Aaron

Gillian Flynn's debut novel "Sharp Objects" received a lot of mixed attention when it was released in 2006, but it was popular enough to recently be adapted to the screen by HBO as an eight episode mini-series that aired in 2018. With Amy Adams in the lead, she was tasked with delivering the difficult narrative of a woman processing great mental and physical trauma, and doing this through a visual medium is often shocking and difficult for audiences to endure. I found myself looking away during particularly graphic depictions of self-harm, and each time Adams's body is put on display, with the plethora of words written across her in scars, I found myself gritting my teeth and squinting.

I haven't read the source material, but I imagine that the impact of a traumatic story of this nature would be more impactful through film or television, and my experience with the series (I was fully glued to the screen, binging the entire series) has driven me to ask – is this type of portrayal of the procession of trauma primarily beneficial for the general public? I imagine that the answer would be close to the consensus of shows like "13 Reasons Why" that are controversial because they can simultaneously help raise awareness while also triggering some viewers, but I'm particularly interested in this mini-series because it is far more graphic (due to the HBO platform, I'm sure) and handles the processing of trauma with greater complexity.

I would like to see this topic explored with a specific look at the "Sharp Objects" mini-series, but references to similar visual narratives would be great as a basis of comparison and/or evidence to support the benefit or harm of depictions such as these.

The sub-genre of comedy that focuses on shocking sexual depictions, over-the-top jokes, and hyper-unrealistic scenarios seems to be going strong in 2019. Films such as American Pie (1999), Superbad (2007), and The Hangover (2009) cemented a place in the medium for these narratives with all of their try-hard humor and problematic treatment of identity (homophobic and misogynistic jokes galore!). Weaker off-shoots began to form as quick cash-grabs for studios looking to ride the wave of the main-stream comedies noted, and now the market seems to be saturated with them.

My interest with this sub-genre has taken shape after watching Blockers (2018), a film in which two up-tight parents (Leslie Mann and John Cena) team up with a laid-back father (Ike Barinholtz) to prevent their daughters from having sex on prom night. While Mann and Cena have more obvious motivations – not wanting to see their children lose their innocence – Barinholtz's goal is more nuanced. He's fully convinced that his daughter is gay (something she is still unsure of herself), and he is concerned that she is being pressured by her friends to have sex with a guy in order to feel accepted.

The set-up is the perfect representation of the interesting dichotomy that this film, and similar films in the sub-genre, present. While the plot is filled with ridiculous humor that is overly vulgar, graphic, and inconsistent, the "heart" or "message" of the film is clearly a positive one. In the case of Blockers, it's incredibly blunt in addressing identity politics to differing levels of success, but I believe it would be hard for the audience to walk away angry with the normalizing way in which the gay character is casually accepted by her friends and family, acknowledging the next stage of inclusive progress needed in the U.S.

My question for this topic is – does the graphic, vulgar, shock comedy sub-genre have the potential to encourage social acceptance, or is it a futile attempt that should be abandoned since the sub-genre has been pigeon-holed (by the creators and public) into a category of film that is designed to profit from being anti-politically correct or overtly offensive to shock the audience? I would love to hear additional thoughts on this topic as well as more titles that may fit into this small movement of shock comedies that are grappling with socially positive themes.

Humanities graduates get a bad reputation in this time of increased attention being placed on STEM fields that will surely drive our technologically-advancing economy. Mainstream U.S. films have been a contributing factor to this poor image in representing humanities graduates as aloof and/or struggling writers that are haunted by addiction and manic spurts of genius or inspirational educators that set the bar unrealistically high for actual teachers. Titles such as Stuck in Love and The Dead Poets Society circulate these narratives of humanities graduates, perpetuating a single image of what these graduates can actually do in society. Arrival was released in 2016 with great critical acclaim, and one of the most interesting aspects of the sci-fi epic comes in the form of a humanities vs sciences debate between the two leads – Amy Adams as the linguist Louise Banks and Jeremy Renner as Ian Donnelly – a physicist. Banks makes it clear early in the film that they need to focus on learning to communicate with the titular arrivals before working out the physics of their space-travel, placing the linguist in a position of privilege, but does this narrative manage to correct the one-sided image of the humanities, or does it fall short of shedding a positive light on a field that has been traditionally relegated to narrow, stereotypical representations?