The Connoisseur is an extraordinarily crass man living in disused storage space at his father’s furniture shop. All that we know is that Chelsea has been punished for stepping out of the ontologically vague state that propelled her to success as an escort.Ĭhelsea allows her mask to slip… but is there anything beneath it?Ĭhelsea’s second punishment comes at the hands of a man who identifies himself as The Erotic Connoisseur (played by the film critic Glen Kenny). But does she weep over her broken heart or does she weep because she gambled and lost? Soderbergh, much like the world he has created, is unclear. The response is that Chelsea breaks down in tears, suggesting that we are seeing the real her for the first time.
Where Chris assumed that all relationships were economic, Chelsea assumed that an economic relationship was purely emotional. Here Chelsea has made a similar mistake to Chris. But David then calls Chelsea and informs her that he cannot come and that he loves his family too much. So Chelsea agrees to meet David for a weekend away (losing Chris in the process). The first is a handsome young scriptwriter named David (David Levien) who after spending some time with Chelsea professionally, manages to convince her that he is willing to leave his wife and kids for her. The second act (presented to us out of strict temporal order like a structural baroque trill) revolves around Chelsea’s relationship with two men. Indeed, The Girlfriend Experience’s plot revolves around characters who attempt to reduce the world to one set of rules or another.įollowing a beautifully simple three act structure, The Girlfriend Experience’s first act introduces us to Chelsea and her world while its third act shows us the consequences of decisions made by Chelsea in the second act. She exists between the categories and inhabits both of them entirely. She is the emotional Madonna and the plutocratic whore. One answer might well be that Chelsea’s success reflects the fact that there is no underlying emotional truth about her. Firstly, is there a real distinction between the economic and the personal and if so, which constitutes the real fundamental logic of the world? For example, does Chelsea succeed because she is a heartless prostitute who pretends to be a girlfriend in order to make more money? Or is she a girlfriend who feels for all the men she spends time with but who moves from man to man in return for money? Grey’s performance offers few clues as she is no different in her dealings with Chris than she is in her dealings with the men she sees professionally. The source of Chris’ confusion is a set of tensions at the root of the Chelsea’s world. This is an idea that is powerfully explored by Steven Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience. However, Maslow’s hierarchy does demonstrate how easy it is to start talking about relationships in very capitalistic terms. If you want an insight into how Self Actualised the poor can be then I urge you to go and see Martin Provost’s Seraphine (2008), a film about the creative life of Seraphine Louis who, until she found a patron, washed dirty linen and scrubbed floors in order to buy art supplies. Obviously, Maslow’s hierarchy is deeply flawed. When you market at rich, successful people, you are also marketing at Self Actualised individuals and you should treat them as such. Indeed, Curtis suggests that Maslow’s hierarchy maps directly onto the advertising industry’s ABC model of class. Not only must the poor struggle to feed themselves but the fact that they are struggling to feed themselves suggests that they’re somehow less evolved as people than the rich people who never worry about skipping a meal. The beauty of Maslow’s hierarchy as it is not only a model for the growth of the self, it is also a justification for a rigid class structure. Once you have healthy relationships you can work on esteem and after esteem comes Self Actualisation. If you become secure then you can work on your emotional health. If you can sort out survival then you can work on security.
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It presents us with a series of levels to human flourishing. The hierarchy of needs is one part pop psychology, one part classical philosophy and one part mysticism.
As anyone who has seen Adam Curtis’ Century of the Self (2002) documentary series will doubtless agree, one of the most important developments in 20th Century psychology was the creation, by Abraham Maslow, of the hierarchy of needs.
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