A friend of mine mentioned The New Romantic as a 2018 Canadian film to watch. The New Romantic was on Netflix, one of the "many" Canadian films where the films don't feel Canadian.
Blake is writing a sex column for her school newspaper. Her editor wants to cut the column because it's boring. Blake is boring in general so this makes sense. She falls into the sugar world by accident and becomes a sugar baby.
Your humble narrator has no experience with the sugar daddy/sugar baby world but the premise felt unrealistic. If writer/director Carly Stone did any research on the subject matter, the proof isn't on the screen. The subject was worth exploring but in a way that would actually show how the premise really worked.
Fast forward to 2020 with the arrival of Shiva Baby. I knew of Shiva Baby from its presence as a Canada-U.S. co-production at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival. Emma Seligman's writer/director debut incorporates the existence of the relationship within the film but that relationship is part of a complex scenario within the film. Based from the trailer, Danielle is already more interesting than Blake in The New Romantic.
I learned about Sugar Daddy on March 30 from the Canadian Screen Awards nominations. Colm Feore is up for Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role for his role in Sugar Daddy. The film features more recognisable Canadian talent, including Feore, Amanda Brugel, Aaron Ashmore, Kaniehtiio Horn, Jess Salgueiro, Ishan Davé, Nicholas Campbell, Rob Stewart, and Michelle Morgan.
Kelly McCormack wrote, co-produced, and starred in Sugar Daddy while Wendy Morgan was the director.
All of these films are written and directed by women. This is a small consolation yet noteworthy.
These are fiction films so they don't need to get every detail correct (they should come close). These are not documentary films.
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2021 Canadian Screen Awards nominations: Film
You could argue that these films are about young women being empowered by sex, being the aggressor on some level. Most Canadian films are timid on sex, very much un-French in their approach. As we learned from How to Plan an Orgy in a Small Town, Canadians aren't that much in touch with sex on screen.
Maybe the run of sugar daddy/sugar baby films in Canada have little to do with sex but are more about power and money. The wage gap is significant in society. Student debt, while not as high in Canada as in the United States, is still an important factor. Housing in Canada is getting even more ridiculous. Wanting to be part of the have vs. the have not is enough reason to see the sugar daddy element as a fantasy.
Wendy Morgan told Tom Power of Q on CBC Radio that there is a conversation in the film on the pros and cons of being a sugar baby. A good start.
Darren, McCormack's character in Sugar Daddy, is a struggling musician who plays multiple instruments yet has a hard time describing what her music is about. Associating money with getting your music heard doesn't have to be about sex at all.
The next logical step is to make the situation more progressive where a woman is with a sugar mama and/or trans people are involved.
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The sugar route is a way into drawing attention to the film. As sweet as the sugar analogy might seem, the film needs to be more than salacious. Power and money are more important for some than sex might be. That is worth exploring into the world of films.
Shiva Baby and Sugar Daddy are available for rent online.
photo credit: Sugar Daddy film
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