Thinking through moments of sexual refusal in Looking for Alibrandi and The Rage in Placid Lake

Abstract

This paper explores two scenarios in which young women refuse the sexual advances of young men in the films Looking for Alibrandi and The Rage in Placid Lake. The paper highlights the heteronormative nature of education around refusing sex, which reinstates gendered stereotypes of masculine as active and feminine as passive. Acknowledging sex education literature over the past ten years which has highlighted that ambiguity, confusion and uncertainty are often absent in the teaching of sex education, the paper examines key moments in films and the feelings they convey, suggesting that such instances offer significant potential for building young people’s affective sexual literacies. By exploring and critiquing the justifications for sex given by the young men, and by considering the Catholic Josie in Looking for Alibrandi alongside the secular Gemma in The Rage in Placid Lake, the multiplicity of reasons for young women’s decisions to abstain from sex are highlighted. Noting the absence of ethical engagements in such moments, it is suggested that thinking through them may be beneficial in enabling conversations regarding negotiation in sexual encounters.

Keywords:

• Film
• teenagers
• heteronormativity
• feelings
• sexuality education

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Chantal Bourgault, Alison Bartlett and Jessica Taylor for their comments on earlier versions of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. On this, see also Gilbert’s discussion of a classroom screening of Y Tu Mamá También noting that ‘[y]ou can invite gayness into the classroom, but you cannot anticipate what will arrive’ (2006, 32–33).

2. At the beginning of the film, Josie tells viewers of the curse that has haunted her family, a curse which Josie has been told was brought with her conception outside wedlock and subsequent birth. As the film progresses, viewers find that this curse began with Katia’s guilt at her own infidelity and her inability to leave her abusive Italian husband for her Australian lover, hoping to not subject her daughter, Christina, to racism from both Australian and Italian communities.