen can be called chick lit, where is our term for this very male writing?
- Rebecca Barry in a largely favorable review of Ablutions in this week's NYT Book Review. Barry articulates a feeling I've had ever since Affliction, the Nick Nolte vehicle, came out in the late 90s to so much critical acclaim. Why is it that books and films about women's issues, specifically relationship and domestic matters, are so often considered negligible while work about male issues, particularly male rage and violence, are considered so important?
Take the story of three female childhood friends, one of whom was sexually molested, coping as adults and trying to find emotional resolution and you have a chick flick. Make it three men, throw in violence and revenge and silence, and you have Mystic River, a "serious" film nominated for Best Picture, Actor, Director, Screenplay, Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress.
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