Real Vs. Fake

We saw Lars and the Real Girl.

Certainly a curious film - its 1950's style, small town American church community goodness with a cup of modern delusion, overwhelming loneliness, and extreme vulnerability.

Without getting into too much detail, out of deeply rooted emotional confusion the main male character purchases a high priced anatomically correct female sex doll and proceeds to carry on as if she were his real live companion/girlfriend. The community plays along out of a common sense of caring for the well being of the main male character. The audience is moved as the healing process moves along courtesy of dignified understanding through dialogue and a certain community reasonableness. Its a stretch on reality but the movie gently shows the similar situation that many find themselves in with connections to toys, stuffed animals, and conceptual delusions of all types.

The movie has a strong healing and acceptance tone certainly appropriate for America and this particular period having all suffered the intensity of Bush-Rove-neocon misplaced fear driven divisiveness. Healing is called for, but at present that too lays fallow yet ready and mostly willing minus the usual unmentionable right fringe suspects.

On a related tone, this article from Reuters tells of the increased popularity of sex dolls in Japan:

Japan's lonely hearts turn to dolls for sex, company

"When the 45-year-old, who uses a pseudonym of Ta-Bo, returns home, it's not a wife or girlfriend who await him, but a row of dolls lined up neatly on his sofa."

"Each has a name. Ta-Bo often watches television with his toys before bathing them, powdering them so that their skin feels more human, dressing them in lingerie and then taking them to bed."

The keyword for me here is "lonely." The isolation that many experience in brutal cold cities where in spite of the highly populated proximity, many are poignantly alone and lonely.