Poster of Spetters

Spetters

Drama, Romance, Sport

Director: Paul Verhoeven

Release Date: February 28, 1980

Where to Watch

Friday Night Lights (the series) meets Kids except not a wide-eyed innocent to be found although one character works a bad girl Olivia Newton-John (think Grease) look hard. I would not necessarily recommend Spetters: lots of male & female nudity, sexual situations & explicit depictions of offensive behavior (racist, homophobic, sexual violence, including rape). TRIGGER WARNING & SPOILERS FOR KIDS Frankly I almost bowed out after a half hour, but by the end, I realized that I prefer old school Verhoeven over Larry Clark’s more voyeuristic tour of adolescent city life because all the characters are well-rounded even when they do horrific things, and there is no stylization or editorial in the cinematography like the notorious end rape scene in Kids that recast the scene as if it was a loving encounter by the beatific lighting of the two naked teens. With that said, after seeing two old school Verhoeven movies (first being Flesh + Blood), he still has a lot of weird views on rape, but unfortunately, I think that they’re more rooted in the complexity of life (some survivors do try to recast a rape as a relationship to deal with the situation) than unconscious rape culture. I’m very curious as to why he keeps doing it because Verhoeven explicitly acknowledges lack of consent and does not have a Straw Dogs view of rape (secretly wanted it), but he consistently depicts the survivor’s reaction as almost Stockholm syndrome.

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