polyamory in movies/music/art?

[nycindie]

Originally Posted by MrFarFromRight

I'm really surprised that nobody yet has mentioned Pleasantville . . . I fell in love with the Joan Allen character (the hinge in the V).

I don't remember anything poly about that movie! Who was she in a Vee with?

[MrFarFromRight]

Originally Posted by nycindie

I don't remember anything poly about that movie! Who was she in a Vee with?

Watch it again, nycindie! (No, listen: if you don't think that it's worth watching again, let me know and I'll answer your question via a personal message. I really don't want to spoil it for those who haven't seen it yet.) But a hint about the poly aspect: pay attention to the courtroom scene and the bench scene mentioned already...
I'm going to watch the trailer again now. I cried (not sad tears! - it's a very emotionally charged film) when I did a few minutes ago.

[nycindie]

I doubt I'll watch it again unless it comes on TV late at night or something. I remember thinking it was okay but didn't like it so much that I'd want to see it again. From watching the trailer I kinda get the idea about Jeff Daniels' character. But was it poly or just temptation?

[KatTails]

I know most of you are talking about movies - but I just finished reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series and the main character, Mikael Blomkvist, has had a 20 year V relationship with Erika Berger, who is married and whose husband is aware and accepting of their relationship. There are subtitled movies - but the poly relationship is not mentioned. The movies are being remade in the U.S. - but I would doubt it will be a part of the story line.

[Ready2Fly]

My lover and I saw a stage production of "Bed and Sofa" a couple of weeks ago. She had seen it advertised and thought it might be kind of a fun advertisement for poly. It's based on a 1927 Russian silent film about life in the early Soviet Union.

An out-of-work printer moves in with his friend and his friend's wife Ludmilla, staying on the sofa. While the husband is away on business, the friend and wife have an affair. After the husband's initial anger and door-slamming exit, the three eventually settle down into a vee with the two men resuming their previous friendship as each takes his turn in the bed while the other turns a blind eye on the sofa. The two men are, unfortunately, assholes, and amongst other things, insist that Ludmilla get an abortion when she becomes pregnant. As a result, Ludmilla leaves them both. As she's getting on the train to leave, the two men realize how bad they've been to her and wish she would come back.

We didn't think it was quite the advertisement for poly that my love thought it would be. They never really come to an honest arrangement; each guy just sort of accepts that he has to turn that blind eye to what he at heart considers to be Ludmilla's infidelity. By the end of the play, you can see that the playwrights were trying to lead the audience to hope that the three would get a clue and get back together (the two men show up at the abortion clinic Ludmilla has just left in tears, with flowers, chocolates and apologies singing together, "we are her husband!") but that is less clear in the movie, and doesn't change that the two guys really are both jerks and Ludmilla deserves better anyway.

We didn't think the play was very challenging (since we have sort of already solved that philosophical problem)... but apparently lots of others in the audience did. It was refreshing to listen to mainstream people talking about poly issues--- what would they have done in that situation, could they live in a nonmonogamous relationship, etc.

[Carma]

Thanks for the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid reference. Funny -- my husband just came up with it on his own the other day, and now we are using it as a fun reference for our own V. It is so fun to use the psuedo names and laugh about the gunslinging and all I have never even seen the movie yet! Watched some snippets on Youtube. We're going to watch it this weekend. I am grateful for the model for my husband -- I mean, who can say Robert Redford is anything but cool in this movie?!? And my husband actually looks a LOT like him.

[WheelieWeird]

There is a sort of an independent type of series called, Family. It focuses on a polyamorous family. You can watch it on Youtube.
As for music about polyamory, there is a song by Type O Negative called, My Girlfriend's Girlfriend. It's a good song, at least I think so.

[MrFarFromRight]

Originally Posted by WheelieWeird

There is a sort of an independent type of series called, Family. It focuses on a polyamorous family. You can watch it on Youtube.
As for music about polyamory, there is a song by Type O Negative called, My Girlfriend's Girlfriend. It's a good song, at least I think so.

Can you give more specific instructions for finding Family on YouTube? Maybe post a link?

[WheelieWeird]

I can no longer watch it because I don't have a computer anymore, and my Nook doesn't play videos, but I looked up the link.
http://www.youtube.com/user/3dogpictures

[BlackUnicorn]

Originally Posted by LovingRadiance

The Kushiel series has a STRONG poly theme and it's positively so. It also has a strong BDSM them in the first 3 books particularly... just as a warning to those who may be uncomfortable with that.

The new Terre D'Ange series has a poly heroine as well! And is ooshy-mooshy vanilla to boot!

Originally Posted by LovingRadiance

The Wheel of Time series supposedly has a poly-theme too. I haven't read it. My 11 year old is reading it and he says "well yeah DUH it has a poly-theme mom". Not sure what the heck that was supposed to mean!

Hmm, Wheel of Time. An old lover I have very mixed feelings about nowadays. I read it voraciously but nowadays think it is very misogynic in its delivery. But yes, polygyny very much in evidence and warmly supported.

Originally Posted by KatTails

I know most of you are talking about movies - but I just finished reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series and the main character, Mikael Blomkvist, has had a 20 year V relationship with Erika Berger, who is married and whose husband is aware and accepting of their relationship. There are subtitled movies - but the poly relationship is not mentioned. The movies are being remade in the U.S. - but I would doubt it will be a part of the story line.

The heroine of the Millennium series is poly (or maybe non-monogamist would be a more accurate description), too, as much as you can really say she is emotionally functioning at all. Both her and Mikael's sexual exploits were toned down considerably in the film version, although the first movie alludes briefly to the fact that Erika is married. At work, everyone scoffs at the tabloid article with pics of Mikael and Erica holiday making with the screaming headlines 'Mikael Blomqvist dating a married co-worker', so it is treated as sort of a non-issue.

One author I find really woman/alternative sexuality/gender/poly friendly is John Irving. One of his early novels focuses on swingers and how their relationship turns from swinging to a quad with some unforeseen consequences. Both Hotel New Hampshire and Cider House Rules are at least poly-friendly.

Back to the fantasy-land: Ursula le Guinn, specifically her novels on the planet of O and their strange marriage customs (quad hilarity ensues). George R.R. Martin (here's to hoping he sometime finishes his Song of Ice and Fire) has one of the central characters of his saga transitioning from monogamist to open-to-the-idea-of-polyandry. We shall see how that develops.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Sam and Frodo yet .

HOW COULD I FORGET?

Kazuo Ishiguro; Never Let Me Go
Michael Cunningham; The House at the End of the World & The Hours
Marion Zimmer Bradley; Mists of Avalon

Read and loved all of them.