The People I’ve Slept With: Complications on Womanhood and Female Sexuality

The People I’ve Slept With:

Complications on Womanhood and Female Sexuality

For the third event paper for this course, I chose to attend a film showing at the Asian American Film Festival hosted at St. Anthony Main Theater in Minneapolis. The film I saw was called The People I’ve Slept With directed by Quentin Lee and followed the main character, Angela (played by Karin Anna Cheung), as she navigates her choices following an unplanned pregnancy. The film is set in modern day California, was filmed in English, and was advertised as a comedy. Overall, I felt that the film was ineffective at portraying female sexuality and undermined the weight of the decisions surrounding unplanned pregnancy.

The film opens with Angela videotaping herself explaining her life to her unborn child. She states, ‘Mommy likes sex. I have come to learn that being a slut just means that you are a woman with the morals of a man.’ In this exposition, we learn that Angela is promiscuous and does not know who the father of her child is. After hastily deciding to keep the baby, Angela sets off to secretly collect DNA samples from a subset of 5 possible candidates to do a paternity test and to pursue Mystery Man (a.k.a. Jefferson Lee played by Archie Kao) whom she hopes is the father and will marry her before her child is born.

For me, the equation that Angela is slut and that sluts are women with the morals of men is a very anti-woman sentiment that promotes gender inequality. Angela is shamed by her sexuality from the first moments of the film. First of all, slut is a term that is used to shame and degrade women, and even if she is self-labeling, her use of the term still implies that there is something wrong with her sexuality. Furthermore, saying that all men like having many sexual partners is also a stereotype and implies that it is ok for men to have ‘lax’ morals, but women are not supposed to like sex and are not supposed to sleep with many people. This statement at the outset of the film made it very difficult for me to relate to the female character because I felt that she became unbelievable, manipulated, and inauthentic.

During the opening and closing credits of the film, Angela is shown sleeping with several different men. The sex in these scenes can only be described as comedic and unrealistic. Angela describes herself as liking sex, but her character is written as an object of the male gaze—she is shown wearing complicated lingerie, not sweating or out of breath, and with perfect hair and make-up. The scenes change between several familiar pseudo-pornographic situations common to the male psyche—Angela as a nurse, Angela partaking in a threesome, Angela being spanked, etc. Additionally, in several flashbacks through out the film, Angela is shown drinking excessive amounts of alcohol and then engaging in high risk sexual activity with unfamiliar men (a random new neighbor, a man at the bar, a blind date). Not only are these situations unquestioned by Angela or anyone in the film, they promote the idea that men can assume that highly intoxicated women (Angela is shown being very hung over and having blacked out) can give active consent. Angela’s drinking is completely unacknowledged in the film in relation to her sexual practices and essentially becomes a dysfunctional way of portraying dysfunction. These images further undermined the believability of Angela’s character in my mind.

After learning she is pregnant, Angela calls her homosexual male friend Juliet (who also turns out to be a contender as the father). Juliet is not supportive, basically calls her stupid for her behavior, and advises (without asking what Angela wants to do), to get an abortion. Immediately following this scene, Angela’s conservative and nagging sister enters Angela’s apartment. The imagery in this scene is quite literally like a cartoon character with the devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other. Juilet sits on Angela’s left and advocates abortion and Angela’s sister sits on her right and advocates settling down and finding the father. Neither is supportive and neither asks how Angela feels. Angela quickly decides that the baby is going to save her from her “old ways” and she decides to find the father. Unfortunately, this decision also entails that Angela get married before the baby is born (because, god-forbid she become a single mother). So, she also begins planning her wedding so that she too can have the ‘picket fence, the car, and the house in the suburbs’ that Angela’s sister has and which is a common tenant of the American Dream.

In another unfortunate scene of the movie, Angela and Juliet go to a Purity Ceremony to reclaim their virginity. Juliet decides to do it so that he can prove to jilted lover that he can be faithful, but this effaces the very real life reality of Christian extremism that attempts to cleanse individuals of their “homosexual tendencies.” Angela decides to attend the ceremony to increase her chances of finding a husband that will respect her. It is still unclear to me what the purpose of this scene is in relation to the storyline, other than furthering the theme of the film of undermining sexuality, regardless of orientation.

The climax of the movie comes when Angela reveals to her new quasi-boyfriend Jefferson Lee, a conservative politician, that she is pregnant; implying that it is his child and asking if he will ‘make an honest woman’ out of Angela. Lee responds that he is already engaged. Angela orders him to leave, but when Lee reappears later saying that he has called off his engagement and wants to marry Angela, Angela says yes without questioning the moral integrity of the man who quite incontrovertibly has had an affair. Angela’s father supports Lee’s decision to come back to Angela, but undermines Angela’s decision to marry Lee. This causes Angela to leave Lee at the altar, basically stating that her reasoning is because she is an unworthy, dishonest slut.

The conclusion comes with the birth of Angela’s child. Angela decides not to reveal who is the father of her child because she feels it no longer matters, she is now committed to raising the child on her own. There is little catharsis in this decision for the audience because it is the first time Angela’s character has actually made an independent decision in the film. Predictably, the film closes with Angela reintroducing herself to Jefferson Lee.

In conclusion, I felt that the film The People I’ve Slept With was a total blunder at dealing with modern day issues, portrayals of womanhood, and images of female sexuality. Angela is ineffectual and unrealistic; and the comedic tone of her story did nothing to lighten the message of the film. Overall, I felt that the film maintained antiquated stereotypes of femininity and made light of the lived experiences of many modern women without offering any sound advice or criticism.