24 June 2014

Touching

This film of people kissing for the first time made the rounds a while back:




There was some criticism that the film was disingenuous.

A response film, with a similar premise:




A response film, with a different premise:




Director Max Landis comments, as does Tabitha Davis at Geekexchange. (And he has a wickedly silly follow-up video.


Update: The filmmakers of the first video are back with a spicier version:




This inspired me to take another look at Landis' film, which comes packaged with a “making of” video and some other clips. The description on the YouTube page for the “making of” video rambles on at length, including a telling comment which I think informs both the first kiss video and its undressing sequel.

The Kiss video is beautiful, but it doesn't ask a big question. The “question” of the video seems to be “Do you want to kiss a sexy person who conforms to your preestablished sexual interests?” The answer, I would assume for most everyone, is “yes, I would like that very much, that sounds like it would get me all horned up.”

So what's the more interesting question? There've been a lot of imitators with variations on the original; I admit I haven't watched most of them. The majority were either fake for “internet comedy” or asked an even less interesting question, like “What if it were a REAL (meaning widely considered ugly) person?” “Will these straight people hug these gay people?” Stuff like that, usually loaded with false, contrived sincerity, something I find repellent.

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