While there are some films that really ought to be seen on a theater screen I can’t often bring myself to spend money on overpriced Movie tickets. Last fall I relented and went to Gone Girl. The movie is coming around again through premium video services and is garnering awards. It’s a disturbing Film, effectively layering deceit in a murder frame concocted inside the facade of a marriage.

I strongly recommend against seeing the film, any positive reviews notwithstanding. The simulated sex is the most disturbing aspect of the film, and one which the critics hardly mention.

Lest this comment be simply dismissed in a culture that has come to see such things as normal, it is not an objection to artistic use of the human body. It is not about putting clothes on Michelangelo’s David or painting over Renaissance nudes. Or for that matter, “cleaning up” the nudity in movies like Schindler’s List and Amistad. None of these need any such attention. It is not even about sex as a major plot element. An affair and its fallout, after all, is a theme in Anna Karenina.

This is different.

In an earlier time this would have been restricted to peep shows in unmarked bookstores and sleazy theaters in bad parts of town. But graphic scenes have been a part of mainstream film for several decades now, under the banner of artistic freedom. In the past I’ve walked out of movies that contained them. The only constructive thing about sitting through this film was actually thinking about what was wrong with it.

A very telling Glamour Magazine quote was picked up by ABC News. In it the lead actress Rosamund Pike described rehearsing a Sex Scene with actor Neil Patrick Harris:

“It was very funny doing [rehearsals for our sex] scene. [Director David Fincher] left Neil and me alone on that set for like two hours to make sure we could do it. But when it’s just two of you, basically kind of [having sex] on a bed, it feels so inappropriate.”

It felt inappropriate because it was inappropriate.

In order to practice and act out the scene the actors are working inside of Boundaries that should only be crossed in private, within healthy adult relationships. The personal wreckage strewn about the film industry suggests that the ability to publicly* violate these boundaries might not be a sign of an emotionally healthy adult.

The scene in question ended in a murder that was concealed by what a Huffington Post writer described as “…a fake rape allegation in the hands of a sociopathic female…” So after herding the participants across their boundaries, the director then stands what we commonly understand about sexual violence on its head and assaults the audience with the whole package. It raises questions about the level of respect that David Fincher has for his viewers.

So what do we make of directors, writers, and producers that exploit intimate personal boundaries for money?

In another context they would be considered pimps. So what does that make me for paying money to see what they produce?

*The privatization of sex reaches way back in our social history. For a broad overview see Before The Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors (p. 168ff) / Nicholas Wade, Penguin Group US.