Julia Kristeva argued that it is “not lack of cleanliness or health that causes abjection but what disturbs identity, system, order”. Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989) opens with an act of grotesque sexuality. SPOILER#The scene of the Metal Fetishist inserting a metal rod into their leg – as well as the festering wound full of maggots which follows – is an image of abjection which sets the tone for the entire film.#SPOILER The abject nature of the Metal Fetishist is not because of his festering, maggot-filled wound but his transgressive sexuality. As viewers, we bear witness to the Metal Fetishist's obliteration of sexual taboos and we feel emotions like disgust and fear. It occurs to us as both a challenge and an invitation.
SPOILER#As the (sexually frustrated) Salaryman runs down the Metal Fetishist, he represses the enormous potential for abject sexuality which he represents.#SPOILER For Freud, of course, the repressed cannot be held down; it always returns. From the moment the Salaryman attempts to squash this monstrous sexuality, he has unleashed upon himself a sexuality of his own, far more nauseating and horrible than that which had come before.
Great films are always about sex. The act of watching a film is itself sexual. Every time you sit down to watch a film, you engage the film object as a voyeur; your look is eroticised, the images are made erotic by the act of you watching them. There is a particular pleasure which arises from films which deal with this relation directly, whose images are already eroticised in a manner which makes this connection clear and locates it within the viewer.
Tetsuo is a great film. Tetsuo is a film about sex. It is a film about sexual repression and how you can find purpose and love in embracing the parts of your sexuality which are abject and freakish. The Salaryman suffers not a curse but a blessing; his bodily transformations are only painful for as long as he resists them.
SPOILER#The Metal Fetishist’s “curse” first manifests itself in the Salaryman as hallucinations of his girlfriend as a metallic, sexually predatory superwoman. He is the figure of sexual frustration, cowering in fear at his girlfriend’s sexuality and refusing to acknowledge his own. The imagined sexual violence he suffers at the hands of his girlfriend is a manifestation of his own repressed sexuality; he cannot conceive of sex as anything other than violence. The Salaryman’s own sexuality begins to blossom once his transformation begins to take hold. His genitals are replaced by a large drill which he struggles to control, damaging his surroundings and almost killing his girlfriend. The Salaryman cowers in the face of his own libido, which he still cannot conceive as anything but violence. His sexuality is dangerous, a physical weapon. It is the part of his mind and body that he cannot control as much as he desperately tries to.#SPOILER
I feel a strange kinship with the Salaryman. Like him, I am sexually frustrated, repressed, afraid of my own libidinal desires and what they might say about me. I’m prone to applying Pseudo-Freudian analysis to my own wants and desires, as if my sexuality is entirely dictated by my upbringing. I tell myself that I like to be nurtured because I grew up without a mother, that I like to be hurt because of unresolved sexual trauma whose impetus I can only vaguely gesture towards. I enjoy being cucked. I get turned on by gore.
These are the parts of myself I’ve always hidden. From everyone I knew, naturally, but from myself as well. I never wanted to confront why I was so thrilled by films like Videodrome (1983) or The Toxic Avenger (1984). I became obsessed with Un Chien Andalou (1929) and the slashing of the eye, but I never took the brave leap forward to questioning what about that image stuck with me. I had never had sex. In fact, I was functionally asexual. That my love for film was part of some voyeuristic impulse, that my love for horror was borne out of my love for gore, never really occurred to me. I never considered my sexuality and I think it drove me insane. I was depressed, anxious, and confused. I felt, in many ways, like the Salaryman at the beginning of the film.
Once I finally did have sex, I couldn’t enjoy it. It was awkward and stiff and nothing seemed to really get me off. It took over a year before I had what I would now consider “good sex” and frankly I couldn’t tell you what was different. Maybe I liked my body more (having been on hormones for close to a year by then), maybe I had learnt more than I thought from my previous sexual experiences, maybe this was just the first time I had chemistry with someone. Regardless, it was the beginning of something. Over the next year, through many great sexual experiences and some awful ones, I finally began to understand my own sexuality. I started to learn what I actually like, what actually turns me on. This felt like so much more than a mechanical guide to how to make myself cum, I really felt like I was gaining clarity about myself. I began to see sex as liberating rather than terrifying. I was ready to embrace sex within myself.
SPOILER#The Salaryman’s girlfriend promises that she can handle anything and invites him to share his transformation with her. He is so far gone at this point that he has stopped fighting his violent urges. When they begin having sex, his girlfriend stabs him and he loses consciousness. When he wakes up, she has impaled herself on his drill penis and lies next to him, dead. The Salaryman is still afraid that his sexual impulses will destroy himself and everyone around him. He flees.#SPOILER
SPOILER#Eventually, the Metal Fetishist returns. He promises the Salaryman a “new world of metal”. They begin to fight. Eventually, their fighting turns more amorous. They are no longer fighting but merging together as one. Their final form is as a giant metal mass. They each remark how good it feels. How strong. One of them offers a proclamation: “Our love can destroy the whole fucking world”. In this moment, the Salaryman has finally embraced his sexuality. He has finally found a partner to share in his perversions. To share in his transgressions. Together they are more powerful than they are apart. They’re also happier. They’re liberated.#SPOILER
Tetsuo is, to me, one of the most comforting films. It is a reminder that I don’t need to be scared of sexuality. That being a freak is not just okay, it is beautiful too. It’s also one of the sexiest films, every frame dripping with sweat and metal and blood. It is undeniably sexual, to me, to watch a man’s flesh contort itself into a heap of iron. I’m glad I know that now.