New movies demonstrate prevalence of sex in city

  David Holmberg To find out if Holmberg
lives by George Michael’s lyrics, you can e-mail him at [email protected].
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It must be an East Coast thing. At least, that is the only
explanation that could make two of this summer’s New York
love dramedies understandable to us poor sexually-repressed West
Coasters.

Both “Fast Food, Fast Women” and “Sidewalks of
New York” are supposed to take realistic looks at the
complications of sex and love, but if these are what relationships
of sexual freedom are all about in the Big Apple, it is time to
pack my bags.

It’s all about sex. Sure, Hollywood has been telling us
this since the dawn of popular culture, albeit much to the dismay
of religious and right-wing groups. And this focus on sex makes
sense, too, since it is one of the three vital acts necessary for
the survival of human kind, the other two being breathing and
eating which admittedly have limited cinematic value.

Sex, therefore, is an important part of our culture that
warrants expression in artistic endeavors.

New York and Los Angeles are often considered to be the two
cultural capitals of the United States, so somewhere in between,
probably around Ohio, there has been a serious disruption in sexual
consciousness.

Here, on the West Coast, sex is something to be talked about and
thought about, and manifested not in action but in enticing and/or
revealing clothing, preferably leather.

There is nothing deficient in the sex drives of us West
Coasters, but let’s just say if the sexual energy gone wasted
could be harnessed, consider California’s power crisis
solved.

The New Yorkers, however, are walking the walk that, from our
limited view, is only an idealistic fantasy. To quote George
Michael’s clear-cut song “I Want Your Sex”, it is
apparent that “Sex is natural/Sex is good/Not everybody does
it/But everybody should.”

Oh, and those crazy East Coast dwellers do it with anybody, too.
That is, of course, if we believe everything we see in the
movies.

And why not believe these films? Only 18 million of the six
billion inhabitants of the world live in New York, so what do the
rest of us ignorant fools know about a city where people live in
boroughs and travel in underground tunnels? Sounds a lot like a
bunch of rabbits.

Well, that may be the answer to all the confusion about New
York. Rabbits are the self-proclaimed (if they could speak that is)
icons of free love. Therefore, rampant sex is understandable in a
city like that.

The evidence is about as obvious as George Michael’s
lyrics. In Amos Kollek’s “Fast Food, Fast Women,”
a 35-year-old waitress, Bella (Anna Thomson), is looking for love
in all the wrong places.

While unhappily sleeping with an older theater director, she
finds that elusive passion in the womanizing Bruno, played casually
by Jamie Harris, who also happens to be sleeping with various women
of all ages who find their way into his cab. First-date sex is
good, and is expected to be in this wonderfully alien world.

This could be passed off as a fantasy if Edward Burns’ new
comedy, “Sidewalks of New York,” was not waiting in the
next bedroom, begging for its turn. Arranged as a series of mock
interviews, we are led into the pants, I mean pains of three
ultimately intertwined relationships.

Heather Graham, Rosario Dawson, Dennis Farina and Stanley Tucci
all show up looking for some action, and pretty much all leave
satisfied. The number of sexual partners ranges from three to 500,
which is high by even “industry” standards.

In both films, everything about sex is discussed openly, from
affairs to placing cologne on that “special place.” It
is an expected and completely accepted part of relationships.

In addition to these two new films, a number of other New
York-based sex comedies prowl the shelves. Practically any Woody
Allen film, most notably “Annie Hall” and
“Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex,” is
New York-based and rooted deeply, very deeply in sexual farce.

And where would a column about East Coast sex be without
mentioning Sarah Jessica Parker’s popular “Sex in the
City”? Sex is the thing, and New York is the place to do
it.

Now, to talk about West Coast sex comedies. Well, there is, of
course … and then there is … Apparently, the number of West
Coast bedroom comedies are filmed in inverse proportion to the
rising tally of Madonna’s partners. In a strange way, this
lack of films about West Coast sex is expected, given the generally
repressed, or restrained depending on your inclination, attitude
towards it.

Sex here seems to be better in the abstract. There is no denying
the sheer volume of sexually suggestive billboards lining Sunset
Strip, but who is doing anything about it? Southern California is
the perfect embodiment of this superficial sexuality because it is
a culture based on fashion, style and overall appearance. If it is
below the surface, let it stay there. That is what the policeman
told me, anyway.

If art mirrors life, then it is time to take a long look at our
reflection. Taking morality out of the equation, it is a wise idea
to consider the potential effects of the sexual dismissal occurring
throughout the Western edge of the United States.

New Yorkers, the crazy bunny rabbits that they are, deal with
sex as the naturally understandable part of society that George
Michael would certainly approve of. Or maybe none of this exists,
and it is all just a fantasy created in the minds of misled
filmmakers. After all, they are only movies.