A new movie about older women, sexual desire and sex tourism is making some waves.
While teenagers bought popcorn by the ton on their way into “Pirates of the Caribbean’’ last week, and fashion addicts clawed into “The Devil Wears Prada,’’ a different crowd lined up for a movie playing at two Manhattan art houses: “Heading South,’’ about older single women visiting 1970’s Haiti in a female version of sex tourism.
The women in the film, in their late 40’s and 50’s, are spending a vacation at a resort where impoverished local beach boys serve as holiday gigolos. The teenagers devote themselves to nourishing the women’s starved libidos in exchange for food, gifts and temporary refuge from the perils of the island’s repressive regime.
Where to start?
The myth of the asexual older woman? The fact that the international sex tourism industry disproportionately victimizes women and girls? The problems with presenting the sex industry in Haiti as a fun, How Stella Got Her Groove Back type situation?
A rave review by Stephen Holden in The New York Times called the movie “one of the most truthful examinations ever filmed of desire, age and youth.’’ Since it opened July 7, theaters have been packed with women about the same age as the ones on the screen. Some bought tickets in groups for a kind of middle-aged girls’ night out. Interviews indicated the movie has hit home with this audience because it affirms the sexual reality of women of a certain age, that even as they pass the prime of their desirability to men, libidos smolder. More than a few said they came seeking a hot night out.
“The whole notion of women’s sexuality fading away has disappeared,’’ said Marjorie Solovay, 63, a retired schoolteacher in Manhattan, after seeing “Heading South’’ on Wednesday. “Women’s sexuality carries on.’’
The erasing of older women is indeed a problem. The idea that women lose their sex drives as they age is a poisonous myth, and reaffirms the idea that women are primarily valued in their roles as sex objects and reproducers; once they’re past the point where they can physically reproduce, and once they’ve gotten to the age where society no longer considers them sexy, they’re invisible. I’m happy to see any movie challenging this idea.
But.
Instead of passively drifting into a future of unwilled celibacy, however, Ellen and the other American women seek satisfaction in exotic places. A few viewers were put off by such desperate measures — with their implication of the exploitation of the black Haitian teenagers — and by the neediness of the women. But others supported the film’s message that a woman has a right to seek pleasure where she can find it.
“Single older women need to find a place to have sex,’’ said one filmgoer in her late 50’s who lives on the East Side but did not want to give her name. “If you’re at this point in your life, and you have needs, and you can make yourself feel good or whole, go for it, so long as you don’t hurt anyone.’’
And there’s the problem — sex tourism hurts people.
Yes, women have a right to seek pleasure where we can find it, and we have a right to seek pleasure at any age. But we do not have the right to compromise the bodily integrity and the human rights of others in that quest for pleasure.
Being in Greece, I obviously haven’t seen the movie (has anyone? Thoughts?). And from this article, it seems that it may be slightly more complex:
By revealing the emotional tug between the characters, the movie ultimately disavows its premise that women can enjoy sex without love. Audience members who bought tickets expecting an erotic romp were surprised as the movie became a layered exploration of class, race, romantic complexity and the Haitian politics of the Jean-Claude Duvalier 70’s.
Of course, it’s always a little groan-worthy when movies about female sexuality end with the finger-wagging message of, “Remember, you cannot have sex that is just sex.” But at least the filmmakers took other issues into account, and didn’t present the sex industry as a fun job for teenage hotties and older Americans looking to get laid.
However, I’m a little sick of these man-bites-dog movies which ignore the reality of dire situations. Are there men selling sex in Haiti? Yes. And some of those men sell sex to women. But the purchasers of sex are overwhelmingly male. Sometimes they purchase boys, but usually they purchase girls. Girls and women around the world are routinely sold into sexual slavery, trafficked, and forced into prostitution. Girls and women around the world “voluntarily” sell their bodies to rich foreigners as their only way to feed their families and put a roof over their heads, or as a way to tempt foreign men to marry them so that they can find a better life. These girls and women are from poor nations. They have few prospects. And the people who purchase these human beings are among the lowest lifeforms on Earth.
So yes, let’s remember that older women are still sexual beings. But in doing so, let’s not minimize so many other problems.
Rather than focusing on the what the film says about the women involved (which may or may not be interesting, not having seen it yet), I do think it’s a positive thing to portray male sex workers and female sex tourists. Traditionally the roles are reversed as you point out, but I think that makes it even more important to call attention to the exceptions. Most sex tourists are men, and we often forget that women can be sex tourists too. Similarly, most sex workers are female, and we don’t think of men as being exploited sexually. It doesn’t diminish the reality of the majority of situations but it shows that exploitation of human capital is a universal issue. There have been recent films about the female sex trade and I don’t think it’s wrong to focus on the other side of the issue for two hours. And if it really is “a layered exploration of class, race, romantic complexity and the Haitian politics,” it sounds like there is quite a bit more to the film than the gender issue.
coincidence!! yesterday i came across another doc that deals with the same issue,this time in jamaica.
rent a rasta
i haven’t seen it, but,i find interesting that they touch the subject,kind of forgoten by society.
i agree with your analysis of it,and it reminds me to so many problems created by explotation.and the fact that the exploited can find easy justification to exploit others.i find that to be a factor on racism between latinos and blacks in usa. the israel-palestine issue and some others.
regarding the sexuality of older women,it seem that we are educated to believe that once a woman is not desirable by most men her libido must die.kind of assuming that men’s desire is what fuels women sexual drive.maybe we should listen to those women to understand better.
I went to the movie with high hopes, and was ultimately let down. It perpetuates the idea that you can’t have sex without love, as each woman sort of has her “own boy,” which is where the conflict between the women arises. We don’t really get the point of view of the sex worker, Legba, despite getting first-person POV scenes from the three older women. There is a side plot with one of Legba’s female friends, but it’s never fully explored and just raises more questions than it answers. It’s not so much a glorious feminist film about sexual liberation as much as a film about how the (wo)Man keeps everybody down.
Interesting. I haven’t seen this movie, but I’m curious that they named the sex worker Legba, the trickster god, often represented as the devil by those outside the religious practice involving orishas/orixas. Exu/Elegua will do things for you, but he is by no means at anyone’s beck and call, and generally exacts a price. I wonder if viewers are getting the whole subtext. Or, if the filmakers even realized.
I would like to echo Casey’s comments here. I went to see the film last week with Big Sis and Mr. Gordo and at the end we were a bit deflated. As the particular gay men we are, we didn’t go to see the film for the affirmation of older women’s sexuality (which we all, through personal history and experience, pretty much take for granted), but for the race-class-colonialism dynamic that struck us as potentially intriguing.
The collapse of sex tourism into “love” at the end is deeeply disappointing (the worst part of the film, IMHO), and seems very heavy-handed, as if the film needs to say, explicitly, women aren’t purely sexual creatures– they’re still doing it for love, in the end. How tiresome. As Casey notes above, the film features three direct address soliloquies from the women principles, and a strange deflected one from the older Haitian concierge (unlike the women, he does not speak directly to the camera, but rather has a voice-over narration which was interesting in its political implications). The lack of a direct address/voice over sequence with Legba or any of the other Haitian male “hustlers” hurts the film, I think, since the direct address already crafts the film as film, distinct from unconscious dramatic narration.
Not sure about the audience, other than it was crowded with lots of different people (women, men, multi-racial, polygenerational). The Times piece is funny, as all NYT pieces are, in its elision of the ramifications of subject matter on the well-heeled artsy-fartsy cinema goers (the film is too intellectual to have much appeal outside of this viewing demographic). The politics of race and sex are present, but muted, as they no doubt are for the cinema goers. Polemic doesn’t go over big as “art,” but this film could have used a sharper edge to illuminate its conundrums, I think.
In the end, I found the film’s lack of explicit introspection on sex trade and robust women’s sexuality to be disappointing, although my project may indeed be different from the director’s, I admit, and if I were to be (more) generous in my reading, I would say Cantet’s critique is present in Brenda’s final sequence, on a boat seeking further, creepy adventures in the sexual tropics. Worth seeing, but as with most things, problematic and incomplete.
Leave it to Hollywood. When they finally made a movie about sexual harassment, they made “Disclosure”– about a female boss, played by Demi Moore, harassing a male subordinate.
And now, they make a movie about sex tourism, and its women going down to Haiti to rejuvenate their sex lives.
Dilan, while your critique of Hollywood might not be so far off the mark, Heading South isn’t a Hollywood production by any means. It was directed by a French filmmaker and distributed by a small independent distributor. As far as movies about sexual harassment go, you should watch Neil LaBute’s In the Company of Men (1997), which focuses on male sexual harassment (of both men and women) and offers a much better portrayal of reality (if a bit exaggerated). It was released three years following Disclosure, but it’s better than nothing at all.
Here is Feministe’s Jill on female sex-tourists, beating me to the punch…