Another Article about "Pepi, Luci, Bom"

One thing I noted was my classmates' shocked expressions and exclamations as scenes of sexual activity and violence flashed on the screen. This meant that they were not used to explicit scenes. The film was produced in 1980. That was over 30 years ago. With the passing of three decades, the world as a whole has become more sexually liberated. People were dressed more conservatively back then (as stated by Tessa, the more "uptight" characters such as Luci, her husband, and the closeted man married to a bearded man, are adorned in "turtlenecks, suits and ties"). Sexual intercourse was not openly depicted in film but now there are entire films with plotlines focused on such conduct. Pornography is widely available, be it through magazines or through websites. Being gay in China was considered as a mental condition until recently. Bukkake was not developed until the 1980s but now constitutes a sizable portion of Japanese pornography. And yet this thirty year-old film still continues to startle audiences.

What does this mean? Well, if this film, which reflects Camp in how there are exaggerated and excessive scenes (as noted by Sridevi), still shocks audiences in a world where sexuality is supposedly more open, perhaps it means the modern world is still repressed in certain ways. Sure, we think we have become more accepting: the allowance of gay-pride parades, the support for the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, and the frequency of commercials which suggest certain products as being beneficiary for sexual prowess and health can attest for that. Yet we are still not used to such scenes. Does it mean that we are, in some ways, still back at square one? Should we become comfortable with such scenes? Would that undermine the Campiness of the film? 

-Jeremy