Film Courage: Today's action blockbusters are all the rage and I know there's a lot of
debate over whether it's actually good content. Do you feel that romance films
are dwarfed by these actions blockbusters? Tosca Musk, co-founder of Passionflix and Director/Producer: I don't actually I think I
mean they're not dwarfed by the action blockbusters the ones that do well the
action blockbusters tend to have a romance in them so I would consider them
romances in many ways even Wonder Woman had a romance in it it just so happens
that she was the lead and she was stronger in the relationship so I don't
I think that in order for us to have great movies there's generally a little
bit of romance and all of them personally for me my concern is more so
the negative content that comes out so much of our content that we're watching
right now has a negative spin to it everything's depressing somebody did
something wrong to you or hurt you and it has a more of a negative side to it
and I think that we need romance movies in order to bring back the positive we
need to have positive outlooks on relationships and people and look at
people in a positive way as opposed to all these negative movies so my concern
is more than negative movies than the action blockbusters I love an action
blockbuster oh do I know this I think Xanadu is what was that your favorite
film growing up it was my favorite film and I you know when I watched it when I
came to South Africa I think it was a few years after it was released here and
I you know I loved Xanadu Xanadu is the story of a muse I mean a muse who helps
an artist be as creative as he can and and so that's I mean that's beautiful to
be a full love story and she you know leaves Xanadu to be with him and it's a
beautiful love story so for even from a young age you just remember just falling
sort of in love with love stories that did just drew you in I have yeah I've
always been in love with love stories I think that it's again it's it's showing
people in a positive relationship that's you know there's always struggles
there's always something that's gonna be difficult within this relationship and
you have to figure out your way to how to get through it in order for you to be
together or yeah whether it be in a friendship
or a relationship work partnership I think that showing relationships in a
positive light is really important and I've always enjoyed watching that in
movies and I think that our best movies that have ever come out are romances I
mean you can look at anything Titanic as a romance avatar is around that's I
think James Cameron basically got the romance on her down even though he
surrounds it by sci-fi but you know I'll talk movies on romances and I think that
people should watch them well it's nice twist to because we see so many of these
quote movies geared toward women where someone's being followed someone in a
bad relationship or feel sort of hemmed in in her middle class world or
whatever so it sounds like you're really about maybe not just empowering them but
also then you add sort of the sexuality aspect which how is that perceived in
the States I'm sure in other countries it's
probably more embraced yeah than here well so lots of good questions there so
the the main thing about sexuality in the u.s. with women is that you know
it's taboo we're not allowed to talk about it we have to whisper it like say
anything heaven forbid you be intimate with somebody whereas men can talk about it
very openly and in fact can brag about it and it's seen as part of their
everyday conversation and I think that that's wrong I think that woman should
have the ability to discuss openly any intimate activity that they're having with
their friends or with their lovers I think in order for them to be empowered
in their sensuality and their intimacy I think that what ultimately if we can
get to that place which is what Passionflix hopes that we can get to then I
think that we would have a little bit more strength when it comes to maybe
harassment if we are able to openly say no this is not what I'm
comfortable with this is what uncomfortable with this is
how I feel about intimacy this is how I feel about sensuality then I think that will
be a little bit more open a little bit more confident in our ability to deal
with a lot of harassment so it probably sounds like showing women
living normal lives being quote "good girls," but also being okay with a
that it doesn't necessarily have to brand them as" bad girls" in terms of what
they're doing absolutely so the other thing with Passionflix is that we
want to be able to show a woman normal woman so yes we have a lot of shows out
there which are women in jeopardy so we have as you mentioned we have the shows
where something's wrong with us our husbands are cheating on us our
boyfriends are going to try and hurtl us our children hate us there's all these
things that we have to deal with that are pretty negative in our lives and how
do we go about doing it and you know the neighbors gonna try and harm us so I
have to try and hurt the neighbor first and all these different things and
that's one way of going and then we have you know more the sort of cupcake movies
which is I like to call them more the domestication of woman where you have I
am a top you know vice president of a fortune 500 company in New York City but
I'm unfulfilled in life because nobody loves me until I go back to my small
town in Kansas because my father had a stroke I took over the bakery I've
learned how to bake a cupcake I'd realize this is really the life for me I
bought an up with a carpenter and he marries me how nice I get to stay in
that town big cupcakes but there's nothing wrong with being the vice
president of a fortune 500 company and someone will love you and you don't have
to bake cupcakes in small towns in order for that to be okay so I think that it's
important that we show women can be anything from a cupcake Baker teacher to
a CEO and still find fulfillment and love and sexuality and I don't think it
has anything to do with their job