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EvilGeoff -> RE: BDSM movies- 2002 "Secretary" (4/6/2006 10:35:07 PM)
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Rather than re-invent the wheel, I'll post what I wrote about Secretary over on Literotica....
Secretary, with James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhaal. (side note: there is no "the" in the title. It's just Secretary)
I know folks who love the movie, folks who hate it, folks who just don't care one way or the other. Personally, I loved it. Bought it on DVD the day it was released (first, and ONLY, time I have EVER done that!)
I know people just like the characters in the movie. Me for one...
Spader's character, Edward Grey, was me when I was just discovering this lifestyle... As a newbie Dominant I was all over the place. Overbearing one minute, scared to death the next. It was like "I'm going to push this until something breaks..." then I'd be "OMG, what if someone found out?"
Gyllenhall's character, Lee Hollway, was a cutter. I know people who object to this portrayal as being negative because she's not psychologically healthy at the beginning of the movie. I found the character to be absolutely positive. Again, this is probably because I experienced a lot of what she went through. In pain, emotionally isolated from those around her, knowing she is other, different from her family and friends but not really understanding why... She discovers BDSM and the light finally comes on for her.
She starts exploring this world, reading books, gathering information, she finds someone, Spader, that she recognizes as a kindred spirit, the yin to her yang. She wants to submit to him.
But he struggles with this. Part of him needs it, aches for it. But part of him fights against the BDSM because it goes against everything he was taught by family, by friends, by society as a whole. He's become emotionally stunted, a real jerk, because he has never felt free to be himself.
I've walked in those shoes. I've lived that life, I've fought those battles. I was suicidally depressed before I discovered the BDSM community. Why? Because I was locked in a vanilla marriage, living in a vanilla world, killing myself a little bit each day to try to live a life by what others expected and demanded of me. I had, for one brief shining moment in my college days, a kinky, pervy, hot, BDSM in all but name, relationship, and was locked into a vanilla world for the next 15 years... Welcome to hell.
It never occured to me that real people, "normal people" shared these feelings. After all, the only sadists you read about in popular culture are the Joseph Mengele's, the John Wayne Gacy/Ted Bundy type psychopaths and serial rapists/killers. Since I wanted to hurt people, I MUST be some kind of sick, twisted, deviant just waiting to start my crime spree and kill a dozen or so people before getting caught and tried and executed, right?
Like Gyllenhaal's Lee, I was unhealthy for many years because I surpressed this part of myself. And like Lee, as I explored this world, I became healthier and happier, stronger, better because I could accept me, for who I was. Like Spader's Edward, I fought through the societal norms we are programmed with, the conformity, the egalitarianism. I came to embrace my inner sadist and found myself.
When I saw Secretary for the first time, I stood up and cheered at the end of it because someone made a movie that told MY story. Maybe not the factual events of my journey, but it nailed the emotional and spiritual journey I've travelled abso-freaking-lutely on the head. Dead bang spot on.
I understand many of the reasons people don't like Secretary, and it's not going to hurt my feelings if y'all share them. The movie has flaws, for sure. But I'll keep my copy and treasure it. It's me, and it's mine! *smile* Yours In Kink,- Geoff
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