Teddy Bear Film Analysis

The film Teddy Bear revolves around a Danish bodybuilder named Dennis and his pursuit to find a fulfilling relationship with a woman. Throughout his life, either due to his oppressive mother or crippling shyness, Dennis has never been able to connect with a woman and engage in a thriving romantic relationship. As a 38 year old man, Dennis becomes frustrated with his situation and decides to follow in the footsteps of a family member and travel to Thailand, where he has been told it is easier to talk to women. However, Dennis does not appear to initially understand that this is because of the legal status of prostitution in Thailand and the resulting massive sex tourism industry. While researching the film, I discovered that it is known as 10 timer til Paradis, or Ten Hours to Paradise, in Danish. I could not find why the title was changed to Teddy Bear in English, but I do think that both titles do a fine job of encapsulating the film.

During the film, I was unsure if Dennis knew that he was entering into a situation connected to sex tourism. He seemed naive and confused during the scenes where he was asked to pay for a girl at the hotel or when a young woman started undressing in front of him, almost as if he did not know what was transpiring. We never saw his family member explain the widespread prostitution on camera, so maybe he thought Dennis already knew or he was embarrassed to say he met his wife through sex tourism. This made it difficult to dislike Dennis as a character, even though he was (perhaps unintentionally) engaging in sex tourism, which so often promotes human trafficking and sexual abuse of minors. Even if he did have an idea of the sex tourism aspect of his trip, he was quickly redeemed as he expressed his distaste with the young prostitutes and instead decided to pursue a real and honest relationship with