![]() Sam’s doting parents end up feeding Anna Bagel Bites and listening to her bemoan Maya’s duplicity, as if they were her own parents. She particularly shines in a scene set at Sam’s house, where she’s gone to look for Maya (who’s skipped out to self-pleasure). That’s entirely a knock on the material, not on Anna Konkle, whose performance is loosening up and improving significantly from episode to episode. I didn’t quite feel the intensity of Anna’s suffering the way I felt Maya’s it lacked the same razor-sharp specificity and detail. Anna’s parents’ personality flaws and the source of their conflict are left vague, which just isn’t accurate for a kid that old-they usually know what the fights are about, and they frequently have a preferred side (and then feel guilty about it). This storyline feels a bit thinly drawn compared to the intensity and specificity of Maya’s. She’s desperate for time with Maya as a means of escape, which is frankly terrible timing, given that Maya’s world has been temporarily reduced to the size of her clit. Her parents are fighting frequently and loudly, and their marriage seems like it’s on the rocks. While Maya’s new secret is personal, Anna’s is familial. Yet Maya’s sexuality is an equally unstoppable force, an argument the show accentuates by showing her repeatedly getting off to the earthy strains of consciousness-raising women’s group Libana. Every time she tries to touch herself, all she can see is Ojichan, hovering over her with his dark suit and permanent frown. After her mother tells her that he’s always watching over the family, even when they’re sleeping, Maya is horrified. In a brilliant conceit, Maya’s guilt is externalized in the form of her late grandfather ( ojichan in Japanese). ![]() Having been in her shoes at that age, I wasn’t prepared for how unsettling it was to return to that place. Maya has to struggle through her newfound sexuality completely and utterly alone. Sam and his buddies ribbing each other about “staying hard” or trying to catch unscrambled boobs on the Spice Channel might not be encouraged by adults, but it’s at least accepted. It’s tied up in a specifically female shame. Yet the intimacy of seeing it onscreen in all its raw, weird urgency feels unbearable. Of course, none of Maya’s sexual awakening falls outside the bounds of what an American Pie–type product would show with teenage boys. Hell, I lived it, and it made me a little uncomfortable. ![]() Her comically throbbing vulva, her wiping her secretions on the carpet, her straddling pillows and her bedroom mirror - all of it will likely make some viewers extremely uncomfortable. ![]() ![]() Her lust is activated by small, weird things: the back of a neck, glistening fruit, undulating mounds of desert sand in a National Geographic. Maya gets off in unsexy places, often entirely silently. Having been raised on this thin gruel of overwrought Herbal Essences wanking, it’s frankly overwhelming to see PEN15 achieve a first: depicting teen-girl masturbation honestly. Above it, a contorted face rolling on a pillow, maybe emitting a theatrical moan or two. You can picture it without me even describing it: a soft-focus shot of an outstretched neck, everything below it covered by a comforter. On the rare occasions when female masturbation is presented in the media at all, it’s usually shown the same way every time. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |