Well on strictly aesthetic terms, it's a straightforward docudrama with little narrative tension. The sexual talk is completely non-titilating by design. The movie ends before he dies so the Sexual Revolution issue isn't dealt with but the point of view is that he helped homosexuals feel less like outsiders. However if you're framing the issue as 'the better Kinsey comes off/ the worse the movie is' then I guess he and his work are shown as being important and valuable.
And I would say its hard to argue with the idea that sex is an object worthy of scientific study. But the man's interview with the pedophile is shown with all the disgust it merits and his own sexual problems (the aforementioned mutilation) are also shown (very discretely). It's not the whitewash some here fear but not the complete debunking job many would have liked. At its core its not all that diffrent from those old Hollywood biopics about crusaders triumphing over the masses not understanding them they used to make about people like Florenz Ziegfield and Louis Pasteur. Hope that helped!
I would never argue with that. I also wouldn't argue that hypothermia is something we should study. Mengele studied it by keeping Jews in freezing water until they died. In most cases of bad scientific research, the subject is just fine, but the research methods are what's evil.
At its core its not all that diffrent from those old Hollywood biopics about crusaders triumphing over the masses not understanding them they used to make about people like Florenz Ziegfield and Louis Pasteur.
That's what makes the movie so sick. Take Pasteur---here's a guy who said that we should try all these processes to make our lives better, and people said his vaccines would cause people to grow cowpox on their bodies and other hysterical pishposh. Kinsey's detractors say hysterical things like "Just because a lot of prison inmates are homosexual doesn't mean everybody is" and "Adults shouldn't rape children" but they're treated as fearful prudes and Dr. Kinsey is the wonderful hero...