Mothers and sons - Hard Candy - 2012
I am not the first to raise the flag that, for some time now, the adult film industry has been overly working the older and younger theme. By one side, it reinforces the stereotypical stigma of older women preying on younger man; by the other, it depicts sexual acts embedded with doctrinal intentions, restoring the archetypes around the Freudian identification of the mother figure as focus for libido in a primary Oedipal stage. Some productions even seem to promote the objectification of older women by transforming them into nearly abused bodies. The whole concept of age-difference based sex seems to feed off of these three axioms, perpetually framing the paradigm of older women and younger men into one of these categories, thus preventing female agency to be regarded as simple sexual expression. Until now. Hard Candy’s new release “Mothers & Sons” casts a new light over some aspects of older and younger relationships portrayed by the adult film industry. It clearly states the leitmotif of the film in the title, leaving no doubt it is a production which will deal, once more, with this worn-out theme. However, it initiates a discussion on the real importance of drawing attention to the age difference between performers regardless of the imaginary of the film.
Dubbed “The Mom He Never Had”, the first part of the film introduces us to Johnny (Johnny Castle), a med student who rents a bedroom at Tara’s (played by Tara Holiday) in order to be closer to school. The immediate juxtaposition of motherly figures happens to Johnny when he contra poses Tara’s and Veronica’s parenting styles; Tara, by her turn, seems at first to perceive the young man as another son rather than a possible male partner. It is only when Johnny takes over some “male” tasks that he is regarded as a potential partner by Tara – even his discourse resembles one of a more mature man, especially when he congratulates her for “raising Seth right”. It is in this atmosphere of cumplicity and sexual interest that the first sex scene takes place, and it is constructed towards this more romantic approach, with Holiday acting as equal to Castle and not taking a dom nor sub role.
Meanwhile, Johnny’s mother (Veronica Avluv) pays a visit to her son’s new bedroom escorted by Seth (Seth Gamble), Tara’s son, while both Johnny and Tara are out. The set-up is complete. Nonetheless, the seduction scene takes a different direction this time: preceded by Johnny’s comment on his mother’s young age, Avluv and Gamble’s encounter restores Mrs. Robinson/Benjamin Braddock’s duet, although being operated cooperatively and not unilaterally. That is to say that, as it happens in the other scene, there is no positioning of the female character as either superior or inferior to the male counterpart. Instead, she is seduced by Gamble as a result of sexual attraction and not the generational differences in terms of conceptualizing femininity or masculinity (MAN, 1994), placing her outside the old-young paradigm established by the title.
The second part of the film, “Hot Mom Swap”, already hints in its title a more open, less romantic approach to the set ups. Erica’s (Erica Lauren) son Richie (Richie Deville) has just arrived from Spain after reconnecting with an absent father, leaving his mother feeling abandoned. His best friend, Michael (Michael Vegas) takes Erica’s side while his own mother, Nina (Nina Hartley) encourages Richie’s attitude. The swap happens not over sexual interest, but as a result of family affairs and ways to approach life, eliminating any reference to planned agreements between the two men or the women.
The sex scene between Erica Lauren and Michael Vegas might be the only one which hints at those stereotypical set ups between older women and younger men, with Michael admitting to having had a crush on Erica for a long time, sketching a young boy’s fantasy tone to the whole structure of the scene. However, the scene does not take this direction to its fullest, leaving the audience not knowing who it is about in the end, opposite to what happens in the Nina Hartley and Richie Deville’s scene. In this last one, although Hartley hints at her intention of seducing Deville, it is him who initiates the seduction, and it becomes clear we are watching a case of female sexuality being celebrated and worshipped by a younger man who, by his turn, wants to prove to himself that he knows what he is doing. Hartley’s character is, as Schwartz poses, “the idea of a woman who is sexually knowledgeable and passionate”, something that is “very attractive to a lot of young men who are getting more hesitant interactions or conditional sexual access from younger women.” (SCHWARTZ, 2009) Again, the collateral construction of the sexual act leads to a scene in which sexuality is portrayed free of stereotypes and axioms, in its raw and simple way.
Noelle’s camera is open, direct, frank, aiming at details without being invasive. At some moments, it is even embedded with an amateur, voyeuristic look in what would be considered bad framing if decontextualized, but which only adds to the intimacy of the scene. Some obtuse angles are artistic, providing the viewers the same effect they would have if they were standing next to the bed. The pallete used by Noelle works in general, being better in some scenes than in others, but still assuring a quite harmonious coloring to all scenes. And, once again, lighting is one of the most elaborate technical aspects of the film, especially in the first half.
The dialogs that take place in both halves of the film are too full of double entendre, making them hard to be delivered in a non-caricatural way – exception made to Nina Hartley, who manages to work around her lines and give a more natural performance. While some level of complexity is to be expected to rightfully delineate the context in which things happen, lengthy dialogs not always prove to be better at explaining things than more economic language or non-linguistic methods. Although this is not something which harms the quality of the film, to a certain extent it does jeopardize the sexual tension which should “naturally” develop between the characters.
Noelle is able to portray May-December romances as background for intense sexual encounters which, in the end, do not really depend on age. It is not cougaring, it is not objectification, it is not pseudo-incest: it is sex. And it is female centered while it does not minimize the importance of male counterparts, but rather points at the positive outcome of the experience: without turning women into tutors or feasts, but intense and deep as only mature female sexuality can be.
- Published July 06, 2012