Arts

Viral: Lesbians react to sex scene in Blue is the Warmest Colour

Nov 13 2013
Written by Aaron Day

In a viral video currently making the rounds online, a group of gay women have shared their views on the ten minute lesbian sex scene in Blue Is The Warmest Color, the winner of the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes film festival.

It was announced in May that the film had won the Palme d’Or, beating the Coen Brothers’ Inside Llewelyn Davis, which won the Grand Prix, the runner up prize.

However, not all have been entirely satisfied with the director’s portrayal of lesbian sexual encounters, including the author of the graphic novel on which the film was based, who called them “ridiculous”, and compared them to porn.

In a recent YouTube video, Posture Magazine filmmaker Yeni Sleidi decided to show a group of lesbian women a clip of the ten-minute sex scene from the film which shows its two main actresses, Adele Exarchopoulos and Lea Seydoux, passionately making love.

One of the women said: “I thought it was hot at the beginning, and then it got ridiculous when they kept switching sex positions every ten seconds.

“It started to feel like an infomercial for a kitchen product, where they try and showcase all the things it can do. “It can chop, it can slice, it can dice, it can puree, it can eat out your asshole.”

When asked whether the film’s depiction is what lesbian sex “is really like,” one interviewee responded: “Well, it is what you would hope it would be like. In lesbian sex there is a lot more crying.”

Another respondent said: “I have had a little bit of experience at this point. I would say no.”

However, one of the panelists said: “Yes, because lesbian sex can sometimes be good.”

In May, Julie-Maroh, who wrote the graphic novel Blue is the Warmest Colour, called the film’s portrayal “a brutal and surgical display, exuberant and cold, of so-called lesbian sex, which turned into porn, and [made] me feel very ill at ease. Especially when, in the middle of a movie theatre, everyone was giggling.”

She added: “The heteronormative laughed because they don’t understand it and find the scene ridiculous. The gay and queer people laughed because it’s not convincing, and [they] found it ridiculous.”