The Ontological War

Ontologically, Sex, Lies, and Videotape is interesting for two main reasons. The first is that the two main characters, Ann and Graham, are both ontologically sensitive and insightful, and the second is that the movie shows Ann’s ontological growth over a period of time.

Other movies may have one of their characters express an ontological emotion or thought, but in these movies the characters’ ontological expressions are usually more isolated events than extended examinations of people who are committed to increasing their degrees of realself. Graham has spent the last nine years of his life on his ontological journey, and Ann begins her journey at the beginning of the movie.

Ann’s ontological journey is much more interesting because she keeps making progress throughout the movie—she is definitely more her realself at the end of the movie than she is at the beginning.

But not every incident in Ann’s life moves her forward. She senses Graham’s realself within him from the first day or two after meeting him, and she responds to that self and to him from her own nascent realself.

She develops an ontologically trusting feeling for him, and one day she happily goes to visit him. She says “Hi!” on first seeing him, and after seeing that he has videos she asks in a friendly and flirty tone, “Can we watch one?” But her thoughts and feelings about him change as she hears more about the videos:

Graham: It’s open!

Ann: Hi!

Graham: Hello, Ann.

Ann: I hope I’m not botherin’ you.

Graham: No, no.

Ann: I would’ve phoned. You busy?

Graham: No, no. I can finish later.

Ann: I just wanted to see what the apartment looked like with furniture.

Graham: Yeah, well, I’m afraid there’s not much to see. I’m sort of cultivating this minimalist vibe.

Ann: You could use a bookshelf.

Graham: Yeah? Yeah, you think so? They’re … you know, they’re all library books.

Ann: What are these?

Graham: Uh, those are videotapes.

Ann: I can see that. Of what?

Graham: It’s a personal project I’ve been workin’ on.

Ann: What kind of personal project?

Graham: What?

Ann: What kind of personal project?

Graham: Uh, a personal project like anyone else’s personal project. Mine’s just a little more … personal, I guess.

Ann: Who’s Donna?

Graham: What?

Ann: Donna. It says “Donna” here on the tape.

Graham: Donna was a girl I knew in Florida.

Ann: Oh, you went out with her?

Graham: No, not really.

Ann: Why do these tapes all have women’s names on ’em?

Graham: Well, I enjoy interviewing women more than men.

Graham: It’s iced tea.

Ann: Thanks.

Graham: I’m sorry, do you want some lemon?

Ann: No, this is perfect.

Ann: So, all of these are … are interviews, huh?

Graham: Uh, yes.

Ann: Can we watch one?

Graham: No, I’d … No.

Ann: Why not?

Graham: Well, I promised each of the subjects that no one would see the videotapes except for me.

Ann: What are the interviews about?

Graham: The interviews are about sex.

Ann: Sex? What about sex?

Graham: Uh, everything about sex.

Ann: Like what?

Graham: What they’ve done, what they do, what they want to do but are afraid to ask for, what they wouldn’t do even if asked. Anything I can think of. Oh, your ice.

Ann: You just ask them questions?

Graham: Yes.

Ann: And they answer ’em?

Graham: Yeah. Uh … Mostly. Sometimes they do things.

Ann: To you?

Graham: No, uh … for the camera.

Ann: Graham, this is just so …

Graham: I’m sorry this came up.

Ann: No, I’m sorry.

Graham: I’m sorry this came up, and …

Ann: I’m … I’m gonna go.

Graham: Here, I’ll take it.

Ann: OK. Yeah. All right.

Graham: Bye.

Throughout the movie Ann moves forward toward realself-to-realself sex, but even though she does doesn’t mean that she still doesn’t have many negative and conflicting ideas about sex. She likes realself-to-realself sex more as she becomes more aware of it, but this video kind of sex, or what she thinks is this kind of sex, is not that kind of sex. Are the videos voyeuristic? Perverted? Pornographic? She feels a realself-to-realself connection with Graham, but now she knows he has videos of other women, lots of other women, and some of them are doing things sexual on the videos.

Ann soon leaves, stunned ontologically: “Graham, this is just so … .” Probably the main reason she is stunned is that she feels she opened her ego boundary to him, to her realself, and she now feels that he has betrayed that self in some way. As she walks out the door, she has shut her realself off to him.

Number 12 in the Sex, Lies, and Videotape series. All the posts in this series are listed in the All the Series’ Posts page.