01 August 2007

Superbad - you ain't kidding

Apparently the market for blatantly sexist, misogynist, and female-degrading movies has not yet been exhausted. All evening I've been seeing commercials for a teen-targeted movie called "Superbad."
The recidivist behaviour I've seen so far includes:
-a male following a female student staring incessantly at her visible thong;
-a male "accidentally" bumps another male so that he grabs a female's breasts;
-two males staring down the shirt of a friend's mother and saying, after she walked away, "take good care of those" before the scene cuts away;
-a male--presmably drunk and ostensibly leaning in to kiss a woman who had not consented to it--headbutt her to the ground;
-two males talking about a female who "had breast reduction surgery" and referring to the idea as "slapping God across the face;"
-two guys plotting how to charm their way into a woman's pants: "I was so gone last night, I shouldn't have slept with that guy...We could be that mistake!"

All that in two 30-second commercials, folks.

The film's R rating primarily (since it comes first) derives from its "pervasive crude and sexual content." Cue the rant.

At what point does the train of American Pie-inspired garbage end? Sadly, only when the demand to see women treated as second-class, compliant, idiotic, sex receptacles has dissipated. Obviously that is not on the horizon. The film is made by the same asswads that brought us Talladega Nights and the 40-Year Old Virgin. People--mostly males in the 18-25 range--are going to line up and pay money to watch this movie, beginning next Friday, because it is what they want to see. They want to see the things they saw in the commercials and the trailer. Getting that little taste of what this movie offers will make them hungry to see more, to the point that they will set aside two hours and shell out $10 plus whatever snacks they so desire. They get a kick out of seeing women get headbutted by drunk men. They laugh when a guy follows a girl down a hallway staring incessantly at her backside. They are entertained by teenaged boys gazing their friend's "hot" mom. This is what they want, and it is being delivered to them.
Demand creates supply. Obviously the men behind this film believe that there is enough demand out there to offset the cost of making this movie. It won't be the #1 film at the box office, obviously. But it will end up making millions of dollars. Take that number and divide it by ten, and you will know how many young men out there get their rocks off by seeing girls humiliated and treated solely as objects of lust and as a goal. The attainment of a woman as pressing objective. To be more specific, the attainment of penetrating a woman as pressing objective. I hope that nobody I know goes to see this movie. I hope that nobody anybody at this forum knows goes to see this movie. I hope that nobody sees this movie and sends a signal that this type of hatred isn't desired. The first two may be possible, the last one, I readily concede is a pipe dream. And that's what disappoints me most of all.

3 comments:

C. K. Kelly Martin said...

I hope that nobody I know goes to see this movie. I hope that nobody anybody at this forum knows goes to see this movie. I hope that nobody sees this movie and sends a signal that this type of hatred isn't desired.

Amen to that. The guys movies like this are aimed at are our friends, brothers, sons etc. and they're being trained to see our humiliation as funny. It's a nasty world out there.

RGM said...

Not only is humiliating women funny, it's also greatly arousing for some of these men. The blending of sexuality and violence, in films like Black Snake Moan and elsewhere, has blurred together two things that most folks would hopefully like to keep as distinct as possible.

C. K. Kelly Martin said...

Not only is humiliating women funny, it's also greatly arousing for some of these men.

True. Maybe I should have said "entertaining." Sadly the majority of Internet pornography seems to blend the two as well.