Product Details

• Actors: Rachel Maines
• Directors: Wendy Slick;Emiko Omori
• Format: Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: FIRST RUN FEATURES
• DVD Release Date: December 9, 2008
• Run Time: 74 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B001FXRQ76
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #73,911 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Passion & Power" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Review

This tremendously important and provocative film uses humor and great insight to illuminate our dark past... I loved it almost as much as I love my vibrator! --Margaret Cho, Comedienne

Product Description

{WINNER! BEST DIRECTING, DOCUMENTARY; SAN FRANCISCO WOMEN'S FILM FESTIVAL}

"Electricity has given so much comfort to womankind - The vacuum cleaner, the pop-up toaster and the automatic ice dispenser. And perhaps above all, it gave her the vibrator." (Natalie Angier, New York Times)

PASSION & POWER is a provocative, enjoyable documentary that explores the controversial history of the electro-magnetic vibrator, from the Victorian era - when doctors used the device to relieve women of "hysteria" - through the sexual revolution of the 1960s to the post-feminist present. As well as revealing the vibrator's mysterious past, this informative yet unexpectedly funny film digs deeper to uncover the female orgasm from the time of Hippocrates to the present day, and explores its ramifications for sexual politics and gender dynamics throughout history.

Featuring interviews with sexperts, historians and pioneering feminists, Passion & Power takes us on a surprising and enlightening journey through the secret history of the vibrator and the even-more mystifying female orgasm.

See all Editorial Reviews

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars What about Women of Color!!?, May 17, 2009

By	Jeffery Mingo (Homewood, IL USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This is an excellent, feminist documentary. However, almost every woman presented is white and women of color are almost invisible in this work. Remember the Schoolhouse Rock installment about women getting the right to vote and all the animated women are white? This is equally homogenous and disappointing.
At one point, the narrator says, "Middle-class women are forced not to have or speak about sexual desires and feelings." It's great that they brought up class, but race is absent. At that time in history, Black women are stereotyped as lascivious and outside of the elite group of women who could be on a pedestal. The white feminists interviewed here should know that, but they say nothing of it.
The work includes a white comedienne named Reno. I like her and I wish her career much success. However, they could have had Margaret Cho, Mo'Nique, or Margo Gomez laughing about the same women's issues.
In the book "The Color Purple," Shug showed Celie that she has a happy button down there. This work speaks of white women informing other white women about their downstairs equipment, but you never see women of color addressing this issue.
This is a great documentary. Don't get me wrong. However, it borders on what bell hooks termed "white power feminism." In a time when one out of four women in the US is of color, the monochrome presentation of this work is beyond troubling. It's downright shameful!

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars One Simple Invention, November 27, 2008

By	Amos Lassen (Little Rock, Arkansas) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

"Passion and Power: The Technology of the Orgasm"

One Simple Invention

Amos Lassen

First Run Features has a new release on DVD that goes where few films have dared to go. "Passion and Power" is a documentary about the history of vibrators and the female orgasm is America. It examines the history of the vibrator from the Victorian Age (when the vibrator was used to cure a woman's "hysteria") through the sexual revolution of the 1960's up until and through today. Wendy Slick and Emiko Omori also look at myths about female orgasms as well as look at the influence both the vibrator and the female orgasm have had of sexual politics and gender dynamics.
The vibrator is a relatively simple invention but it has had a lot to do with the female orgasm, we learn. Originally used for medical reasons to help the medical profession better understand the female orgasm which has been misunderstood. Socially, legally and religious, sexual satisfaction is supposed to be brought about by male penetration alone; there is no consideration for female orgasm and women remained unsatisfied after the sexual act, their dissatisfaction was labeled as "hysteria". The symptoms were vague and were no more than a disease that was manufactured by doctors in order to pad their bank accounts and to create a procedure that would satisfy women. When in the 1920's vibrators were seen in early porn films, doctors stopped the treatment and the vibrator went underground. In the 1970's when feminism became a force and birth control became a norm and abortion became a word used in daily speech, the sexual revolution began and one woman, Betty Dodson, brought the vibrator back into the lives of women. She noticed that when she touched herself with a scalp massager, she experienced powerful orgasms. She then began a crusade to teach women how to have orgasms with a vibrator--both by themselves and with partners.
However in 2004 the female orgasm again came under attack when a former fifth grade teacher was arrested for selling vibrators to undercover cops in a small Texas town. Texas has a law prohibiting the sale of genital arousing devices yet male sexual enhancement drugs can be sold there. This makes Texas (and three other states) have a double standard and endangers sexual freedom.
The movie begins with the story of Joanne Webb, the churchgoing Texas housewife who was busted for selling vibrators but the majority of the film deals with the research of Rachel P. Maines whose 1999 book, "The Technology of Orgasm; Hysteria, the Vibrator and Women's Sexual Satisfaction". She shows how vibrators were used by doctors for bogus claims. There even was a time when vibrators were manufactured by Sears, Roebuck and General Electric.
The movie gives us interviews and archival photographs. But it is Betty Dodson who is the star of this film especially when she describes her own experiences and she says some pretty astounding things. There are some poignant moments in the film as women admit that were misled by views of women's sexuality. The movie is quite a lighthearted view of a subject not usually discussed and it is in no way offensive as it could have been. It brings a secret and strange history to life and is an empowering look at female sexuality as a tasteful expose. In fact, Margaret Cho said, "I love this movie as much as I love my vibrator".