Today I sat down for a few minutes to peruse the Phnom Penh Post and an article title caught my eye: “Shining a Light in Dark Places.” Intrigued, I discovered a review of a recent German film called Same Same but Different. The movie is based on the true story of a young German backpacker who falls in love with a Cambodian prostitute, only to learn that she is dying of AIDS. (Before I begin ranting and raving, I do want to acknowledge that I haven’t seen the film and so am basing my reaction off the review and interview with the director.)

According to the review, the move portrays what I would describe as a Shakespearean tragedy in a romantic light. And I quote:

Director Buck uses the film to challenge the cliché of the hapless lad lured in by a scheming mistress looking for a sugar daddy, and opens up the whole gamut of modern male-female relationships for closer inspection.

All the men in Ben’s life are predatory towards women.

His brother is casually cheating on his girlfriend with a work colleague, his best friend changes girlfriends more frequently than underwear, and his backpacker buddy in Phnom Penh views all Asian women as sexual conquests…

Ben rejects all the cynical perspectives on offer, looking instead to his father for inspiration, a decent, loving man who also met the love of his life in a bar.

Since when have we decided that foreign men preying on disadvantaged women is a cliché that needs to be challenged? Or a cliché at all for that matter? The idea is horrifying to me. By definition, a cliché means a trite expression…something so overused that it loses its originality. I certainly hope there is nothing trite about sex trafficking or its perpetrators, pimps and victims. There is no way that an industry devaluing the dignity of human life to such an extent could ever reach the status of cliché. To use the term, in my view, discredits the entire film before I even see it. It indicates that there is absolutely no understanding of the true nature of the problem and therefore  eliminates any platform from which to disagree or present an opposing view – however artistic or romantic it may be.

What irks me most, however, is what seems to be the film’s attempt to normalize the notion that you can meet the love of your life in a brothel. As the director of the film insists, “Everybody wants something from each other. That’s a normal relationship.”  Really? That’s how we are justifying modern day slavery? As long as both parties get something they want, it must be okay. How utterly infuriating. 

I don’t doubt that many individuals who find themselves in brothels masked as bars have repeatedly witnessed the many levels of abuse and manipulation which men and women use in the name of love. But the film seems to suggest that the redemption of such abuses can be found through the very methods that create them. It attempts to call justification and the perpetuation of slavery something it is not – freedom, restoration and sacrificial love. Had the young German lad truly loved women, he would have never considered feeding the very system that imprisons them. 

A few years ago, I traveled to Bangkok for vacation. One night my friends and I went to a rooftop restaurant overlooking the city. It was a beautiful night and a very romantic venue. As I sat and people-watched, I began to notice an interesting trend: the majority of couples were white, Western men with young, Thai girls. My observations were duly noted by my friends who said that, in most situations, the men were clients and the women were prostitutes. Instantly my heart broke. And as I continued to watch stilted, awkward conversations play out through language and cultural barriers, I was struck by what a mockery of true intimacy it was. It saddened me…deeply. 

Can romantic, genuine love spring from such a place? I highly doubt it. And even if, in some rare instance, it did, there would still be no justification for the position from which it started. How can we champion social justice while romanticizing the very evils that war against it? Such contradictions only serve to weaken the human soul, not inspire it.