Saturday, December 19, 2015

PRETTY PERSUASION (2005): A 14-Year-Old Gets Her Fudge Chute Packed

The tagline for Pretty Persuasion (2005) is "Revenge knows no mercy" and fifteen-year-old Roxbury high school sophomore Kimberly Joyce (Evan Rachel Wood) shows no mercy in getting revenge on her best friend Brittany for stealing her boyfriend while Kimberly simultaneously "sleeps" her way to the top of her young acting career:

1. Kimberly received oral from her teen boyfriend

2. She revealed during a sleepover with two other nymphets while smoking her father's cigars and watching his porn that she had anal sex when she was fourteen after Warren Prescott asked shyly, "I was wondering if you might let me pack your fudge chute." 

3. Kimberly performed oral sex on the son of a powerful Jewish lawyer

4. And she blackmailed a television reporter by videotaping her while she was "munching [Kimberly's] underage rug".

Wikipedia's plot summary "Pretty Persuasion is a 2005 American black comedy/satirical film about a 15-year-old schoolgirl who makes an allegation of sexual harassment against her drama teacher [Mr. Anderson]" and IMDB's plot summary "A 15-year-old girl incites chaos among her friends and a media frenzy when she accuses her drama teacher of sexual harassment", incorrectly implies that the main plot of film is the false accusation of sexual harassment against the English\drama teacher, but that was all part of Kimberly's plan to get revenge on Brittany and get a role on a popular television show. 

However, high school teachers may heed the advice that Mr. Anderson's colleague shared with him about high school nymphets that, "...high school is cock teasing 101..."

Despite its salacious teen content, Pretty Persuasion was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, but won the German Independence Award/Audience Award at the 2005 Oldenburg International Film Festival.

Update: It appears that my video clips were removed. The fudge chute scene begins at about the 4:00 minute mark in the clip below:

Sunday, December 6, 2015

Balthus at the Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome

Balthus via Scuderie del Quirinale

There is a major monographic Balthasar Klossowski de Role (Balthus) exhibition at the Scuderie del Quirinale and Villa Medici in Rome. 

The Balthus (1908–2001) exhibition will run until January 31, 2016 and was curated by Cécile Debray who is the curator of the Musée National d'Art Moderne. 

The split exhibition contains almost two hundred photographs, drawings and paintings that were culled from European and American museums and private collections. 

We profiled Balthus in a previous post, and we discussed the art versus child pornography debate as it pertains to the artist.
Balthus by Gabriele Malaguti via Purple Magazine

Saturday, December 5, 2015

Paula Vogel's HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE: A Nymphet's Affair with her Uncle

A Play by Paula Vogel

Paula Vogel's How I Learned to Drive is about "well-endowed" Li'l Bit's affair with her aunt's husband - Uncle Peck. The affair began when Li'l Bit was eleven while Uncle Peck was giving her a driving lesson. However, the opening act was set in 1969 while seventeen-year-old Li'l Bit and Uncle Peck sat "In a parking lot overlooking the Beltville Agricultural Farms in suburban Maryland," while Uncle Peck massaged and kissed Li'l Bit's "well-endowed" fountains

Vogel incorrectly uses the term pedophilia in the play. For example, Li'l Bit said, "Even with my family background, I was sixteen or so before I realized that pedophilia did not mean people who loved to bicycle..." However, since the affair began when Li'l Bit was eleven, Uncle Peck would more accurately be labeled a hebephile. 

Interestingly, Li'l Bit's grandmother was a "grown-up" fourteen-year-old when she married. "It was legal, what Daddy and I did! I was fourteen and in those days, fourteen was a grown-up woman..." And Li'l Bit shared a Mary Jane joke:

"Little Mary Jane is walking through the woods, when all of a sudden this man who was hiding behind a tree jumps out, rips open Mary Jane's blouse, and plunges his hands on her breast. And Little Mary Jane just laughed and laughed because she knew her money was in her shoes."

In age-discrepant affairs, the hebephiles\ephebophiles are often accused by commoners of taking advantage of innocent nymphets; however, Aunt Mary blamed Li'l Bit.

"And I want to say this about my niece. She's a sly one, that one is. She knows exactly what she's doing; she's twisted Peck around her little finger and thinks it's all a big secret...Well. I'm counting the days until she goes away to school." 

The affair ended after Li'l Bit matriculated into a "fancy" college and Uncle Peck committed a seduction faux pas by becoming needy, not letting Li'l Bit advance the affair and showering her with unwanted gifts e.g., "You've only been away two days and it feels like months." "I'm sending you a tape cassette - it's a new model..." "A bouquet of roses." "A box of chocolates." "'s a book in return: Liaisons Dangereuses."

Ultimately, Li'l Bit shared "...I got kicked out of that fancy school in 1970. Some say I got caught with a man in my room. Some say as a kid on scholarship I fooled around with a rich man's daughter [i.e., lipstick lesbianism]." And Uncle Peck succumbed to alcoholism. 

How I Learned to Drive premiered off-Broadway in 1997 at the Vineyard Theater and Vogel received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama the following year.  

A University of North Carolina Chapel Hill's Lab! Theatre Production