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Hollywood
Taps Good Vibrations' Antique Sex Toy Collection for Hyster
By Dean
Schaffer
SAN
FRANCISCO WEEKLY
September
1, 2011
It's
fun to remember sometimes (all the time?) just how different San Francisco is
from the rest of the world, a fact that moviemakers unsurprisingly utilize when
it suits a new project.
This
fall, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Hugh Dancy star in a quasi-indie film called
Hysteria, a Victorian-era romantic comedy about the invention of the vibrator
and its fascinating use in the treatment of a "disease" called hysteria. (It's
shorthand for "Women feeling emotions is unnatural and should be socially
shunned and treated.") A treatment for this condition? Orgasm.
In need
of some inspiration and some images of vibrators that your great-grandmother may
have used, the film crew turned its attention to San Francisco's friendly
neighborhood sex toy store, Good Vibrations.
Since
its founding in the 1970s by Joani Blank, the small chain of stores and
mail-order service has maintained a collection of hundreds of vibrators,
according to Good Vibrations staff sexologist Carol Queen.
"They
range in age from the 1890s all the way through the early 1970s, many of them
very much vibrators of their particular moment in historical time. You can
really see the design of the 20th century go by when you look at the
collection," Queen says.
The
producers of Hysteria asked Good Vibrations for photos of items in its
collection, which store spokesperson Camilla Lombard says will probably be
featured somehow in the film's opening or closing credits.
Some of
the oldest vibrators in the collection run not on electricity but by a hand
crank -- "like an egg beater," Queen says.
"There's
a crank handle on the side of an item that, when it's turned, causes the whole
thing to shake very fast, which is essentially vibration," she says.
Good
Vibes was good enough (sorry) to send along some photos from its
collection.
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Thursday
Trailer Face-Off! Hysteria vs. A Dangerous Method
By
Alexandria Symonds
INTERVIEW
MAGAZINE
September
1, 2011
Welcome
to Thursday Trailer Face-Off, a feature in which we cast a critical eye on two
similar upcoming film releases, pitting them against each other across a variety
of categories to determine which is most deserving of your two hours. This week:
Hysteria vs. A Dangerous Method, two based-on-true-story films about how doctors
of bygone eras "helped" their female patients with sex-related neuroses—by
literally taking matters into their own hands!
Premise
In
Hysteria, a cute young doctor in London goes to work for an older one who
specializes in treating hysteria, a once-common diagnosis that attributed
"crazy" (mostly really not that crazy) female behavior to some kind of rebellion
of the uterus. (Really! This was only like a hundred years ago! This is what
passed for "medicine" back then!) The way the older doctor goes about treating
this condition is by putting his patients' midsections under a little curtain
and then manually stimulating them to orgasm, which apparently makes them all
better. The movie concerns the two doctors' attempts to create a machine that
will do this stimulation for them, so their hands don't get so tired. They end
up inventing the vibrator, but not before a feisty young woman played by Maggie
Gyllenhaal (the older doctor's daughter!) makes fun of them for it. A Dangerous
Method concerns a lot of the same themes, but isn't a comedy: it's a
psychosexual thriller about the real-life relationship between Carl Jung and
Sigmund Freud, and what happens when a patient with a whole host of sexual
issues, Sabina Spielrein, comes between them. Sabina used to be spanked by her
father, and now she has a fetish for it, which Dr. Jung is only too happy to
indulge. He embarks on a sexual relationship with his patient, which doesn't sit
well with Freud—not to mention, you know, Jung's own wife, Emma. Vincent Cassel
is also somehow involved. Frankly, we can't decide which premise we like better!
Advantage: Tie
The
Doctors
Hysteria's
younger doctor is played by Hugh Dancy, who is looking cuter than ever these
days; he's really grown into his face, or something. His mentor is played by
Jonathan Pryce, one of those actors you see everywhere once you realize you know
who he is: Brazil, a James Bond movie, The New World, the Pirates of the
Caribbean movies... he's a workhorse. In A Dangerous Method, Freud is played by
Viggo Mortensen, while Jung is played by Michael Fassbender—who basically has a
lock, it seems, on the smoldering-sexy, morally compromised male lead roles in
Hollywood right now. These two are indisputably the bigger stars, though we hope
for Dancy's sake that he catches up to them in the next few years. Advantage: A
Dangerous Method
The
Ladies
The
female leads in both of these movies are actresses about whom we have mixed
feelings: generally, we think that Hysteria's Maggie Gyllenhaal is a very good
actress who often has not-so-great taste in roles (um, Mona Lisa Smile?), while
Keira Knightley consistently bags great roles without actually being a versatile
enough actress to justify them. Grimacing and talking through your teeth every
once in a while is not the same as acting! So we'll table them for a moment;
what about the supporting actresses? Hysteria features Felicity Jones, the
British Like Crazy star who's poised to blow up if that film does as well in
theaters as it did at Sundance. Besides Knightley, A Dangerous Method stars
Sarah Gadon as Emma Jung; she's done a lot of TV thus far, but she has four
films on the horizon, and she's so pretty. She, like Jones, may be a big star in
just a few years; but Jones has the buzz, tipping the scales in Hysteria's
direction. We'll add that we appreciate Hysteria for casting Gyllenhaal but not
succumbing to the impulse to let her boobs go unsupported; Gyllenhaal is
infamous for her bralessness in real life, and that sometimes carries over into
film (we're looking at you, Sherrybaby, and we're not happy about it). But look
how hot she looks at 0:33, properly wrangled into a strapless evening gown!
That's enough to cinch it. Advantage: Hysteria
Director
Hysteria
was helmed by Tanya Wexler; it's her third feature, after 1998's Finding North
and 2001's Ball in the House (which apparently the incoherent tagline, "Home
Sweet Home is Murder." What?). She is also the half-sister-in-law of Lou Adler,
if that means anything to you. A Dangerous Method wins this one pretty easily:
it was directed by David Cronenberg, he of Eastern Promises and A History of
Violence. Yeah, some of his earlier work is purposefully hard to watch (The Fly,
Naked Lunch, the Crash that's about a car-crash fetishist), but you can't say
the man hasn't made a name for himself. Plus, he's directing next year's DeLillo
adaptation Cosmopolis, which will probably be great. Advantage: A Dangerous
Method
Zany
Period Detail
A
Dangerous Method is a drama, and is not really supposed to be funny, but for
some reason we can't stop cracking up over the scene excerpted in the trailer
starting at 1:08, when Freud and Jung go for a sailboat ride. "There's a rumor
you've taken one of your patients as a mistress," Freud says, wearing a full
three-piece suit and hat, chomping on a cigar, fondling a cane, scrunched up in
the tiny boat. It's like spot-the-phallus! (It could also be that it reminds us
of the excellent Mitchell and Webb sketch "Posh Jaws.") In Hysteria, the period
detail is actually supposed to be funny, and in many instances, it is: the
powdered wigs in the party scene (0:33); Maggie Gyllenhaal punching a guy in the
face in elbow-length gloves (1:40); the little goggles the doctors wear while
testing out their "electrical assistant" (1:45). Of course, the feather-duster
vibrator itself takes the cake, from its first appearance at 1:00 to when it
blows up the electrical supply at 1:07 to its maiden voyage at 1:19. The device
itself is inherently funny—funnier even, we're sorry to say, than Viggo
Mortensen in fancy dress on a tiny boat. Advantage: Hysteria
Genuine
Sexiness
This is
probably a pretty contentious category—different strokes for different folks—but
our mind's made up. We're not sure how the Vincent Cassel character figures into
A Dangerous Method (he's like, a super-libidinous hobo, or something?) but we'll
admit we thought the split-second shot where he's groping some lady up against a
fence looked sort of interesting—until we freeze-framed it at 0:59 and saw the
extremely bored look on her face. That's not sexy. Nor, we have to say, is the
whole Knightley-spanking bit (starting at 0:30); maybe that does it for some
people, but to us she mostly just seems like she needs to work through her
issues. There's another hint of a sex scene at 1:08, but it's filmed through a
window, which again gives rise (hah!) to a sense of unease. Not so sexy.
Hysteria, by contrast, treats Victorian-era sex as a silly endeavor—but that's
the thing; sex often is! And most of the ladies receiving treatment are not
Knightley-level gorgeous, we'll admit that. They're a little silly, too. But we
do think Hysteria is the sexier of the two movies, in spirit. It seems to have a
fun, sex-positive, feminist view of sex—witness Gyllenhaal's declaration at
1:35. "There is a social revolution afoot!" she cries. "Women will no longer be
denied our rightful place!" And that's a whole lot sexier than a married doctor
starting an ethically dubious relationship with a young female patient who was
once the victim of physical abuse. Right? Advantage: Hysteria
The
Verdict
Usually
when we start writing these things, we have an idea of which one will win—but
this one surprised us! A Dangerous Method is definitely more of a prestige film,
with its famous director, serious tone, and A-list cast. And we'll definitely
see it! But as for which one we're more looking forward too, it'd have to be the
loopy Hysteria. A Victorian-era romantic comedy about the invention of the
vibrator! Come on! It's just fun. Advantage: Hysteria
