With a free The Shape of Water poster tucked safely underneath my chair and my hands around a “small” movie coke, I was ready to be spellbound by the artful directorship of Guillermo del Toro.
Rapt, I watched as Elisa Esposito, the mute protagonist, set her egg timer and masturbate in the bathtub; a not-so-subtle foreshadowing of the marine-based mischief to come. I adored the fact that a 40-year old actress was portrayed as sexually active and desirable. Seeing her thatch of dark pubic hair grounded a fanciful plotline into reality: Elisa has pubes just like the rest of us.
The Shape of Water’s interspecies romance may first seem like a cheap attempt at titillation. Many argue that the plotline would have been strengthened sans a sexual and romantic interaction between Elisa and the Amphibian man. I strongly disagree.
It’s refreshing to see a marginalized character pursue a dreamy courtship, complete with a cheesy musical dance number. Like the mercurial nature of the ocean, the emotional landscape of the film effortlessly flows from slapstick humor to heartbreak to sensuality with no warning or hesitation. So frequently do we forget that this is how life unfurls itself; inexplicable in its ebbs and flows.
Del Toro himself notes that this film allowed him to examine and process his adult concerns of “trust, otherness, sex, love, [and] where we’re going.”
This exploration is most notably shown through the scene of Elisa describing her first intimate encounter with the Amphibious man — a scene which has been forever seared into my mind.
Elisa, cupping her hands together, then gently opening them like a clam shell. Slowly rotating out one of her hands, her pointer and middle finger out, while her other fingers stayed curled in. She ends the gesture with a coy grin.
Like myself, Zelda took a brief moment to absorb and understand the makeshift signing of this fish-foolery. Then the pin, and both our jaws, dropped. She then articulates exactly what is going through the audience’s mind: “Lord! Never trust a man. Even if he looks flat down there…”
While the movie’s implication of sex is as palpable as blood in water, the actual vivid mechanics of gorgeous fishy copulation are left to the imagination. I, however, an ever curious degenerate, want to share my fantasies on the matter. Take my musings, of course, with a grain of salt; I’m, after all, a kinkster first, and a herpetologist only in the sense that a light Googling is akin to research for a PhD thesis.
Considering the way Elisa explicitly described the Amphibian man’s retractable member, it’s safe to say that hot penetrative sex is definitely on the table. The asset’s skin is textured with scales; while amphibians are usually perceived as slimy animals without them, one family, caecilians, does possess scales.
My findings, aka Wikipedia, has also informed me that caecilians’ anatomy are “highly adapted for a burrowing lifestyle.”
Consequently, I’d have to speculate that the Asset’s “asset” must also possess this feature. As well as this, since his cock is covered by a retractable protective plate, it stands to reason that it may not be shielded by scales. His dick could be like a tree frog’s skin: naturally slick and delicate.
As Elisa and the Amphibian man continue their intimate relationship in the ocean, water-resistant lubrication would be a must. I have a feeling that a lack of Astroglide would pose no issue.
The asset was also once worshiped as a god; and I’m sure that facet extends to sex. One can only imagine the amount of new positions which could be achieved when one is unrestricted by the gravitational laws of sex on land.
Not only are the physical aspects to their relationship fantastic, the emotional basis of their relationship is also incredibly nuanced and pure.
When one is viewed as an “other”, one can’t help but identify with society’s perceived monsters and find worthiness in them. Elisa, who is both disabled and working-class, connects with Giles and Zelda, who are similarly othered, through sexuality and race respectively. She falls in love with the Amphibian man, who, through his own otherness, sees her for who she is.
Shown by classics such as Frankenstein’s monster and King Kong, the innocence of a beast comes from its disregard of stereotypical human flaws as a measure of value or lack thereof.
As Elisa poignantly signs, “when he looks at me, he does not know how I am incomplete. He sees me as I am.”
In comparison to tales such as Beauty and the Beast, where the allure of the monster lies in what they could become with change, the romance between Elisa and the Amphibian man is without this expectation.
The epitome of this mutual acceptance is highlighted in the film’s closing scene: the Amphibian man makes Elisa’s evidence of her disability — the scars on her neck — beautiful not by erasing them, but by transforming them into gills.
One final note is that caecilian is new Latin for “blind ones”.
And you know what they say about love.
MICHELLE ZHENG 