The Flip Flop Girl

Just my thoughts, you can take em or leave em as you like...
I watched the film and what i didnt like about it is that harold was portrayed as a creepy, intrusive lurker. it made me not like him. now why do i feel that way? i think its b/c i feel that FF guys get a bad rap in film and TV we're not all freaks, creeps, and skulking, threatening men who skulk after women at night.
Or.......
perhaps we are; or at least we recognize that's how the world sees us and i don't like seeing the mirror that this film represents. I'm gonna go with hypothesis #1 until i have incontrivertible proof otherwise. well, the film challenged me to think about it and i guess thats what it's supposed to do. ;-)
also, i didnt think babettes feet were very pretty at all.
again, it's just me. dont get mad!
 

Happy Year!
Hey T,
You're right. The more I thought about it, Harold is the sort of foot fetishist that Peter Sellers might have played 40 years ago, a sort of kind-hearted bumbler. I didn't get the feel that Harold was threatening but he did let his fetish get the better of him. I suppose the most painful scene to watch for FF guys is where Harold has completely lost himself in the Japanese restaurant, totally enraptured with pretty feet and manages to get the girl's shoes and draw an outline of her shoes on his menu. That to me, was funny. Harold is definitely not a regular guy but a work of fiction that is very entertaining. I see your point, though, that you'd like to see more "regular guys" protrayed as having a foot fancy and that would be very healthy. Actually, that inspires my next post...
 

And there's nothing wrong with Babette's feet. I think that was part of the point of the movie--it was actually about love and how love allows us to look past imperfections--don't you think?
 

Well, as a guy with a healthy sexual appetite, checking out women from afar is nothing new, creepy or something to be ashamed of, whether it be scoping breast size, booty, face or feet. To be pragmatic, its the initial reflex next to scent that leads us into pursuit of the opposite sex, its simply nature. As much as we fetishists have recieved bad PR in the media, we have also been gifted with scenes of innocent foot flirting and the like with "normal" [whatever that means] men & women, recently I saw a spontaneous foot kiss scene in 'King's Ransom' for ex. Even if those stereotypes do pop up, theres no need to focus on them, in fact I laugh at them. Especially when Harold was in the restaurant, I was cheering him on, its not as if he were blatantly intrusive to the point he jumped in their booth and sniffed away at their feet, and who knows, they might have enjoyed it. From my own experience I've found many women DO love the audacity [balls] to pull similar stunts as Harold, even noticing me noticing their feet, which unfortunately may not have worked out for him. He may be as "regular" as they get. I also think his character fits this modern, silent film aspect properly, and the candidness of his demeanor is what I felt was the crux of the film's overall message since it ended up leading to what seemed like the beginning of a sensual relationship. What I really enjoyed was Babette's fascination with men's hands and the array of sketches she had made, in a sense reflecting Harold's own similar desire as well as fetish inspired artwork. As for her feet, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and since they never actually tightened a close shot of them I dont feel they even meant to focus entirely on how pretty her feet were. I really did like this flick.
I hope everyone had a great holiday season, big ups to this new year.
 

Thanks for the link to the film clip. I have no critisism to make about the film or how it portrayed Harold. I think the film showed quite rightly that we all cpuld have our little itch that we would like to scratch.
 

Jay, another gem of a post, really getting at the heart of the matter. I don't know if girl would likely be pleasantly surprised if a guy started sniffing her feet while she was in a public place. It's a hot fantasy, or theory, but I just don't know.

So, now you've got King's Ransom to add to the list. I'm intrigued. I'll have to check it out!