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sugarcoatedscamp -> RE: Can you name any mainstream S&M themed movies? (8/21/2006 5:46:04 PM)
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I realize that a lot of movies listed here have fallen under the "that's not the way it really is" category. That in mind, the following message was circulated in the local lifestyle community here, and would be well worth considering before you pay money for a ticket to the Pet movie and support a project that isn't what you may think.
Anyone under the impression that this film has been made by people who are remotely sympathetic to any form of consensual slavery should Listen very, very carefully to the comments of the writer/director Stevens, which you can find here:
http://WWW.thepetmovie.Com/DStevensComm_Broadband.mov
He does not consider any form of slavery to be "normal" & this movie is actually intended as an attack on those who practice consensual slavery.
I recommend that people listen carefully to what he says before they decide they wish to support his efforts or endorse this film.
A member of another list I'm on brought this to the attention of the members there & provided a transcript he'd made of Stevens's remarks.
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Below is the transcription I made of writer and director D. Stevens' commentary on The Pet that I posted in another list. I'm also including my own original commentary on the commentary, including important qualifications. To put it into its original context, I was responding to someone who I thought might be giving too great a benefit of the doubt to the motives behind The Pet. Among these "benefits" were thoughts that "it's as if the writers don't know what to do with the [Master/slave] relationship as it progresses," and that poster didn't "believe the movie can live up to it's aspiration of depicting the alternative lifestylers." And so I said:
The more I consider the prospects of this movie, the less I believe that the writer/director and producers had any aspirations for depicting alternative lifestyles as being wholesome in any way. I think the problem is not that "the writers don't know what to do with the relationship as it progresses." The problem seems to be that they didn't want to shed a positive light on slavery in any form.
The best bit of evidence of this is the commentary on the movie by writer and director D. Stevens, himself, at http://WWW.thepetmovie.Com/DStevensComm_Broadband.mov. This commentary shows Stevens to be absolutely anti-slavery in any form. To him, for anyone who would volunteer to become a slave seems "unimaginable," and people only do so when there is a "lack of positive options." According to Stevens, right-minded people only become slaves because they are "forced or tricked" into it.
I fear that the producers' efforts to promote this movie through Lifestylers is nothing other than a con--a way to collect money from our promotional efforts while hoping, perhaps, to enlighten us and ultimately serve toward our own undoing. The movie seems to demonstrate no recognition of our own understandings of human nature and why we choose to live the lifestyles that we do.
Before anyone in the lifestyle further promotes this movie, perhaps you should ask yourself why the link to Stevens' commentary on the movie was not included in the promotional emails sent out to Lifestylers? Probable answer: It's very difficult to con someone when you tell them the truth. If I am correct about this, the supreme irony of this promotion scam is their own hypocrisy in attempting to trick us into promoting something that is aimed at our own undoing. But then, from their perspective, they may think it's a very clever way to trick us into serving their ends while we unwittingly help them to defeat our own.
Because the D. Stevens commentary movie is 12M to download, I have transcribed it, below. As the movie exists in a public site on the internet, I think this transcriptions falls within acceptable guidelines for quoting. Stuff in square brackets, [], were words that were not spoken clearly enough for me to be certain what was said. In one case I included Gor in square brackets. That sure is what it
Sounded like he said, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt that he may have said something else.
Even if you've already watched the movie, the transcription may be worth a read. My own comprehension of Stevens' inspiration for the movie was much improved by reading (especially transcribing) his words than by simply listening to them. If anyone double-checks the transcription while watching the movie, I'll appreciate it if you point out of any errors or suggest punctuation editing for clarity. Here's D. Stevens' commentary on the movie's inspiration and background.
Quote:
"Hi. My name is D. Stevens, the director and writer of the movie, The Pet.
"As unimaginable as it may seem, many people give up their freedom voluntarily--for security, protection, for a sense of belonging. There are, conservatively, over 28 million slaves, worldwide, and living in plain sight. That may defy the traditional concept of traditional slavery. That number grows exponentially.
"Forced or tricked into prostitution, beg, working in sweatshops, domestic servitude and manual labor are, to some, common forms of modern day slavery. In America, the lack of positive options drive many of the urban poor into the criminal justice system, and they, too, end up laborers under plantation-like conditions. Others may find options to serve the military or industrial complex, giving up their rights, their own morals, sometimes their lives.
"It is estimated that in today's economic market it can cost 50 times less to get the same labor as it did with field slaves of the American South in the 19th Century. One that in 1850 might cost $15,000, in today's economy might cost less that $50. The common thread throughout is that because becoming a slave, they do not control their own destiny. Each, in their particular way, has to serve and please their respective masters; there has been a literal power exchange.
"The Pet, although fictionalized, is based on fact. Although the West prides itself on its sense of freedom, the media in general, and film in particular, continually flaunt images of servitude as positive, normal activity--where the image of a streetwalker who happens not to be picked up by the infamous Green River murderer, but instead is pick up by a rich, debonair man who gives her a gold card and lets her shop on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, a current day Cinderella story. Likewise, a handsome, white-haired gentleman offers a million dollars to an economically challenged husband so he can spend a weekend with his wife. At a major Hollywood award presentation that showcased the agony of a black pimp having to pay his rent, the song is sung by one of his stable girls while a bevy of scantily clad black women parade in front of a nearly all-white audience who applaud this imagery of a classic Master/slave relationship.
"In the United States and United Kingdom, alone, there are at least seven manufactures of what could only be called human pet cages, and that does not include the major suppliers of cages and cells for traditional incarceration. Whether be made for novelty, bondage or sexual usage, they can cost upwards of hundreds to thousands of dollars. The cage used in The Pet, for instance, was bought from a major supplier for just under two-thousand dollars. The supplier has a patent pending on the design.
"[Gor] has a website offering membership in human pet clubs, human puppy clubs, male dog pounds, pony clubs, run by and for men and women. Online advertisements offer training and housing for keeping these human pets while other personal ads ask to be trained. Sometimes this leads to tragedy. For instance a dotting, kindly 60-year-old grandfather, John Robertson, using the screen name of Slave Master, lead a string of gullible, young, college educated women in online chatrooms and charmed them into becoming his sex slaves. On his 60-acre property in Kansas, police made the grisly discovery of five of his six to eight victims. Three more bodies were later found in a storage bin in Missouri. He was convicted and sentenced to die. An online auction site offers males, females, transgenders for sale or rent. All are supposedly consensual. Payments can be made through PayPal, and transportation arrangements can be negotiated. Over 80,000 slaves are listed in the slave registry, many with brandings, markings or bar-codes. Their weights, sizes, measurements, from ankles to neck, to their height or what kind of training or special skills they may have.
"The Pet is, on one hand, a dramatization of the research and [suspicions], the interviews, the understanding of what constitutes slavery, and why the acceptance of it can seem so normal. Like in Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, the lifestyle seems to be just below the surface. Like Lars von Trier's dramatization of Dogville and Manderlay, slavery is a mindset that [defines] us only when it is illuminated, otherwise it seems content to hide in the shadows.
"The cast and crew of The Pet worked out questions, [are] devoted, dedicated professionals who brought inspiration, cooperation and trust to the project. The aid and support of filmmakers I have worked with in the past lended their generosity, help, wisdom in bringing this vision to the screen. The producers, Jeannie Neill, who first saw the vision, to producers Strath and Marcy Hamilton, who saw it through the final completion, The Pet means to inform, question, almost as much to entertain. It is meant to bridge an understanding as to open dialogue about the concept of power and dominance."
And that's the writer/director's movie commentary in its entirety. The Pet is meant to "open dialogue about the concept of power and dominance," he says. What about surrender and submission? Stevens doesn't even consider that side of the equation--except that people surrender to slavery only when "forced or tricked." He mentions "consensual" slavery only once but qualifies it as "supposedly consensual." Where is his understanding or his slightest recognition of the natural callings within us, the beautiful complements of dominance and submission, mastery and slavery, that make us wholly what we are, letting us live fully as what we are? He appears to have no such understanding nor does he acknowledge any such recognition.
He appears to be a man on a mission to defeat slavery in every form. Within the limits of his understanding, I even commend him for that. No doubt, he saw some pretty creepy things when he did his online "research." However, based on his own commentary, he came away without even the most superficial understanding of the lifestyle that we embrace--or at least that I embrace--and The Pet represents nothing positive about the lifestyle at all. Yes, there may be some titillating clips and stills sprinkled throughout, but based on the writer/director's own views on the subject, they seem only to exist in order to later rip them apart with a "That's not how it is!" Given what I've observed, it seems impossible to me that the plot and theme can be anything positive to anyone who truly embraces the lifestyle.
I wish all well,
Patrick
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