Lars and The Real Girl: An Emphasis on Real and Heteronormativity

Lars and the Real Girl, a 2007 film which takes up the topics of alternative desire and societal reaction to such intimacy raises important questions about tolerance of sexual differance and the establishment of sexual identity.  Lars, the film’s protagonist who is clearly isolated from the heterosexual matrix as the film begins, jumps headlong into both the realms of marginalized sexuality and mental illness as he orders an “anatomically correct” sex doll and proceeds to christen her Bianca, introducing her to his community as his perfectly normal, and thoroughly alive, girlfriend.  With the prodding of the local mental health professional Doctor Dagner and Lars’ family, the community accepts his notion Bianca is alive.  Though the largely tolerant reaction of Lars’ family, doctor, co-workers, and widespread community to Bianca presents an indictment to intolerant societal systems which harshly prevent any legitimization of transgressions of normal sexual conduct and desires, the correlation of alternative sexuality and delusion generated within the film undercuts the strength of the argumentation made for the normalization of sexual desire. In accepting Lars’ sexuality, the community is ultimately not acknowledging his acts are acceptable, but attempting to reintegrate him to a state of normalcy, which is repeatedly associated with normative heterosexual desire.   Furthermore, neither the community nor audience are asked to identify with his intimacy with Bianca or accept the physical realities alternative sexualities similar to Lars often entail, but rather are encouraged to celebrate his ultimate transition into the heteronormative world signified by his increasing attraction to Margo, a “real girl,” and the ultimate death of his delusion.  In light of the film’s lack of demand for true identification with Lars’ intimacy with Bianca, the work fails to promote treatment of sexual identity which normalizes alternative desire and makes community more accessible for those with queer tendencies.  In contrast, the general progression of the film reinforces the privileging of normalized heterosexual desire and suggests that such desire is natural.

Lars’ community clearly favors normalized heterosexual desire, and reveals such desire is considered superior to alternative forms of desire from the film’s beginning. The moment after a church service in which Mrs. Gruners assaults Lars with questions concerning his sexuality, which evolve from her query why he does not have a girlfriend, effectively illustrates community norms.  Though she asks if he is gay in a friendly manner, claiming she knows all about “the gays,” her simplification of alternative desire implicit with this reductive categorization shows she and other members of the community probably do not possess a nuisanced respect of and understanding for alternative sexuality.  Furthermore, her act of giving Lars a flower, an item traditionally associated with romance between men and women, to pass along to someone special suggests it would certainly be preferable if that special someone was a woman.  The status of normative heterosexuality as the form of intimacy privileged within the community is further reinforced by the suggestive observation that Lar’s coworker Margo, a heterosexual female,  is cute made by a the secretary of Lars’ workplace and Gus and Karin’s absolute joy when they initially believe Lars is hosting a live female visitor.  The horror Karin and Gus express upon realizing Lars’ new girlfriend is a sex doll as they panic in the kitchen and conclude he has gone crazy reveals that though his relative asexuality was concerning, the act of loving a sex doll, and thus dramatically departing from the heterosexual matrix, is much more abhorrent.

Despite this initial horror, Gus, Karin, and the community are able to curb their perceptions of normality enough to play along with Lars’ delusion Bianca is a live girl. This tolerant reaction is conceived by Doctor Dagmar, a community medical professional with an enlightened approach to the treatment of abnormal behaviors.  Rather than diagnosing Lars with a mental illness, Dagmar classifies his alternative desire for Bianca and faulty perceptions of her nature as a delusion, externalizing his abnormal behavior rather than classifying this intimacy as the defining factor of Lars’ identity. By externalizing Lars’ sexuality, Dagmar resists what Foucault positions as the typical modern discursive representation of those with queer desires as individuals whose sexuality is an omnipresence in all aspects of their identity or a force “at the root of all his actions because it was their insidious and indefinitely active principle; written all over his face and body it was a secret that always gave itself away”( 43).  Accordingly, Dagmar asserts the best course of action is to allow Lars the opportunity to work out his delusion on his own terms and for those who surround him to refrain from contesting his perceptions rather than placing him in a institution or intervening medically, actions which by nature present such alternative desires as problematic and the determinant factor of identity.

Though the partial legitimization of Lars’ desires resulting from the majority of the community’s choice to join Dr. Dagmar, Karin, and Gus in treating Bianca as the living individual Lars envisions her to be is certainly an act of tolerance, the scope of this act as a true act of tolerating alternative sexuality is limited. First and foremost, treating Bianca as a live girl is a doctor’s recommendation to dispel delusions, and, therefore, is principally an act to eventually expel Lars’ alternative sexuality than embrace his atypical desire.  As Gus and Karin present their conundrum to their friends and coworkers, cracking jokes and reveling in the shock of the relationship, there does not seem to be any challenge to the community to accept Lars’ desire as normal, but simply humor him in order to most effectively work through the unfortunate situation.  Moreover, as Lars’ desire for Bianca escalates, the community makes a concerted effort to humanize her by finding her employment, taking her to recreational activities, and even electing her to the school board, actions which push the pair’s relationship as close to normalized heterosexual desire as it can possibly become, suggesting a generalized goal of eventually incorporating Lars into this world.  This aversion to acceptance is not completely based on the delusional quality of his intimacy with Bianca, as his coworkers reactions to the sex doll assert such desire would be considered abnormal even if Lars was aware of Bianca’s lifelessness.  In introducing the brand of dolls to Lars, Eric whispers they are anatomically correct, revealing that sexual desire for and acts with inanimate objects  are not something that can spoken about at a normal volume, or a marginalized sexuality which evokes a sense of shame or embarrassment.  Similarly, the woman of the heterosexual couple who discusses the nature of the doll at Lars’ work party expresses clear revulsion to her male counterpart’s assertion Lars has sexual relations with the doll, asserting once again that physical intimacy with the doll without delusion would still be considered unhealthy or obscene by several segments of society.

The film’s aversion to portraying Lars and Bianca’s relationship in these physical terms further undercuts any attempt to position the story as one promoting sexual tolerance.  Lars’ initial request to have Bianca hosted within the main house rather than his garage due to the fact that they are unmarried reveals a lack of intention to consummate their relationship.  However, the clearly conscious effort of the film to dispel viewer’s perception, or fear, that the status of their relationship has changed reveals an unwillingness to explore the physicality of alternative sexuality.  As Lars chooses to take over Gus’ duty of putting Bianca to bed, leaving the pair alone in the privacy of the pink room as the rest of the house goes to sleep, the next scene shows Lars in his own garage bedroom, dispelling any suggestion their relationship has become physical. Similarly, though Lars expresses the desire to spend the night in the pink room as Bianca approaches her death, once again potentially giving viewers the impression the pair’s relationship may be consummated, the following scene in which Gus opens the bedroom door to check on them reveals them innocently lying hand in hand.  Viewers are never truly asked to come to terms with or accept the act of physical intimacy with an inanimate object, as the only physical intimacy between Gus and Bianca is a goodbye kiss. In this respect, viewers are not asked to come to terms with the bodily actions associated with alternative sexuality which are often viewed as grotesque and serve as a principle factor of difference leading to a lack of tolerance of alternative sexuality.

Aside from not being asked to contemplate the physicality of Lars’ alternative sexuality, one can easily argue viewers are not asked to identify with Lars’ desire for Bianca at all.  Such an assertion can be evidenced simply by the moments, or perhaps more appropriately lack of moments, in which viewers embody Lars’ gaze.  As the film begins, viewers first see Lars through a window with his face is partially covered by his baby blanket, an image which creates multiple layers of separation between him and the viewer.  Soon after, viewers inhabit the gaze of Karen, a woman whose marriage and pregnancy make her a fitting representation of normalized heterosexuality, and Lars’ reluctance to interact with her as he once again shields himself behind a window compounds this separation, as his social strangeness likely reassures audiences that Karen’s gaze is truly the viewpoint with which they can identify.  The audience does not come close to seeing the film’s progression of events from the perspective of Lars until viewers nearly inhabit his gaze, watching the action from a point just beyond Lars shoulders, as he views Margo from the vending machine room, pulling up a chair in order to so, in a moment which reveals his growing intrigue with this real girl and the world of heterosexuality her undying affection offers.  Soon after, viewers look upon Margo from Lars’ unadulterated perspective as she interacts with her current boyfriend.  This moment once again reveals a growing affection for Margo, and a progression towards a more typically masculine gender role, as Lars shakes Erik’s hand firmly upon Margo’s introduction in manner that can be viewed as a challenge to Erik’s masculinity and expression of jealousy.  In contrast, viewers only see Bianca from Lars’ perspective later in the film’s progression as he questions Gus about the transition into manhood, a moment in which Bianca’s escalating sickness and Lars’ simultaneous increased intrigue with Margo reveal he is already well on his way to a transition toward normalized heterosexual desire.  This transition and the accompanying waning intimacy is further signified by the fact that we only see Bianca through Lars’ gaze through the separation of a window while she does yard work with Karen outside. This layer of separation between Lars and Bianca signifies he, like the heterosexual audience the movie seems to assume, is quickly becoming alienated from the sex doll in a manner similar to the separation of the audience from Lars generated at the film’s beginning.  Thus, the manner in which the film is shot only asks audiences to identify with Lars’ perspective when he is transitioning to a heteronormative perspective, which seems to be the assumed viewpoint of the audience which remains unquestioned throughout the film’s course.

Though the lack of legitimate challenges the film makes for both viewers and community members to identify or accept alternative sexuality compromises its status as a work promoting tolerance, the eventual return to heteronormativity the acceptance of Lars’ delusion by the community leads to sends the extremely troubling message that normalized heterosexual desire is the natural derivative of tolerance.  In Michel Foucault’s The History of Sexuality, he explores the discursive systems which have led to the visibility of heterosexuality within modern culture, pinpointing the medicalization of sexual difference and resulting identification of individuals by their respective sexualities as a key component which maintains the marginalization of sexual difference.  As Doctor Dagmar, Lars’s family, and his community resist defining of Lars solely by his alternative sexuality or completely condemning this sexuality, and thus prevent definitive differentiation between normalized desire and Lars’ love for a sex doll he believes is alive, this level of tolerance prevents the strict identification of the sexual transgressor and the enforcer of the norm Foucault’s model requires.  Consequently, this lack of differentiation prevents the formation of “perpetual spirals of power and pleasure” which he asserts form as “The pleasure that comes of exercising a power that questions, monitors, watches, spies, searches out, palpates, brings to light; and on the other hand, the pleasure that kindles at having to evade this power, flee from it, fool it, or travesty it” endlessly play off one another(45).  However the release of Lars, a representative of alternative sexuality, from the confinement of the category of transgressor does not allow his difference to peacefully coexist amongst other sexual practices, but leads him to embrace heterosexuality. Under this framework, the film on some level supports the ideology that if you ignore and tolerate queerness, it will eventually go away, portraying prolonged or permanent alternative sexuality as heavily reliant on the lures of transgression. Such a portrayal is certainly not progressive, and suggests that if human beings resisted the pleasures of punishing each other and evading punishments, queerness would naturally die in a manner similar to Bianca.

Lars and the Real Girl is a cute movie that elicits laughs and considerations of the possibility of a world tolerant of sexual difference.  However, by forging an alliance between mental instability and queerness and then reverting to a happy Hollywood ending in which the guy takes his chance with the human girl who has thoroughly proven her devotion, the film squanders its opportunity to capitalize on its disruptions of the power dynamics of sexual difference and explore what Berlant and Warner deem “not just a safe zone for queer sex but the changed possibilities of identity, intelligibility, publics, culture and sex that appear when the heterosexual couple is not longer the reference or the privileged example of sexual culture”(548).   The squandering of this opportunity, coupled with the extremely regressive view of queer desire as based in the pleasure of transgression, and thus divorced from physical pleasure, the films progression can be interpreted as supporting, prevents the film from presenting a message of any substance useful to the fight against heteronormativity.

Works Cited

Berlant, Lauren and Warner, Michael. "Sex in Public."  Critical Inquiry, Vol. 24, No. 2 Intimacy. p547-566. 1998. Print.

Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality: Volume 1 An Introduction. Vintage Books, New York. 1998. Print.

Lars and the Real Girl. Dir. Craig Gillespie. Prod. Sidney Kimmel, John Cameron, and Sarah Aubrey. By Nancy Oliver. Perf. Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer, and Paul Schneider. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 2007.