Tuesday, September 28, 2010

"The Killer Inside Me"

By now I imagine everybody reading this has heard about the film (now available on DVD) called The Killer Inside Me, starring Casey Affleck, and more than likely you've seen the clip floating around of him spanking Jessica Alba.






Later on in the film, in a much shorter scene that is also available on the web, we see him spanking Kate Hudson.



(photo of Kate Hudson by Timothy White from the book, Hollywood Pinups)


You can probably still find these clips on YouTube or in the movie database on Chross's wonderful blog. One scene I haven't seen a clip of--although it might be out there-- or heard discussed much, though, is the movie's attempt to explain Casey Affleck's character: a quick pop psychology moment that partially explains why he is the way he is.

While going through an old bible, he comes across some old black and white pictures of his mother, played by Caitlin Turner. She's naked, it looks like her hands are bound in some of the photos, and her bottom is distinctly marked.

The photos obviously jog some memories loose for him. We go to a flashback of him as a young boy. His mother asks him if wants to box, and playfully throws a few jabs in the air. Like any child, he's only too happy to play, and comes at her with the usual excesses that go with youth. He "overpowers" her so that she is flat on her back, and he keeps hitting her. She looks at him and says, "Hit harder."

This is are first inkling that, far from being an abused wife, she actually enjoys this sort of thing, probably just as much as her husband does.

The next flashback shows her in her bra and panties, lying face down on her bed. Her bottom is half-exposed, and there are red marks visible. While the boy isn't shown in this and the upcoming sequences, it's obvious that he's in the room, and she's addressing her remarks to him. In this instance, she says, "You want to be a big boy? Look what your Daddy did. Do you want to do it too?





The next flash is of her standing, her bottom bared. She reaches back and gives herself a hard spank. We then immediately go to a shot of her lying back down on the bed, still bare-bottomed, and she gives herself another swat. Then she says, "It's okay. I like it when you hurt me."

One line of thought, of course, is that children who are raised in a household where such abuse takes place grow up to themselves be abusive adults, and this movie certainly seems to subscribe to that theory. Unfortunately, Casey Affleck's character isn't just a spanker--he's also a sociopathic serial killer, and the movie makes no attempt to show how that happened. As a Spanko, I worry that the uninformed will look at this and try to make a connection between the two, almost as if spanking leads to abuse leads to killer. That, of course, is nonsense, but the movie doesn't really try to show that there were other factors along the way that made Casey's character turn out the way he did. The scene with his mother is our only clue, and vanilla minds could very easily jumpt to a wrong conclusion.

I really wish a new film would come out that would depict a couple in a loving relationship, leading a normal life, and who also enjoy a bit of spanking to spice up their sex lives. So many of the characters we've seen recently--this movie, for instance, and the movie Secretary--are so damaged and flawed that you can only assume that the interest in spanking can't be anything normal. It's a shame.

One final note--in one of the DVD extras, Kate Hudson is talking about the making of The Killer Inside Me, and she said that this movie made her do many things that she ordinarily doesn't do. She looks off to the right, like she's trying to think of an example, then her eyes widen a bit, and she says, "Like, getting spanked!", and then she laughs. All I can say is that, lovely lady that she is, with a beautiful bottom like she has, and with that almost impish quality to her personality--I don't believe her for a second. :-)

Oh, sure, I could be wrong--but I'd rather believe that she enjoys a good spanking every now and then.





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