The Art of Connection: finding connection in music, word and film 

In this blog for Sexual Health Week, Brook staff explore books, films and music that represent connection to them.

When we think about connection we often think about how we feel as a human in relation to other humans that we know, but we also form connections with humans that we don’t know, finding comfort or solace in their stories and art instead. This is why media and art are so important: they can be vehicles to help us connect with other people, ourselves or even the world around us. Below are some of Brook’s staffs picks of film, book and music that represents connection to them – We encourage you to find your pick too, you never know where you’ll find it!

Magic Mike franchise, 2012 onwards

I return to the Magic Mike films at least once a year and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve watched the first. They have a reputation for being titillating and raunchy, and… yes. They are. But there’s also so much more to it than that.

I love how the relationships between the male dancers are portrayed as special and important. They’re all very different from each other and don’t always see eye-to-eye but they always hype each other up; you don’t often see this connection happening between men on screen.

There are also interesting female characters in all three films. In the first film, there’s Brooke, a protective older sister, In XXL, there’s Jada Pinkett’s Rome, the tough dancer-turned-CEO of club Domina and in Last Dance, there’s vulnerable, passionate Max, whose lust for life (pun intended) is reinvigorated by Mike; and there’s her daughter Zadie, whose narration peppers the film with reflections on the history and philosophy of dance. (Yes, really.) They all represent connection in its many forms.

The thing Magic Mike gets right the most, though, is women’s sexuality. Not just in an oiled-up-torsos kind of way, but also in the need for emotional intelligence, being listened to and being taken care of – whether that’s for one dance or a lifelong partnership.

There is plenty to think about when it comes to the Magic Mike phenomenon, from sexuality to masculinity to human nature. The connection between the dancers, and the largely female audience’s connection to the franchise and how it makes them feel, is what brings me back again and again.

– Rin, Education Manager

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

It was hard for me to think of one book or piece of media that epitomises connection for me, after all the whole point of creating any art or media if for it to be shared and connect people to each other through shared interests or understanding. However, if I had to pick one that came to mind when I hear the word “connection”, My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante is it. This book (and the three that follow it) tells the story of two female childhood friends growing up together and growing apart as they find themselves entangled in the labyrinthine make-up of a Neapolitan town with so many families involved with each other that the book begins with a list of who belongs to what family.

Sure, things happen to drive the plot along, but the real story lies in how Lenù and Lila (the two main characters) navigate their way through their relationships, both familial and romantic, while maintaining their own unique bond. I don’t think I have ever read a more honest portrayal of enduring female friendship, especially when it comes to creating characters who are far from perfect and infuriatingly human.

– Hannah, Interim Head of Service Development

Enter Shikari, 2003-present

I’m thirteen years old and have ventured to my first festival with two friends. It was the last stop on Linkin Park and Jay-Z’s Projekt Revolution Tour. Pendulum and NER*D were also on the lineup. Before they played, there was this band called Enter Shikari, weird name, I thought. They started, and I didn’t know how else to describe it other than noise, but it was fun and exciting. The mosh pits opened, and that was it for me.

My ADHD brain and soul encountered freedom and community in the pit.

Enter Shikari are an acquired taste but they represent human connection in a way not many other artists do. I had listened to their first two albums quite a bit when I was younger, but their third album, A Flash Flood of Colour, changed the game for me. I love political bands, people who use their voice to take a stand. This was the first album for me that I fell in love with where that message was in your face. We have a voice, and we must use it to create change, keep our planet, and to support marginalised communities, they will not ‘divide us’. Mixing screaming with beautiful singing, melodies, heavy drops and drum & bass, I was sold. I don’t like things sounding the same and tame, it’s boring. I want music that is new and refreshing, this album was that for me.

– Kenya, Marketing and Campaign Coordinator

Good Will Hunting, 1997

Connection can be shown, and it can be said, but it can also live in what is left unsaid.

I have chosen Good Will Hunting because it shows a friendship where two friends hold different views of what connection asks of them.

Part of what I love is the story behind it. Damon and Affleck co-wrote it as two young men, and it propelled both their careers and won them an Oscar. It could only have been written by two people looking ahead, with all the hope and anxiety that involves.

Damon plays Will, for whom staying close to his friends is how he shows his love for them. Chuckie, played by Affleck, sees him choosing that over his own potential, and tells him he owes it to them to leave. Then he says the best part of his day is the ten seconds when he thinks Will has already gone. He is describing a morning that would break his heart, and hoping his friend takes the hint.

Connection, for Chuckie, isn’t staying. It is his friend living up to his potential. Neither of them ever says as much.

The tragic beauty of it is that it is all left in the subtext, and in what they do.

– Cam, Head of Commercial Development

Lady Gaga, Born This Way, 2011

For me, music has been such a huge presence in my life and has always been a way I’ve connected to myself and others – Lady Gaga’s Born This Way is maybe the absolute epitome of that. It’s an album that explores liberation, human connection and radical self-acceptance in all its forms and when I’m feeling least like myself, listening to songs like Marry The Night, Hair, Schieße and Born This Way bring me back to me again.

Lady Gaga has also cultivated a following of “Little Monsters” – loyal fans who are as connected to the music as they are Gaga and each other.

This community makes Gaga’s live shows an incredible experience of connection and it’s in these spaces I have maybe felt my most alive and free to be me.

We dance and sing (and yes, we also cry) and for those few hours, it’s pure joy. It’s shared experiences like these between myself, thousands of strangers and a global icon, that remind me how beautiful life can be.

– Alice, Media and Communications Coordinator