Introduction
Sleeping Beauty is a 2011 written and directed by Julia Leigh. It is the story of a female college student named Lucy that works various part-time jobs. She was approached to a job that involves serving upper-class gentleman in sexy lingerie, eventually settling for a new role wherein she is sedated and taken advantage of by elderly men on the grounds that there will be no sexual penetration involved. The film climaxes in the protagonist waking up from her sleep finding an old man dead of an overdose beside her.
Throughout the course of the film, the issue of sex and sexuality is touched upon by the characters of the show, particularly regarding the way they act and behave. As such, one way to analyze this film regarding the issue of sexual jobs underwent by the women in the film, as well as their physical appearances and demeanor. Lastly, particular characters can be examined according their perspectives on the issue of sex and sexuality, as evidenced by their actions and thoughts presented in the movie.
Lucy: Work and Circumstances
The film centers on Lucy and her part-time job and her erotic freelance work in the film. Before delving on the circumstances that prompt her to enter this kind of lifestyle, it may be helpful to characterize her first. Lucy can be seen as an aloof and introverted kind of person; she rarely shows emotions and treats the issues around her with indifference even though normal people would react strongly to them. For example, she is not too affected by her roommates’ poor relationship with her and she takes the firing of her job in a lackadaisical manner. She also answers Clara in a polite manner and obeys her when she instructs her to strip off without any bit of indifference. The only moments where she feels genuinely close to people is when she is visiting her friend Birdmann. She also displays extreme emotions when she is near dead people, such as Birdmann’s death in her arms and the death of the old male client.
Lucy’s overall demeanor can be cited as one of the reasons she entered the erotic industry. For her, sex is not an intimate activity between two people; for her, it is just another means of earning money as long as the other one seeks gratification. This can be seen when clients approach her for in a direct manner earlier in the film and she reacts like it was merely an activity to be done. She does not feel guilty about her actions, either. By detaching herself from the emotional aspects of sex, she earns enough money to support herself. Since sex is generally seen as a lucrative industry, she goes after it without regard to the moral and psychological consequences of her freelance job.
Another reason that can factor in to that job is her lifestyle itself. The fact that she has to support herself through various jobs means that she is trying very hard to make ends meet, which in itself is evidence that she is poor—at least at the start of the film. She delays paying her rent, she is no stranger to menial jobs such as scrubbing the tiles on the bathroom floor, among other things. She may have needed the money from the sex industry in order to survive. After all, she earns quite a lot from it as seen when she rents a high-rise apartment later in the film, presumably from the income she received from her job with Clara.
Lastly, there are some hints that she is living a troubled life. She frequently drinks alcohol and participates in drug use as well, suggesting that she has problems of her own which are not referenced at in the film. Judging from her call with her mother, it seems that they are not on very good terms, which indicates that her problems stem from her family, if any.
Erotic Women: Attributes and Appearance
The women in the film—Lucy’s coworkers—all share some common appearances and demeanor. For one, they are physically attractive, which is unquestionably required given their job. They are also fit and well-groomed. Judging from the events of the film, these women are specifically given body treatments in order to cater to their rich clientele. They also seem to all have fair skin, as well as brunette or black hair. Their outfit is also specifically designed to keep their breasts upright; however Lucy is an exception since she has small breasts herself and her outfit seems to not focus on them much. The physical appearances of these women can be justified in the fact that they seemingly undergo rigorous process of examination before being qualified, as shown in Clara’s interrogation with Lucy. This could perhaps be explained by the tastes of the rich men they offer their services to.
Aside from their physical appearances, these women also seem to share the same demeanor as well. Like Lucy, they are also emotionally detached, or perhaps they are not required to show emotion when interacting with clients. The latter is a likely possibility, since it is seen that one of the women is playing around with the waiter at her job.
One of the possible reason for this attitude is because the job that they work for is perhaps an exercise of power of the upper class—just to show they can. They dress their waiters in exotic lingerie, make them stay standstill while naked to be used as living props for their own amusement, and even mistreats them if they do not like them to no repercussions at all, as seen in the old man tripping over Lucy and getting no flak for it. Another reason for this demeanor is maybe they may be consequences if they fail to behave properly—one scene involves an attractive woman leaving Clara’s house in a manner that can warrant a concern from the audience, suggesting that she did something to displease either Clara or the clientele and now she is fired.
Character Analysis
One character worthy of analysis in the film is Lucy’s employer, Clara. Like Lucy, she behaves very professionally given that her work is to provide rich men with women for gratification purposes. It is apparent that she takes her job seriously, as seen in the specific questions that she asked Lucy during the interview process and the reiteration that no penetration should be done to her girls.
Clara’s personality provides a mixed view on her stance regarding the female gender—it is not clear whether she values females highly and should be treated on the same stance as men, or she sees the female gender as a tool to complement the male sex. For one, she emphasizes that the vagina of a woman is a temple, suggesting she values the sexuality of the female gender quite highly. However, like her clients, she has a limited view of what she considers beautiful, and will ensure that steps are taken to make her girls look more aesthetically pleasing. This is in contrast to the feminist stance that women should not make themselves attractive for the male gender. In a way, she is both representing a pro- and anti-feminist stance because of her actions. She is advocating women’s beauty but also subscribes to the idea that women can be touched sexually without their knowledge of such incidents.
Regarding her actions with Lucy, she treats her nicely but only within professional boundaries. She treats Lucy in a polite manner but no sign of affection whatsoever, suggesting that she views her as merely one of her workers and no more than that. She does not engage in personal and friendly conversation with anyone in the film. In addition, it seems that she is not interested with what Lucy feels. For example, when Lucy requests to have a camera to see how she is being treated, she responds in a negative manner instead of asking why. Granted, she is not standoffish when interacting with Lucy, but there is something off in her demeanor that may hint of a rather twisted view of the female sexuality, although it is not discussed in-depth in the film.
Perhaps one of the influence on her character is her social standing. It is clear that she lives on an upper echelon way of living—she lives in a grandiose manner and has her personal assistant with her. She also acts very elegantly. Perhaps she sees her job as customary; given her old age, it is possible that she has experienced a lot from her job and knows more about the ways of the upper class than the people in the story or the audience do.
Reference
Leigh, J. (Director). (2011). Sleeping beauty [motion picture]. Australia: IFC Films.
