Unless your Facebook algorithm is a lot more pure than mine, you will have seen the clickbait articles about women with OnlyFans accounts who try to best each other in the total number of male sex partners they’re with in a single day. Issy Knowles, the creator and performer of Body Count, has seen them too, and the show is her speculation about what the competitors within this particular contest might be like.
Knowles’ character Pollie performs femininity in both the latex genitalia she dons for the hour and the kittenish enthusiasm she wears like another garment. The story alternates between Pollie in the midst of her marathon sexthletics and flashbacks to her previous relationships with men, aided by dialogue with a warm-voiced off-screen interviewer.
The Pollie that Knowles brings convincingly to life is blisteringly smart, hilarious, and angry. Emerging from a sexually restrictive upbringing, she seeks to make her body her own but repeatedly encounters attitudes from both men and women that frustrate her bid for autonomy. She’s nobody’s victim, eagerly dispelling that notion early on by contrasting her working conditions and income with her previous corporate drone existence, and by savagely making fun of one of her clients who dares to extend pity.
Pollie eviscerates all the men she discusses, which creates an interesting problem for the show. On the one hand, she’s right: the men she presents are incels, narcissists, users, and abusers, and most women will find the anecdotes familiar or at least relatable. On the other hand, these men are also somewhat caricatured, and her slayings can feel heavy-handed (if, admittedly, also very, very funny).
Knowles expertly skewers the injustices of sexism, but is ambivalent about offering constructive ideas for tackling it. There’s a bewilderingly fleeting twist and a half-hearted moral proffered near the end that is easily missed, and indeed could be missed out from the script without loss. Her main focus, entirely reasonably, is on Pollie’s individual journey toward self-possession, and she brings this to resolution in an interesting and thought-provoking way.
The one-sidedness in point of view makes Body Count work as entertainment more than it does as illuminating social commentary, but, in recompense, it is extremely entertaining. Knowles’ Pollie is mesmerisingly charismatic, complex, and entirely believable. Her barbs, even when mean and a bit too easy, will leave you mulling over the truths behind their stings long after your laughter fades.
