Shere Hite gained fame, and many consider her notorious, for publishing her best-selling book on female sexuality, covering essential taboo subjects of the female orgasm. The 1976 book, titled The Hite Report, earned Ms. Hite numerous admirers and fans, but it also attracted critics due to its incendiary content and research based on thousands of surveys. The Disappearance of Shere Hite takes an intimate look at those effects.
Ms. Hite explored autonomy, gender, sexuality, and bodily integrity with unprecedented authority. Nicole Newnham wrote and directed the film, complemented by Dakota Johnson’s beautiful narration. (Ms. Johnson is also an executive producer of the film.) She expertly narrates Ms. Hite’s journey into female sexual fluidity, starting amid the sexual revolution of the 1970s and extending to modern social advocacy for women’s rights.
The film also demonstrates a profound interest in those who support the LGBTQ+ community. Laying those tracks was largely undiscovered territory at the time. In comparison, it must have been like cutting through the rainforest with only a butter knife and constant mosquito attacks with any protective repellent, That includes her time earning a degree from Columbia, where some old white men stole and plagiarized her work or just plain dismissed her.
The Disappearance of Shere Hite intricately recaps the trailblazer’s rise and dubious fall from esteemed grace. From her younger angelic strawberry-haired days as an academic with plenty of male suitors and female admirers selling record amounts of books to the daytime talk show fodder for toxic male anxiety about their performance issues (the footage with an uber-popular talk show host is jaw-dropping), Ms. Hite became the target of the birth of 90s salacious tabloid television.
Even in retrospect, her research was ahead of its time. Especially when you consider the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases that became prevalent throughout the 90s. Even more so when you discuss the social advocacy issues. Also, the attack on members of the LGBTQ+ communities that found reborn voices of hate in the previous presidential administration.
Shere Hite was no different than Alan Turing, J. Robert Oppenheimer, or Nikola Tesla. Their lives had layers of complexities involving innovation, success, and the backlash that sometimes accompanies groundbreaking work. The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality was that type of innovation. An audacious and necessary pulling back of the curtain on female sexual behavior. One that began revealing the adverse effects of societal expectations that masked these needs for fear of ridicule.
And that’s Hite’s legacy—the exercise of opening dialogue and sparking a national debate. Today, there’s no argument about how this behavioral innovator changed modern America—even the world. You can even argue as much as the men mentioned above. That’s what makes Nicole Newnham’s The Disappearance of Shere Hite such a powerful portrait. A rarity today. Where a film explores that type of divisive celebrity (and notoriety) like no other film this year.
The Disappearance of Shere Hite is currently playing in select theaters courtesy of IFC Films.
Nicole Newnham's The Disappearance of Shere Hite is a powerful portrait of divisive celebrity.
-
GVN Rating 9
-
User Ratings (0 Votes)
0
I am a film and television critic and a proud member of the Las Vegas Film Critic Society, Critics Choice Association, and a 🍅 Rotten Tomatoes/Tomato meter approved. However, I still put on my pants one leg at a time, and that’s when I often stumble over. When I’m not writing about movies, I patiently wait for the next Pearl Jam album and pass the time by scratching my wife’s back on Sunday afternoons while she watches endless reruns of California Dreams. I was proclaimed the smartest reviewer alive by actor Jason Isaacs, but I chose to ignore his obvious sarcasm. You can also find my work on InSession Film, Ready Steady Cut, Hidden Remote, Music City Drive-In, Nerd Alert, and Film Focus Online.