by Helen Langdon
As a society, we love sex. Sex sells. But it has to be the right type of sex. If you don’t look right, or you’re too old, mainstream society doesn’t want to think about you having sex. And that extends to those people with learning difficulties. Never mind that you might have sexual urges just the same – society rushes to infantilise you. That’s the central issue of Dora or The Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents, the story of an 18-year-old girl with unspecified learning disabilities who comes off her medication and discovers her sexuality, to the horror of her protective parents.
As a society, we love sex. Sex sells. But it has to be the right type of sex. If you don’t look right, or you’re too old, mainstream society doesn’t want to think about you having sex. And that extends to those people with learning difficulties. Never mind that you might have sexual urges just the same – society rushes to infantilise you. That’s the central issue of Dora or The Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents, the story of an 18-year-old girl with unspecified learning disabilities who comes off her medication and discovers her sexuality, to the horror of her protective parents.
This is a story about Dora’s self-discovery and push for independence, even as her parents keep trying to have another, hopefully neurotypical child. Nothing’s simple and easy in this film, and it chooses to stay away from making any of the answers clear cut. For example, take the first sexual encounter between Dora and Peter. From one point of view – the view Dora’s parents take – it’s very definitely rape, as Dora is incapable of giving fully informed consent. But it’s an encounter that Dora seeks out, and she doesn’t resist, in stark contrast to the later struggle with Mark in Peter’s flat.
Dora wants sex because it feels good, and she associates Peter with that. Dora could have classed Peter as the romantic hero, but it would have been a weird, cheap resolution. Rather than Peter becoming a better person through his association with Dora, he remains a bit of a bastard throughout. He might be nice to Dora, but to her parents, he claims that he’s just there to fuck her. He’s the amoral centre of Dora’s world, and it’s great that we never quite figure him out.
And that indeterminacy is mirrored even in the look of the film. Towards the start, when Dora is drugged up, shots from her point of view tend to be hazy around the edges and a whirl of motion. Later on, there’s a change in focal length so that faces loom large and dominate the screen as much as they dominate Dora’s attention when people force her to focus on them. Just as Dora can’t see the full picture, neither can we.
Dora wants sex because it feels good, and she associates Peter with that. Dora could have classed Peter as the romantic hero, but it would have been a weird, cheap resolution. Rather than Peter becoming a better person through his association with Dora, he remains a bit of a bastard throughout. He might be nice to Dora, but to her parents, he claims that he’s just there to fuck her. He’s the amoral centre of Dora’s world, and it’s great that we never quite figure him out.
And that indeterminacy is mirrored even in the look of the film. Towards the start, when Dora is drugged up, shots from her point of view tend to be hazy around the edges and a whirl of motion. Later on, there’s a change in focal length so that faces loom large and dominate the screen as much as they dominate Dora’s attention when people force her to focus on them. Just as Dora can’t see the full picture, neither can we.
To be honest, the only problem with Dora is the ending. Her mum takes drugs and starts to see the world in the same hazy way as Dora, before possibly maybe taking part in an orgy while Dora gives birth in the same toilet cubicle where she first had sex with Peter. Or does she? Who knows? We see her straining and in pain, and then some extreme close-ups of Dora holding a clean baby in clothes. Is this just Dora’s mother’s imagination? Or Dora’s? Or did Dora manage to give birth, clean the baby and dress it all by herself, despite the difficulty she had earlier just boiling water?
It’s a step of ambiguity too far for this film, which remained grounded in reality up until this point. But still, Dora is a fairly good film that deals with an issue of sexuality rarely dealt with in mainstream media.
It’s a step of ambiguity too far for this film, which remained grounded in reality up until this point. But still, Dora is a fairly good film that deals with an issue of sexuality rarely dealt with in mainstream media.
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