“Shortbus” is a 2006 American erotic comedy-drama film written and directed by John Cameron Mitchell (“Hedwig and the Angry Inch”). The plot revolves around a sexually diverse ensemble of colorful characters trying desperately to connect in New York City. The characters converge in a weekly Brooklyn artistic/sexual salon loosely inspired by various underground NYC gatherings that took place in the early 2000s. According to Mitchell, the film attempts to “employ sex in new cinematic ways because it’s too interesting to leave to porn.” Shortbus includes a variety of explicit scenes containing non-simulated sexual intercourse with visible penetration and male ejaculation.
“In the old days, when you couldn’t show sex on film, directors like Hitchcock had metaphors for sex (trains going into tunnels, etc). When you can show more realistic sex, the sex itself can be a metaphor for other parts of the character’s lives. The way people express themselves sexually can tell you a lot about who they are. Some people ask me, ‘Couldn’t you have told the same story without the explicitness?’. They don’t ask whether I could’ve done Hedwig without the songs. Why not be allowed to use every paint in the paintbox?” – John Cameron Mitchell
I bought this movie when it was a new release on DVD. I was familiar with Mitchell’s previous work and I’d read about the unique process by which this film was created, all of which interested me. But what I didn’t expect was how much I’d enjoy it beyond all of the hype. People have been putting graphic sex on film for a long time, but such stories aren’t necessarily about anything that interests me; while there were a few moments in the film that I felt were a bit off or too over-the-top, most of it really connected with me and those other elements have grown on me over time. I love the soundtrack and all the fun visuals; the imagery of NYC as some kind of wonderland. It’s endearing, funny, sexy and approaches revelation. What’s not to love about that?
Some have branded the film “pornographic”. In response, Mitchell says that the dictionary defines porn as “material created and viewed for the primary purpose of sexual arousal,” and argues that the sex in the film is often purposefully “de-eroticized” to “remove the cloud of arousal to reveal emotions and ideas that might have been obscured by it”: “Sex, like music, is a universal language. We want to use it to introduce character, evoke emotion, propel the plot.”
Lou Lumenick from the New York Post wrote “Mitchell’s adventurous, big-hearted, pansexual mosaic of New Yorkers looking for love and orgasms (not necessarily in that order), is a rare example of a nonporn film that doesn’t exploit graphic sex as a gimmick.” Peter Travers from Rolling Stone commented “If there is such a thing as hard-core with a soft heart, this is it.”
Love this movie.