The most intriguing part about Shame is its misdirection – not in the sense that we’re being set up for a twist in the last few moments, but rather how a number of people have read this film as the trials and tribulations of a sex-addict. Brandon (Michael Fassbender), a seemingly wealthy New York City resident in his thirties is not a sex addict. Make no mistake: he has a lot of sex; he masturbates frequently at home and work; he shops for prostitutes; he has a hefty porn collection; he has one-night stands; he has orgies; and he’s apparently bi-curious, but he’s not a sex addict. Sex does not impede his daily routines. Sex does not prevent him from getting up to go to work. Rather, sex, for Brandon, is an emotional catharsis because he has isolated himself from any attachments.
Shame doesn’t delve into what triggers this isolation or what events transpired in Brandon’s past. All we’re given is an assertion from his capricious sister, Sissy (Carey Mulligan) that “we’re not bad people; we just come from a bad place.” From Mulligan’s beautiful, slow, haunting rendition of “New York, New York” that transforms Sinatra’s song of ambition and promise into one of desperation and escapism, we know that the siblings are haunted and both looking for a “brand new start of it” to assuage inner turmoil (?), regrets (?), transgression (?), failures (?) – or all of the above. To their credit, screenwriter Abi Morgan and director Steve McQueen, who also had a hand in the script, keep the audience as far from Brandon’s background and the gritty details of his present public life. For instance, he works for a successful company and makes enough money to afford an apartment on fifth avenue and 30th street, but we have no idea what the company does, or what he does – only that he routinely “kills it” and has a “filthy hard drive” replete with pornography, something that his aloof boss David (James Badge Dale) blames on an intern.
And, I think this is why Shame works. Brandon isn’t really a likeable character. In fact, Fassbender’s turn as Magneto in X-Men: First Class tugged at more heart strings. However, we are given a brief glimpse at someone’s life. We try to figure out what’s torturing his existence, and we can’t. There are plenty of allusions, but there’s nothing concrete, so we’re left with a story about a guy who’s so afraid of human connection that he chases women devoid of emotional attachment (prostitutes), sleeps with random women in a city filled where the same face is hardly seen – or at least recognized – twice, chronically masturbates to images in his head so that there’s no awkward goodbye after the climax, and has regular sex dates with video-chat strippers who are evicted from his personal space with the close of a laptop. Perhaps we could say that he avoids “connecting” with another person because then his stash of porno tapes – from beta to BluRay – would be uncovered, but there seems to be something deeper and more disturbing behind his apartment with its bright white paint, shiny stainless steel appliances and glaring, waxed wood floors. And perhaps this extreme cleanliness is way to whitewash his “addiction,” but I think the director and writer are making a larger comment on American prudishness and what deserves to be shamed.
Take for example the woman that Dave tries desperately to pick up in a bar. From the beginning, this is futile: he neglects to remove his wedding ring, seems to be on a bit too much coke and fails to correctly guess her eye color. However, Brandon confidently says “brown” on his only attempt, and she’s immediately drawn to his cool demeanor. Thus, when everyone leaves the bar, Daves stumbles into a cab, and the blonde drives back down the block to offer Brandon a ride to the nearest bridge where they can fuck under the overpass. In general, I avoid writing fuck in these articles, but, here, it seems appropriate inasmuch as they are in fact fucking under the spray-paint-scrawled word “fuck.” On the one hand, perhaps McQueen got a bit heavy-handed and didn’t want to confuse the audience – lest they mistook this scene for love at first sight. At the same time, the rest of Shame doesn’t try to berate the audience with metaphors and clarity, so why would this single scene? More accurately, there seems to be a comment about our comfort with the word, in its presence on walls, bridges, subways, etc., and our acceptance of its inclusion in general vernacular – something that Tom Wolfe has sardonically referred to as the “fuck-patois”– but our general discomfort with it as an action.
In a sense, the “shame” within the movie hardly comes from Brandon. In fact, he’s quite shameless in his actions. He doesn’t apologize for them. He doesn’t clear his browser at home or work. His porno tapes and sex toys are not hidden away in vaults and secret compartments. Hell, he doesn’t even lock the door when masturbating. So, perhaps the “shame” comes from our interpretation of what we believe he should feel. And, maybe we assess correctly in a sense when his interactions with Sissy slide rapidly from playful sibling endearment to tragically incestual confrontations. But maybe we should also feel for Brandon in these circumstances. Perhaps this is the only person he’s emotionally attached to – much to his resistance; the only person who can empathize with his past; the only person, who desperately seeks him out, feeling that “if [she] left, [she] would never hear from [him] again.” She is the voice we hear on his machine over and over again, calling his name. It’s not a lover’s voice from the night before; he doesn’t tip well enough for that. Sissy’s the only connection he has … by blood … by default. That’s a shame.
