Sex and The Industry
Thrill me.
This newsletter was meant to go out a week ago, or maybe two at this point. Sorry. My weekends lately are spent catching up on laundry, errands, working out, working on self-publishing Synth Noir, and some semblance of relaxation via Love Island U.S.A. My workdays seem to be never-ending. Almost full-time hours (this is good); however, every single task is timed, which somehow seems to make everything take longer. If I'm lucky, I can break away for a walk or a movie on discount Tuesdays at Cinemark.
Last Tuesday I caught The Substance at a mid-day showing. I had a vague idea of what it was about and heard it was a body horror film, which wasn’t a selling point, but didn’t turn me off either. It seemed to have good reviews, Demi Moore, and an 80s/2000s vibe that particularly seemed relatable.
There is one scene where Elizabeth Sparks (Demi Moore) is getting ready for a date. She’s all done up and is about to leave, when “something” triggers an insecurity. She goes back to the mirror and redoes her makeup. This happens about three or four times, and in the end it doesn’t matter how good she initially looked (and she looked great). There’s an anxiety gnawing inside of her, and she keeps revamping her makeup in such an aggressive manner that she does kind of end up looking like shit. It was desperate and sad, and something I think every woman can relate to.
Yet, I don’t know how a movie goes from something as good as the first two thirds of The Substance is (intriguing, dark, emotional, riveting), to the campy, jokey, dumbed down third act that is just horrendous. I won’t spoil the terrible third act with spoilers, but I walked out. I’m shocked this movie received such good reviews.
The week before, I saw the Speak No Evil remake. Entertaining, worth the discounted $7.00 to see in the theater. I hadn’t seen the original, so again, didn’t know what I was going into other than it was a thriller. I try to avoid trailers at all costs because they usually show the whole goddamn movie. I even arrive to the theater 25 minutes late just to miss the trailers, which I had heard for Speak No Evil was overplayed.
Endings of stories are always tricky. This Americanized version I learned later had a completely different ending than the Danish original (which of course I went back and watched afterwards, it’s streaming on Shudder), and the new one wasn’t bad per se. The movie does its job in the sense that it makes you rage at just what pussies the parents are, and it’s entertaining and suspenseful. The end of the original is much more effective and darker, but the American movie as a whole is richer, and the scene where you learn why the little boy is the way he is, is stomach-turning.
I went to see Blink Twice a couple weeks back while it was still in theaters, after being intrigued by the beginning of trailer (turned it off after I got the vibe), and I have to say, the film did its job. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it down to the end. I was expecting it to falter in the third act, and for a minute or two, it did, but then bounced back with a vengeance and I left the theater giddy. Bravo Zoe Kravitz.
There is nothing that I crave more than a good story. Something that makes me giddy. I want to be thrilled. That’s it. I want the story I’m witnessing to give me butterflies. Like a good fling or good drugs. Or in the case of horror, feeling like I got socked in the stomach. Side note: as of late I seem to exclusively go to theaters for horror.
I want the whole package, depending on what that package is. In written form, I want the story and I want the prose. It doesn’t have to be spectacular prose (God knows mine isn’t), but the prose needs to add something. It needs to have some sort of an edge to get me to the finish line.
For movies or TV: the style, the actors (and I’m not talking about how they look, I’m talking about their energy), the editing, and the writing, of course.
Lately, the story that’s been giving me all the thrills has been Industry on HBO Max. I had seen the well done trailer for season 3—it was vague and intriguing. What is this? A show about sales? It showed scenes of Ken Leung yelling at one of his employees, giving me flashbacks to my three very stressful (and also very fun) years of outside sales in the mid-aughts during my 20s.
I saw it starred Myha'la, who had this edge to her in Bodies, Bodies, Bodies and Leave the World Behind (she’s great at playing a bitch, I love it) and even more impactful was the Black Mirror episode, Loch Henry, which if you haven’t seen, just watch it. However, you will get no trigger warnings from me.
Industry is a rare show gets much, much better in the second and third seasons. You have to get through the first season, which is eh, pretty good but has a lot of problems, to get to the gold. Season 2 was great. Season 3 has been on a whole other level—every single episode.
Season 1 isn’t all bad. It’s entertaining enough, but is mostly filled with overly dramatic situations, plenty of (awkward) sex, drugs, and less of the best part of the show—the business side. I still don’t understand what the hell the financial lingo means, but goddamn, the tension in the trading room is riveting.
My main gripe with season 1 is it’s full of sad, semi-gross, mostly monotonous sex scenes that I found myself fast forwarding through. For me, it didn’t add much to the story, but looking back I guess you could say it showed what sex is like for today’s youth. Still, I’m confused if they were trying to make a statement (sad and depressing) or if it was supposed to be titillating.
It made me realize that once again, I’m getting older and yes, a different generation than the ones that grew up on internet porn—because the majority of those scenes I didn’t find sexy at all. Most of them involved awkward sex positions that were frankly hard to watch, and in one scene in particular, bodily fluids used in ways that I think my age group would find disgusting, but that 20-somethings today might find exhilarating, or even just, normal. I really don’t know.
I realized watching Industry Season 1, the cultural shift of sex in movies and TV skewing to a more internet porn vibe. Something I had also noticed in the movie, Saltburn—the new gross out sex trend. A somewhat ridiculous movie that I enjoyed for the most part, but with two graphic scenes that were pretty disgusting, yet were they supposed to be sexy? Again, I really don’t know. One involved a certain bodily fluid left over in a bathtub (just…no, fuck that), and the other involving a hook up while the girl was on her period, that was so gross and unbelievable, it made me queasy.
I haven’t watched porn in years because I don’t find modern porn sexy—bad florescent lighting, no build up of sexual tension, gross actors, close up shots of shit I don’t want to see. In the rare instances I was able to watch porn in my late teens or 20s, it was on cable, which we called Skinamax (to this day I don’t know if that’s a real name or a joke). Basically soft core porn—mood lighting, a lame story generally, maybe a wind machine, and fairly good-looking actors. Cheesy as fuck, and tame by today’s standards, but sexy…or maybe I’m just a woman of a certain generation. There must be good lighting.
Yes, I realize I sound like a grandma when it comes to sex (the irony of that if you’ve read Van Life) and you know what, at this point, maybe I am in 2024. I’m not into “internet sex” whatever that is (but that’s what I’m calling it).
And that’s why as much as I want to shout from the rooftops that Industry is the best show in television right now, I know you’ll have to get through season 1 and some people will be turned off these awkward, often boring sex scenes which seemingly don't bring much to the plot. Regardless, I can’t recommend Industry enough. There’s less focus on the gross out sex trend in seasons 2 and 3, and the show, in my opinion, is much better for it. And yet, ironically, somehow the character development in season 3 actually makes all those tediously bad sex scenes in season 1 come full circle.
Once you get there, I’m telling you, this is the next Succession. I’d even say season 3 of Industry is better than the last season of Succession.
The coke scene between Eric and Yes in the first episode of season 3, is pure gold. And that’s just the beginning of a wild, wild episode 1, and subsequently, the entire season. And don’t worry, if you’re into bodily fluids, there’s a jarring scene in a bathroom stall that’ll leave you scratching your head, thinking wtf…they actually showed that?