Victorian Secrets-Hugh Dancy And Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Hysteria
DVD Review
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
Hysteria, starring Maggie Gyllenhaal, Hugh Dancy, 2012
No question medical science like all great progressive movements got moving along through fits and starts. It was not all that long ago (in human history terms) that soap, simple soap, could help keep up hygiene and sickness away, including keeping hands clean on the operating table. Nor was it all that long ago that bleeding the body with leeches was the cure-all for many ailments. So medicine has truly moved in a jagged path. Take for instance the subject of the film under review, Hysteria, what in Victorian times was labelled female hysteria, you know when no one used the s-x word to discuss anything, when women, women of means anyway went to doctors, reputable doctors to have what ailed them fixed. And what ailed them was sexual frustration brought on by everything from dissatisfaction in bed with her bedmate to problems with menopause.
Now that medical treatment required time, energy and money and so like lots of things in this wicked old world an invention, the vibrator, got discovered almost by accident to, ah, privatize the treatment. Make treatment more widely available and cheaper. The film’s story-line goes along showing how the discovery was made by Doctor Granville (played by Hugh Dancy) after he had been so “overworked’ using the old massage, proper massage with cover method of inducing orgasms on the medical table, and how the vibrator became the new next best thing and made the inventors and manufacturers rich. And assuredly many women happy.
Of course a straight forward account of that invention would be, well, pretty boring on its face if it was just a matter of developing a new therapy rather than some porno worthy “sex toy.” The “real” story line, the “boy meets girl” story line that drives a lot of films like this is the coy budding romance between the good doctor and his doctor- employer’s older daughter, Charlotte (played by fetching Maggie Gyllenhaal), a modern day feminist who drives him crazy but who in the end proves that he is worthy of her, is worthy of being her husband and letting the better angel of his nature emerge. Of course that “boy meets girl” invention has been going on for a long time and the status of the medical profession at any given time has been unable to provide a treatment to ease matters of the heart. Enough said.
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DVD Review
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
Hysteria, starring Maggie Gyllenhaal, Hugh Dancy, 2012
No question medical science like all great progressive movements got moving along through fits and starts. It was not all that long ago (in human history terms) that soap, simple soap, could help keep up hygiene and sickness away, including keeping hands clean on the operating table. Nor was it all that long ago that bleeding the body with leeches was the cure-all for many ailments. So medicine has truly moved in a jagged path. Take for instance the subject of the film under review, Hysteria, what in Victorian times was labelled female hysteria, you know when no one used the s-x word to discuss anything, when women, women of means anyway went to doctors, reputable doctors to have what ailed them fixed. And what ailed them was sexual frustration brought on by everything from dissatisfaction in bed with her bedmate to problems with menopause.
Now that medical treatment required time, energy and money and so like lots of things in this wicked old world an invention, the vibrator, got discovered almost by accident to, ah, privatize the treatment. Make treatment more widely available and cheaper. The film’s story-line goes along showing how the discovery was made by Doctor Granville (played by Hugh Dancy) after he had been so “overworked’ using the old massage, proper massage with cover method of inducing orgasms on the medical table, and how the vibrator became the new next best thing and made the inventors and manufacturers rich. And assuredly many women happy.
Of course a straight forward account of that invention would be, well, pretty boring on its face if it was just a matter of developing a new therapy rather than some porno worthy “sex toy.” The “real” story line, the “boy meets girl” story line that drives a lot of films like this is the coy budding romance between the good doctor and his doctor- employer’s older daughter, Charlotte (played by fetching Maggie Gyllenhaal), a modern day feminist who drives him crazy but who in the end proves that he is worthy of her, is worthy of being her husband and letting the better angel of his nature emerge. Of course that “boy meets girl” invention has been going on for a long time and the status of the medical profession at any given time has been unable to provide a treatment to ease matters of the heart. Enough said.
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