(only minor spoilers) As an Ace myself, it suddenly occurred to me "Hey, there are a bunch of good LGBT movies, especially indie films. I wonder if anyone specifically made an asexual one?" And so I found The Olivia Experiment.
My expectations were lukewarm, because this is pretty much the ONLY movie made by and about asexuals. And I'm a sucker for any kind of film-festival style indie comedy movie. So it indeed checked some of those "quirky indie comedy boxes."
But being just about the first movie about asexuals, I feel it had a greater responsibility to the community than just "cute and funny" (is that fair? I feel like it's fair), and it didn't quite hit the mark on that.
For anyone who watches this, here are some important things to keep in mind:
1. Olivia is presented as a totally celibate, sex-averse, aromantic, somewhat antisocial cis hetero woman. And that's one totally legitimate flavour of asexual. But it's a very narrow one. Asexuals can be aromantic or totally romantically attracted to others. They can be totally anti-sex, or quite sex positive and really enjoy it but just don't seek it out. They can be cis or trans or nonbinary (and often are). In terms of both romantic and physical attraction they can be hetero or homo or pan or nothing. Perhaps Olivia is a personification of the writer, and that's okay. But she should have shown some other examples too. Which brings me to:
2. At one point Olivia seeks out an asexual support group on campus, and it's a disaster. For no apparent reason they tell her she's "not really asexual" (which is something an ace community would almost never say, because it's such a mix of micro-orientations) and they kick her out. Again, perhaps this is a representation of the writer's lived experience, but it's not representative at all. What's more, this could have been a great opportunity to showcase all the different kinds of aces (romantic or not, sex-averse or sex-positive, and so on) and it was squandered. And worse, the fact they chose to show "most" of the asexuals on campus as hostile to Olivia felt a little like an aggression towards me. Maybe the writer has baggage with other aces in HER life not being supportive, I don't know, but a film to be watched by and educate "the other 99%" is not a great place to air that dirty laundry. It stung, a little.
Anyway, it was nice to see a film where I felt a little "seen", but it fell way short of its potential, and may have even done some minor harm. It would be ill-advised to make a movie about gay men where every single character looks, dresses, and acts exactly like Elton John, and implied anyone that doesn't remind you of Elton John can't be gay, and that's a little of what I felt the filmmakers did here.
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