An octopus 'love story' on Netflix has caused thoughts to run wild. Why?
Anew Netflix documentary about a filmmaker and his “octopus teacher” has become the subject of impish suggestion and scurrilous rumour on social media, speculating about whether their intimate relationship ever, ah … turned physical.
Let me be clear, as both a fully paid-up member of the cephalopodsquad and one of the first reviewers of the film: the man does not have sex with the octopus. (And, if Google search brought you here, a time-saving tip for the future: that won’t ever be published by the Guardian. It remains to be seen with Netflix.)
My Octopus Teacher tells the moving story of how Craig Foster, after vowing to free dive daily after burning out at work, came to know an octopus living in the kelp forests outside his home in Cape Town. Over a year of observation, the two grow comfortable in each other’s company ( but not that comfortable), granting Foster an intimate (as in, close!) view of an alien life.
As nature documentaries go, My Octopus Teacher is strikingly heart-overhead – a decision that Foster might have come to regret since a Twitter thread about his “erotic relationship” with his subject went viral. Writer and self-described octopus theorist Sophie Lewis praised the film as “moving but flawed”, with particular regards to what she perceived as Foster’s “conspicuously queerphobic” repression about the nature of his attraction. A scene where the octopus fleetingly sits on Foster’s chest, Lewis describes as their having had “a form of sex”.
I may be taking Lewis’ point too literally (if so, so is much of the internet) – but if that is her measure, I’ve had sex with an octopus too. ( To be clear: I have not.) Not even they would recognise this interaction as sex, with most reproducing at arms’ length, the male handing the female a packet of his sperm with his special sex arm. But though the love story may be all Foster, the film makes clear that they do have a relationship.Again, it is all strictly aboveboard – just a bit of hand-holding. But as the tentative tentacle stretches out to Foster like Adam to God, it does not seem anthropomorphic to say that his fascination is reciprocated. Anyone who has been lucky enough to interact with octopuses will confirm their curiosity and initiative, part of what makes them so rewarding to study. But from the filmmakers’ account of production, it seems as if they struggled with how to frame such an unusual story. They eventually opted for “the most emotive” way possible, concluding that pushing too hard on the larger theme of “deep nature connection … could make viewers uncom