The tension of film watching with your parents.

Picture it. You're 13 & watching a film with your parents. The couple on screen snog. They keep snogging. They move into the bedroom. Arses and boobs appear. They start going at it. It won't cut away. The silence in the room is palpable. You pray Ma will pick up the remote and fast forward. Where's the remote? WHERE IS THE REMOTE? Oh jesus the actress is moaning like mad. Oh no, now she's on top. You want the ground to swallow you. WHY WON'T IT STOP. 

Remember that feeling. It never gets old. 

I'm far from a prude and have no issue with sexually explicit films. Its just watching it with your parents......it's just.....the most embarrassing feeling on earth. I haven't lived with my parents in nearly 20 years but i see them all the time and still occasionally watch a film with them. Of course it's not as bad when you're older but that old lingering feeling never quite goes away. 

Is this an Irish thing? Residual Catholic guilt? I don't know. Not a clue tbh. I know it's deffo not me though. I've heard this conversation a lot. It's great pub talk actually. People trying to one up each other with stories of embarrassment. 

Below is a list of viewing experiences that thinking back on them still makes me want to curl into a cringy little ball.

An early one is Police Academy. I was, i dunno 7 or 8. It's a fierce tame film these days but there was one scene i remember vividly. Commandant Lassard is giving a speech and unbeknown to him there's a woman hiding under the desk he is standing at. She is kneeling down. He is standing up. Use your imagination. I think at this stage i was too young to know what was going on so I asked what was happened. The silence spoke volumes. I'm cringing mad just typing this one!

Another horribly vivid recollection now. A film called The Name Of The Rose. A mystery set in a monastery starring Sean Connery and Christian Slater. A monastery. No chance of riding in this one. WRONG. Christian Slater plays a young monk. He meets a gypsy woman who decides to induct him into the ways of manhood. Rather explicitly. I remember being scarlet during this one. I can still feel the heat coming in waves off my face as this scene went on and on and on. The relief when it finished was palpable.

Then there was Short Cuts. Robert Altman's masterpiece that showed the world that Julianne Moore was a natural redhead. In a scene that seemed interminable. Fantastic acting and dialogue all ignored as every eyeball in the room seemed unable to look away from a little ginger patch dominating the screen. And the living room. I remember actually whispering under my breath "please stop, please" during this one. 

Yet another joyous family viewing experience was Sidney Lumet's final film Before The Devil Know's You're Dead. I'd heard great things about this crime thriller. It started.......into a very very vigorous sex scene between Philip Seymour Hoffman and Marisa Tomei. Very very vigorous. So vigorous in fact that it cast a pall over the rest of the film. Very vigorous.

Then few years ago I watched The Wolf Of Wall Street with my parents. Yup, I'm that stupid. I'd never seen it and was really looking forward to it. I'd heard it was a bit raunchy but hilarious. I popped the bluray disc into the machine and happily sat back for 3 hrs of Martin Scorsese brilliance. 30 minutes in I felt that feeling again. Utter mortification. By the end of the film I'd lost track of the amount of orgies that we'd seen. Great film but fuckin hell like.

Us Irish have an odd relationship with onscreen "relations" don't we. Blood and guts is grand sure, but the most natural thing in the world is shown and we die a little inside. 

Strange.