Liberated: The New Sexual Revolution (2017) Reviews

• A look behind the warm beaches, tanned skin and heavy drinking of Spring Break

  evan-vetter2018-02-01

  I had the opportunity to see the film Liberated: The New Sexual Revolution at the Newport Beach film festival last Spring - it premiered on Netflix today. The documentary is entertaining, informative and heartbreaking all in one breath, a difficult task to pull off for any filmmaker. The documentary follows different college students as they experience the annual party of spring break. As the film unfolds we see how men and women view the experience differently as it investigates the deeper ramifications of this annual rite of passage. The film is a raw experience (definitely NSFW/TV-MA) - but is a critical story that needs to be seen. I remember sitting in the theater the first time I saw the film behind an older couple. For the first 30 minutes of the film, the laughter from them was audibly jarring as male students at spring break plotted their way into sexual encounters with any girl they could find. And while it's disturbing to see, we've been culturally desensitized to the kind of male behavior so IT IS entertaining. I found myself laughing too. 45 minutes later, there was no sound from the audience. No laughter from the couple in front of me. Because you begin to feel your own complicity, whether intentional or not, in the creation of a culture that relegates sex to a transaction as opposed to a meaningful experience. It's deftly edited, balancing the ups and downs of the spring break experience with a didactic look at how we culturally arrived at a place where women are seen as objects as opposed to individuals. How do men and women perceive themselves? How do they truly perceive each other? These are big questions presented through the lens of the warm beaches, tanned skin and heavy drinking that is the spring break experience. As the entertainment industry deals with its own skeletons of past sexual abuses, abused power dynamics and the rising MeToo movement the film is more timely than ever. I hope that you check out Benjamin Nolot's film, it is on NETFLIX starting today (Feb 1) and share it with someone who you care about - especially if they are a college student.

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• I am a young adult and I am not the target audience for this film

  thesameasitwasbefore2018-02-26

  But I know exactly who the target audience is. This is alarmist propaganda targeted towards members of the older generation who no longer have their fingers on the pulse of the younger generation. Yes, people like the people depicted in the film exist. Yes, people exist who have attitudes like the people depicted in the film. But the film lies the second it tries to tell you that this is the norm. It lies when it makes sweeping statements about the attitudes, behaviors and culture of our youth. Statements irreverent of context and proportion. The worst thing you could do is let this documentary inform your opinion of the younger generations and the culture they inhabit. Explain to me how a snapshot of a beach festival over spring break is a valid litmus test for the sexual behaviors and attitudes of an entire generation comprised of millions of people? I am 22. I have been to three different colleges/universities in different cities. Since high school I have been to hundreds of house parties, pub crawls, nightclubs, etc. I was on tinder through most of those years. Guess what? Most of the behaviors and attitudes depicted in this film are still looked down on. "Sexual liberation" is a lot more nuanced than this film will have you believe. Sleeping with a girl five minutes after meeting her is not encouraged or commonplace in the least. Most people still view that as pretty disgusting. I have serious doubts regarding the authenticity of the people interviewed. Not only are some of them acting, but some of them have seemingly been fed lines that align with the bias of the interviewer. This documentary will have you believe that this is the culture you are sending your children towards. If I had a kid going to university, and I didn't know better, this documentary would terrify me. The man in the beginning coerced the woman into having sex with him. It's horrible. But unlike what the film says, no, this isn't representative of the culture as a whole. To believe that is to characterize an entire generation based on the actions of a group that isn't even close to a majority. A beach festival really isn't a microcosm of the attitudes, and actions of the youth in the west.

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• Sexual Revolution or De-evolution?

  jegarvey2018-02-07

  Liberated: Hookup Culture and the New Sexual Revolution was a very enlightening and empowering documentary for both men and woman who have participated in or have been subjugated victims to this new sexual revolution. Essentially the participants are the victims of the brainwashing narrative that pop culture has elaborated the sexuality of today's age as something admirable. In order to be a real man, a role model or even an icon, men must objectify women into vassals of pleasure with little to no value beyond this given purpose. In order to be an iconic woman she must fill the status quo of being physically fit, beautiful, and above all else: willing. As portrayed in the documentary the women not willing to be more revealing are boo'd and slandered for the slender modesty shown. Women are indeed the primary victims to this new age of sexuality, however the consequences of this epidemical mindset trickles down across the masses to both men and women. Pop culture exemplifies the objectification of women and standardizes a deplorable behavior for men to follow. Anyone not participating in such behavior is shunned and outcast. As seen on the beaches of Panama Beach, men were groping woman any which way they wanted and woman were displaying their bodies and extenuating mannerisms to make themselves as desirable as possible. The documentary provides solid examples of the evolution of the new sexual revolution with movie clips from iconic films, hit music videos and celebrities that champion the agenda of this sexual revolution like Instagram tycoon Dan Bilzerian and Playboy founder Hugh Hefner. With role models like these who are steering the culture for a young and impressionable generation, one can see the detrimental course that is being taken. Liberated: Hookup Culture and the New Sexual Revolution provides hope as it shines a light on the real issues and obstacles while providing solutions to steer cultural evolution into a new direction which would be the opposite direction in which it is heading now. By emphasizing the values of womanhood and the beauty of relationships that carry more depth than what is seen in the media, real change can be had. By calling boys to be men rather than raging hormonal slaves of pleasure, a generation of influential and culturally sophisticated gentlemen will be the outcome. The issues are known and have been exposed. It is time to fight the narrative of objectification of human beings and call humanity into an honest composure of self worth and value.

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• Shocking and empowering insight about gender roles and sexuality in today's hypersexualized society

  beezee-268872018-02-09

  With all that's been stirring in our culture about sexual assault the last several months, this film could not have come at a more pertinent time. It offers eye opening insight about how normalized sexual assault has become but more importantly, it sheds light on how we got here as a society. What I appreciate the most is the way it identifies how the media has shaped our understanding of gender roles and sexuality. This is the unique commentary that Liberated brings to the conversation about sexual assault as it uncovers the way behind the what so to speak. While the content covered in this film is a hard reality to face, I strongly feel like it will play a pivotal role in helping us reclaim who we're really meant to be as men and women.

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• Modern Sex as Described by Ourselves

  cuzmulder2018-02-05

  What Reviewer Lupus_22 has called feminist propaganda and grossly misreported is actually a refreshingly spot-on cultural snapshot. What's more is the entire snapshot is provided by candid interviews of Spring Break partiers, from complete dude-bros to stoners to college gals and even students from foreign countries. Instead of anyone's propaganda, the film puts Spring Breakers front and center to explain exactly what sex means and doesn't mean to them; what masculinity and femininity mean to them; and where love does or doesn't fit into the picture. Most men and women under 40 watching this who attended college can relate to everything described by each person interviewed-they are describing our own realities. The raw descriptions, protocols, and attitudes of the Spring Breakers are contextualized by American and foreign social scientists and media experts. The overall stories and analysis provides a complete picture and leaves the viewer reflecting about our own experiences and hopefully thinking critically about how they make us feel and what we might prefer to change, if we could. I found this to be accessible and constructive. Mature viewers able to think critically about our culture and how it shapes us may be best suited for this film.

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