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Non-Sexy Sexuality

posted 5 years ago by ecarle (14979)
8 replies | jump to latest

One thing that "Molly's Game" puts across is how attractive women with a certain amount of power can be sexy without being sex-UAL.

Jessica Chastain as Molly eventually knows how to "dress for success" woman-wise: tight breast dresses, with stylish sexy make-up.

And yet, for the men all around her in her poker games, she's a "look but don't touch" proposition. And she refuses to date any of them -- rich though many of them are.

Its the same with the group of Playmates and models she hires to serve at her games(and even to deal at them.)

Molly's Game is about a lot of things, but I rather like how it puts it on the line: women have a certain sexual power that they can deploy and withdraw at will. (The male audience FOR Molly's Game is put rather in the same position as the men on screen: look, but don't touch. Or even IMAGINE getting to touch.)

But: I don't think we ever see Molly with a date, let alone a boyfriend, let alone a husband. And at the end of the film, she seems to be missing human empathy...

[–] Artisan (3464) 4 years ago

Men are used to having these types of rules and restrictions. Go to a strip club and you have men practically sitting on their hands while they watch naked women. Go to a strip club where women watch male strippers and watch the women do anything they like.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Ha, yes. True.

I suppose for the men in Molly's Game, simply to be around such beautiful women and to be able to talk to them without being blown off...was enough.

The actor Robert Wagner in his autobio, noted that he found gorgeous Hollywood women to be quite boring in bed. They had no eagerness to please their partner, no real enthusiasm. Wagner wrote: "They're gorgeous. They know it. You know it. They know you know it." So it was rather going through the motions.

So better to just look and talk and not touch. Leave the true physical intimacy to women "in your league."

[–] Artisan (3464) 4 years ago

I actually find it hard to believe that in reality these women weren't prostituting themselves whether it be with the real Molly's knowledge or otherwise. In the movie we are meant to see Molly as a victim who overcomes the "tragedy" of not being able to continue in her chosen sport.

If the women weren't there for more than just eye candy than really why were they there at all?

The men were wealthy so regardless of what they looked like they were very much in the same league as the young hotties!

Same with the women Wagner was talking about, for those women it was just a transaction they were hoping for something and it was a different era where women weren't meant to be into sex. And it's possible that Wagner may not have been a good lover or generous with the money and gifts?

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I actually find it hard to believe that in reality these women weren't prostituting themselves whether it be with the real Molly's knowledge or otherwise.
If the women weren't there for more than just eye candy than really why were they there at all?

The men were wealthy so regardless of what they looked like they were very much in the same league as the young hotties!

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Oh, I suppose it is entirely possible that the hired women serviced the very, very rich men. Happens all the time. But the movie seemed to keep Molly separate and apart from that. And it elected never to take up whether or not the beautiful women were being used "that way." Another topic, another time, iguess.

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Same with the women Wagner was talking about, for those women it was just a transaction they were hoping for something and it was a different era where women weren't meant to be into sex. And it's possible that Wagner may not have been a good lover or generous with the money and gifts?

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All possible there, too. Robert Wagner has had any number of things happen to him and said about him, I don't know what's true about him or about what he says in the book. I will say: it made sense to me. The idea that a woman who is so beautiful that she just doesn't see much point in needing to do anything more sexually for a man than BE beautiful...

And one sort of gets that vibe from Molly and the ladies in Molly's Game.

[–] Artisan (3464) 4 years ago

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

That was one of my problems with the film. They portray Molly as some kind of victim who due to her elite athlete status just can't be a regular person and go to college, get a job etc. She deserves more so to speak and after some questionable decisions starts running the gambling house. It would have been unacceptable for most people if she was shown also facilitating prostitution in some way.

The whole film is weird like that, trying to be feel good without ever really delving beneath the surface.

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I really liked "Molly's Game" but as often with Aaron Sorkin scripts, I DID feel like there was a lot of stressing and straining to turn a somewhat unlikeable person who did somewhat unscrupulous things -- into a victim and heroine.

But it worked. As usual with "inspired by a true story" movies, we don't know(well, I don't know) if some unsavory details of Molly's life were left out -- did she actually use sex to advance herself? Did those other women she hired use sex? And just how crooked (eventually) were her poker games? It is suggested: enough to merit prosecution.

The movie goes another way: titillating us with the unattainable beauty of Molly and her women on the one hand, while titillating us with the whys and hows of high stakes poker on the other.

And there is certainly a feminist angle to how not one, but two drippy men in succession , set out to ruin her career, wreck her poker games, and cast her aside. I am thinking of her first boss -- one of those LA bullies you usually find at the movie studios -- and "Player Z" , the entitled young movie star.

The movie also asks us to consider people who often embarrass us, and put us down in real life: the super high achievers who HAVE to excel: Molly and her brothers, as under the hard, mean and borderline abusive fathering of Kevin Costner(in his late blooming Character Guy phase.) We're meant to feel sorry for Molly because this father pushed her so very, very hard, and so mercilessly.

[–] kwestmo (4385) 2 years ago

Clark Gable said something similar. I don't recall the exact quote, but he preferred plain women as sexual partners.

[–] moviechatterer (15606) 7 months ago

this is the rich mans dilemna of women marrying for money, regardless of how attractive they are.

basicly they didnt fancy robert and were probly wild in bed with their real boyfriends , or the gardener , behind his back