Horny women of the world unite… Don’t let woke puritans cancel the steamy Netflix movie 365 Days
A vocal minority of totalitarian busybodies is taking on the lustful populist majority in trying to censor the racy fan favorite. While it’s a terrible movie, pulling it would be a very bad day for film.
The controversial erotic romance 365 Days has been among the most watched movies on Netflix since it premiered last month, and may very well end up being the most popular film of the year on the streaming service.
Some passionate fans have been so enamored with the steamy Polish movie, which chronicles the decidedly unorthodox relationship between studly Italian mob boss Massimo, and Laura, the gorgeous Polish woman he kidnaps, that they are clamoring for a sequel.
Despite its lascivious appeal to millions of mostly female viewers, there is a vociferous minority demanding Netflix pull the movie from its service because it allegedly glorifies kidnapping and rape.
This brigade of uptight scolds has even launched a petition at Change.org calling for the film’s removal from Netflix, and at the time of writing, it has garnered an anemic 13,000 signatures.
My advice to these fragile woke puritans is that 365 Days is not the hill to die on… and they will die on it because the hordes of hellaciously horny lady philistines who need some escapist release will not take losing their harmless cinematic guilty pleasure lying down.
Thankfully, Netflix has thus far resisted the mob’s demand to pull the film, but the damage may already be done. Under politically correct pressure, the media messaging around 365 Days has quickly turned from a knowing wink to a judgmental scowl.
For instance, on June 17, the Daily Mail ran a story highlighting fans’ desperation for a sequel to the sex-filled movie. On June 19, columnist Amanda Platell wrote an article stating she was seduced by the film, which she described as a “guilty pleasure” for women stuck in coronavirus lockdown, and that she saw “no harm in it.”
But by July 2, the worm had turned, after the vocal minority made their displeasure known, and so the Daily Mail began running headlines like, “Is this the most degrading, sexist show Netflix has ever aired?”
This type of flip in media messaging used to take years to achieve, but it now takes mere days for the establishment press to quickly move to alter the public narrative to appease the woke mob.
One can’t help but wonder if all of this negative media noise about 365 Days will succeed in scuttling the planned production of the sequel or will make Netflix choose to either dump the original or not run the sequel, thus leaving the movie’s ravenously libidinous fanatics high and dry.
I support Netflix’s decision to ignore the calls to pull 365 Days not because I think it is a good movie – it sure as hell isn’t, it is so bad it makes 50 Shades of Grey look like Citizen Kane. But because audiences should have the right to watch, or not watch, whatever the hell they want, no matter how terrible it is.
As for the charge that 365 Days, which I found more neurotic than erotic, promotes kidnapping or rape? That is just ludicrous. The movie is so absurd as to be ridiculous, as it more resembles a raunchy live action cartoon than reality.
Consider the intricately incoherent details of the plot. The wealthy and impossibly handsome Massimo kidnaps the impossibly beautiful Laura because she perfectly matches the vision of an angelic woman who appeared to him right after he momentarily died during a mob hit. Massimo then gives Laura 365 days to fall in love with him while in his custody.
That plot isn’t a handbook for wannabe sexual predators, it is escapist soft-core porn for concupiscent middle-aged women who want to curl up on the couch with a bottle of wine and a “neck massager” and indulge in some secret “guilty pleasuring.”
Even Oprah Winfrey’s magazine O says of the film that it is among many erotic movies that are “guilty pleasures – though why feel bad about what you like?” Exactly.
I would go a step further and ask not only why feel bad about what you like, but also, why demand others not be allowed to like the things that you don’t like?
This is the main problem with the manic religious fervor of wokeness as it promotes the tyranny of the fragile and the thin-skinned over the popular opinion of… in this case… the horny majority.
If the ever-expanding politically correct bonfire of the vanities does engulf 365 Days, it would not exactly be a major crime against the art of cinema. But it would be a very bad sign for our culture.
This exceedingly cheesy movie has become an unlikely canary in the entertainment coal mine. If Netflix does cave to the small but vocal woke mob regarding 365 Days (or its planned sequel) as decisively as the news media has, then it portends a very dark, yet ironically vanilla, future for choice in film.
The healthiest outcome for all of us is for the horny majority to reign supreme in the Battle of 365 Days. For in movies as in sexual attraction, there is no accounting for taste, or in this case, lack thereof… But it is imperative that we as a culture suppress our totalitarian impulses and grant each other the freedom to indulge our bad taste.
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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
