Biß Spader.

Lately (now less than lately, but I wrote this a while ago and I didn't notice it didn't get posted - you can tell I don't update a lot) I have noticed that women are quite fond of the movie Secretary.

Part of the current Zeitgeist seems to be the feeling that it is consonant with the ideals of feminism for women to actively express their sexual desires and impulses, even when the content of these impulses is essentially anti-feminist, as in the desire of the protagonist of the film Secretary to be sexually dominated and humiliated by her boss.

The film's relationship to feminism is fairly complex, even omitting that feminism itself is a complex body of thought under which many contradictory conclusions can be justified. It is, however, difficult to find a reading of the film that does not have it as chiefly a male control fantasy. It is necessary for a non-sexist interpretation to stipulate that the content or character of the protagonist's sexual fantasies is immaterial to the plot, but that the fact of her active pursuit of their realization is central. It is ironically the male party who, although notionally dominant during the sex act, is essentially the passive object of desire, and this inversion is central to the movie's feminism.

I can understand that, even as I assert that the inversion of stereotypes as a plot device typically only serves to reinforce those stereotypes, and that even progressive depictions of female sexuality, in the broader context of Western culture, which is not itself progressive on those issues, are interpreted principally in a retrogressive way, and will simply constitute another image confirming the normal female stereotype. That is, in the morass of popular culture, which interrogates cultural objects minimally and only in terms of itself, Secretary is only a film about a mousy girl who wants to be humiliated.

What I don't get about it is that when the women who cite it as a favorite explain why, they tend to bring up their identification with the protagonist's sexual desires. To shift out of academese, the movie seems mainly to appeal to women because they want the James Spader character to humiliate and fuck them.

James Spader's sex appeal sort of confuses me on some level. Sure, I get the whole aesthetic, rheumy-eyed degenerate thing he rocks in his typical roles. But have you ever met a gay man who fantasizes about being turned out by Rip from Less Than Zero, let alone become aware of it as a minor cultural phenomenon like the Secretary thing? I thought not.

The thing is, I don't understand why women would want this particular James Spader character to bend them over a desk. As a dead-languages professional, I would prefer that women focus on the prospect of fucking Dr. Daniel Jackson from Stargate.

A woman with whom I discussed the Secretary issue surmised (semiseriously) that my incomprehension was precisely because I couldn't identify with the female protagonist on the matter. However, I submit that I really can't identify with the James Spader character, either:

Of all the things I could think to do to Maggie Gyllenhaal, pushing her nose into an earthworm is not one of them.

This leaves me the Jeremy Davies character as the character with which I am able to identify, and to do so would probably require that I admit to some things about myself that I'd really rather not admit to right now.

There is also the Oedipal problem that the movie, and its fandom, poses to me: My dad is himself a repressed, domineering attorney in private practice. This means that the women of the audience, in desiring him sexually, are evidently of a similar mind to my mother. And honestly, the last fucking thing that I want is to get with a girl who reminds me of my mother.

In closing: If you are a woman in your mid to late 20s who hated Secretary, get in touch.