Sex and the Documentary

February 25, 2008 4:10 PM, by Theresa Riley

I laughed out loud when I read Tom's February 15 Doc Soup column — a top 10 list of the "sexiest" documentaries of all time — the words "sexy" and "documentary" don't often get mentioned in the same breath (ever?) around the P.O.V. office. I have to admit that I later worried that readers might think P.O.V. was using sex to draw attention to our relatively new blog. Well, maybe we were, but I'm not going to worry about it all that much since Tom's post did in fact inspire the biggest response from the blogosphere that we've seen yet here at the P.O.V. Blog.

At Variety's Thompson on Hollywood, Ann Thompson wonders if "sexiest docs" is an "oxymoron," but goes ahead and lists her own faves:

I must say, my fave must-see classics are Dogtown and Z Boys, Gimme Shelter, Sherman's March, The Kid Stays in the Picture, Paris is Burning and Crumb.

Glen Kenny at Premiere.com jumped right in, saying he thought Tom's list included some "interesting choices":

I'm not sure I'm completely on board with his counterintuitive argument on Gimme Shelter, and I'm not entirely surprised that he hasn't been able to actually see the ultra-rare Europa di Notte. Maybe I'll lend him my Mondo Cane Collection to give him the proper flavor of that sort of thing. But then again, maybe I won't, as Tom's household contains a small child who ought not even be exposed to the packaging of such things.

But Jeffrey Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere was even more skeptical, saying, "surely there are docs out there, seen or unseen, released or unreleased, that are sexier than these."

All in all, I guess we learned the unsurprising news that sex does sell, and the surprising news that sexiness can take documentary form. For those of you who want to add to the list, feel free to add your comments on Tom's original post.

Tags: Documentary News