You Are Going to Die Alone. Want Popcorn?

OMFG! Valentine's Day is coming!!!!! Do you have a date yet? I do, because I am better than you. You are probably a sad, loveless old spinster who fritters away her precious childbearing years doing things like "working" and "making friends" and "discovering a cure for cancer." Ha ha ha, you are pathetic.

No need to worry, though: even though you are a woman, and therefore totally suck until the precise moment that you meet a man who is willing to admit you might suck a little less than others of your kind, there is no need for you to be alone. You have the movies! Yes, for a mere $10 or $12 bucks a pop, you can haul your sad ass into a theater full of anonymous strangers to watch your narrative surrogates (who suck - just like you!) realize how awful they are and find sweet, sweet redemption at the hands of various blandly handsome men. They find love, these women! Just like you never will.

Now, I do not see these movies. God, no. I've seen some posters, though! So put down your Haagen-Dasz or whatever it is you dopes use to replace the sweet touch of a man, and listen up, for I am about to demonstrate my reviewing skills. This is why I get the big bucks, people! (SPOILER: No, it is not, I do this for free.)

#1:

Delightful! A quirky computer-animated romance about two stick figures who meet whilst posted on the doors of adjacent restrooms! It's like WALL-E, but with more jokes about public urination. Oh, wait, I am totally wrong. Here's the plot summary [via]:

A romantically challenged morning show producer (Heigl) is reluctantly embroiled in a series of outrageous tests by her chauvinistic correspondent (Butler) to prove his theories on relationships and help her find love. His clever ploys, however, lead to an unexpected result.

... he gets devoured by sharks?

No, no, that's probably not it. They probably fall in loooove, despite/because of the fact that he is so adorably "chauvinistic" and treats her like a pile of dog poop that he somehow stepped in on the way to Hooters. Then she discovers that he is a dinosaur and has a secondary circulatory system in his hindquarters. Romance!

#2:

Terrifying! An innocent woman is accused of being a witch by the elders of her pastel village, and is condemned to be hung about with bags of expensive consumer products and thrown into the river! She screams, silently, from the poster - appealing to us, or to God, or to ANYONE, to spare her this agony. How did she come to meet this dark fate? Let's check the plot summary:

In the glamorous world of New York City, Rebecca Bloomwood (ISLA FISHER) is a fun-loving girl who is really good at shopping - a little too good, perhaps. She dreams of working for her favorite fashion magazine, but can't quite get her foot in the door - until ironically, she snags a job as an advice columnist for a financial magazine published by the same company. As her dreams are finally coming true, she goes to ever more hilarious and extreme efforts to keep her past from ruining her future.

Ah, women. Not only do they suck at love, they really, earnestly suck at having jobs. Imagine: a woman, writing, for a magazine that is not about fashion! Why, she'd be completely unqualified! Ho ho ho, what would she do, manipulate the keys of the laptop with her vagina? Turn in an article written entirely with her eyeliner pencil? This is a situation rife with comedic potential! All jokes aside, however, I can only hope that this confused young lady meets some sort of blandly handsome gentleman - her boss, I am thinking, or at the very least a more senior co-worker - who helps to set her priorities straight and teaches her that life is, yes, about more than shopping. It's also about learning to give the perfect BJ.

#3.

Ah, the Brady Bunch: all grown up, still creepily trapped in alternate dimensions, from whence they can only stare at each other in an ultimately futile attempt at communication. Or, you know, not. Ultimately, this poster is so bland (that dude from Alias! That lady from Friends! Some other lady! That guy who is not John Hodgman!) that I can only turn to the plot summary - which, holy Jesus, is long:

Gigi just wants a man who says he'll call - and does - while Alex advises her to stop sitting by the phone. Beth wonders if she should call it off after years of committed singlehood with her boyfriend, Neil, but he doesn't think there's a single thing wrong with their unmarried life. Janine's not sure if she can trust her husband, Ben, who can't quite trust himself around Anna. Anna can't decide between the sexy married guy [the one from Alias! - Ed.] or her straightforward no-sparks standby, Conor, who can't get over the fact that he can't have her. And Mary, who's found an entire network of loving, supportive men, just needs to find one who's straight.

If you've ever sat by the phone wondering why he said he would call, but didn't [you are a lousy lay - Ed.] or if you can't figure out why she doesn't want to sleep with you any more [you, also, are a lousy lay - Ed.] or why your relationship just isn't going to the next level [you are both lousy lays, and why do you even try squishing your sad old privates together any more, seriously? - Ed.]... he (or she) is just not that into you.

There! Now all you wretched griping feminists can stop your wretched griping! He, OR SHE, is just not that into you. They've acknowledged that women may not all be ready to glom onto the first man who shows them the slightest bit of interest (in parentheses). They've indicated that women are at least partially responsible for the direction that their relationships take, and that boys are not the only ones who call the shots (in parentheses). They've positioned their movie as one which is not intended solely for female consumers and/or part of an industry in which rich old men greenlight sub-par entertainments for women based solely on their stereotypical and frankly insulting ideas of what women care about (in parentheses). If that is not part of the title - if, that is, the title indicates a movie that is only about women responding to male desire, rather than acknowledging that almost every single person on this planet attempts sexual relations with other people and will therefore necessarily experience some kind of rejection sooner or later, and also that women have desires of their own which are autonomous and not entirely dependent on those of men - that is only because it would be too hard to make that point (in parentheses)!

I see no problems with this movie. It will be delightful. It will teach us to laugh about love. It will have that dude from the Mac commercials, possibly in his altogether. Go see it. God knows you don't have anything else going on.

Behold Ye Now the Merrye Comedie of Aaron P. Taylor & his Men

CHORUS:
Two households, unalike in dignity
In Tiger Beatdown, where we lay our scene
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny;
Dude's based his whole damn world view on his peen.

SOME POSTER (hereinafter named "Mercdouchio"):
Wow! you really twisted his words around... Don't forget that the dancing woman started this. She approached HIM and had the audacity to ram her ass in his groin. According to his article, he was dancing alone and she came up to him.

CHORUS:
From woman's boldness springs all misery;
To dance and not to fuck is trickery!

MERCDOUCHIO:
Secondly, he is not a rapist, he walked away from the situation. He just thought that OTHER men might not be so forgiving.

CHORUS:
He doth forgive! He shall not now thee rape,
Though thou hast made his peen into a jape!

MERCDOUCHIO:
Wow! what a crime, lets lock up Aaron, for thinking that some guy has the POTENTIAL to harm another woman by misreading the flagrant flirtatious behavior (IMHO also extremely classless).

CHORUS:
To rape is sin, yet shows it no less class
Than letting Aaron Taylor touch thine ass?
Methinks Some Poster doth protest too much
That ladies make men rapists by their touch.

MERCDOUCHIO:
Aaron clearly does not approve of rape in any way, and you twisting his words to serve a tired argument (women aren't responsible for their behavior), is damaging to telling women that this COULD happen.

CHORUS:
But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?
It is a post on Aaron Taylor's site!
See what course of appeasement now he takes
For women raped, who call his words a blight.

AARON P. TAYLOR:
What I’m saying is, women need to stop always playing the victim role - i.e. the “OMG, I was doing absolutely NOTHING to bring this incident upon me“ role - and start taking responsibility for their actions, actions that can - sometimes - contribute to a guy wanting to sex her without her consent... to all the rape victims who have commented on the article and verbally bashed me for being insensitive to what they went through: please take heed that I am NOT doing that. I am fully aware that there are women (and men - nobody ever brings up the fact that men get raped, too) out there who get raped and didn’t wear a skimpy outfit, or tease a guy, or give a guy any impression that she wanted to have sex with him... Maybe I’m wrong for thinking that a woman might actually be SMART and INTELLIGENT enough to take responsibility for her actions, or realize that, while men SHOULD be smart enough back off when she says no, not all men are going to do so after she’s been giving them signals all night that indicate she’ll kiss or have sex with them.

CHORUS:
Pro-rape? Is not a rapist's conscience served
By saying that some rape is undeserved
But only that which doth befall the "smart?"
Thou hast a dick; now grow thyself a heart.
Is not a woman's body hers to give
Or to withhold, as long as she shall live?
There never is a story of more woe
Than this, of men who cannot hark to "no."

Exeunt Dancing Woman, the Sexist, assorted Jezebels, the Sister of Shakespeare, Various Gentlefolk of Comment, Mercdouchio, Aaron P. Taylor, and the Beater of Tigers, who is Bored.

Douche (Noun): Something a Reasonable Woman Wouldn't Put in Her Vagina

Some men aspire to be famous douches; others are happy to toil in douche obscurity until the light of internet fame shines upon them. Then, there are men who arise, in the space of a moment, to the heights of douchery - men like young Ian Sloane, of Wheaton College, who inquires: 

I have a question, addressed to any academic (or social) studiers of women at Wheaton; When will the woman stop playing into the traditional gender role, submitting to a hot and steamy smooch on the lips while griping about male dominance in relationships out of the corner of her mouth?

Ha ha, yeah, when will we? (Also: the traditional gender role... OF KISSING? Since when does a woman "submit" to kissing? I thought we liked to smooch!) In answer to your question, Ian, we will probably stop griping around the time dudes stop saying things like this: 

In a surprisingly musical moment of clarity, I realized all women are prostitutes.

Now, keep in mind that Ian Sloane does not mean "prostitute" in the sense of "a person who is paid a pre-negotiated fee in exchange for facilitating the orgasms of his or her client." He means it in the sense that dudes who say things like this tend to mean it - to denote any woman who has expectations of the dude she is dating, no matter how small those expectations are, and no matter what she gives him. Women: they want things! Things like "anniversary gifts!" And "free car rides!" And "ridiculous time commitments!" Relationships today, they are crazy, Ian Sloane says - mostly because they involve women: 

In spite of all the hooplah about the modern independent woman, ladies these days are trying to have the best of both worlds by assuming dominant roles but still requiring regular affirmations of love and commitment.

Women are asking for affirmations of love and commitment? THOSE DIRTY WHORES. When will they realize that the best way to date Ian Sloane is to not want to go out on dates with him? 

But wait: I don't want to go out on a date with Ian Sloane. In fact, I've been not going out on dates with Ian Sloane for years. Ever since I've been old enough to date, I've not been having dates with Ian Sloane. Does this mean we've been together all along? 

I mean, it's the perfect relationship! He's never bought me a gift, I've never been in his car, I've never asked him to spend any time with me, and I can safely say that I will never want him to demonstrate any love or commitment to me! I've never even met him. This raises so many questions: have I been cheating on Ian? What does this mean for my prior commitments? It's clear now that this is my major relationship. Perhaps I should become a nun, or an anchorite, retreating into lifelong isolation so that I can enjoy the absence that is perfect intimacy.  

As for all the other women who are not dating Ian: don't worry ladies, I'm not jealous. There's more than enough of his lovelessness to go around. 

New Feature: Slightly Insane Media Studies

I am not smoking! Well: I'm not smoking much. This is very exciting, for several reasons, the chief of which is that I've spent the entire day straddling some sort of barbed-wire fence between panic and irritation. (That is what we call a metaphor, and it is one of many things that you cannot do well when you are trying to overcome your weird emotional/physical dependency on something that makes you smelly and unattractive and also might kill you.) Yes, lots of things are hard when you do not smoke: talking, working, and not whining constantly about how much you want a cigarette would be my top three. But also writing, it turns out, is pretty hard! Which is why it is so, so gratifying when someone else manages to sum up - in only one sentence! - that one thing you just keep bitching about re: popular culture but can't quite communicate in a clear or succinct fashion (do you ever communicate in a clear or succinct fashion, Sara? probably not!) and that you just keep trying to communicate, awkwardly, thereby wasting endless time and space and making everyone think you are kind of a sour nag. Are you ready for the sentence? Here it is!

Thank God we have another film about the fantasies, hang-ups, unintentional cruelties, and eventual redemption of a fucked-up straight white guy.
- Dana Stevens, first sentence in her review of Choke.

Ha ha ha, AWESOME. But can she keep it up? Let's check in with the second sentence:

For a moment there, I had almost forgotten to keep such dudes at the forefront of my concerns.
- Dana Stevens, second sentence in her review of Choke.

Oh, snap!

It's not that I don't care about FUSWGs. I do! They are a part of our human community. Some of them are quite talented. It's just that these stories dominate the landscape, in a way that often makes me feel that other perspectives aren't valued, and at a certain point my relationship to the culture at large starts to feel like hanging out with a dude who has to tell me everything about everything and quite blithely and confidently cuts me off when I start to speak. At some point, my willingness to listen wears thin, and I excuse myself so that I can step outside and smoke.

I should note that this sentence, for me, really hangs on the phrase "unintentional cruelties." Always, in these stories, the FUSWG in question hurts someone - typically a girl - either through sheer doltishness and immaturity, or because he actually does believe that he matters more than she does, that he can and should be cruel or disrespectful or dishonest, because it's fun, and because he can get away with it. The "sensitive," navel-gazing aspect of the story, and the eventual redemption, are supposed to legitimize this: I know I'm an asshole, but I just can't help myself. This is a common line, and it wearies me. If you don't want to be an asshole, there are plenty of ways to avoid it - like, say, listening to the women in your life when they tell you how they want to be treated, or challenging your own belief that respecting women's boundaries is "emasculating." Also, you might not want to surround yourself with narratives that legitimize asshole behavior - although, as previously noted, they will be difficult to avoid.  

--- WORKBOOK: FUN WITH THIS SENTENCE ---

This sentence is fun because you can use it in different contexts! Let's start by applying it to, say, Indecision:

Thank God we have another [novel] about the fantasies, hang-ups, unintentional cruelties, and eventual redemption of a fucked-up straight white guy.

Let's apply it to All the Sad Young Literary Men:

Thank God we have another [novel] about the fantasies, hang-ups, unintentional cruelties, and eventual redemption of [three] fucked-up straight white guy[s].

Let's apply it to Knocked Up and High Fidelity and Fight Club and Garden State and Elizabethtown and The Last Kiss and About a Boy:

Thank God we have [all of these stories] about the fantasies, hang-ups, unintentional cruelties, and eventual redemption of [a bunch of] fucked-up straight white guy[s].

BONUS QUESTIONS: Can you think of any narratives to which this sentence might apply? Be creative! Is it okay that many Charlie Kaufman movies fit this pattern if you also think Charlie Kaufman movies are just really good? Consider fucked-up straight white chick media: is it equally insufferable, not least because of the amount of privilege inherent in being a straight white chick, but also because self-pity and self-absorption are just really unlovely traits? How about this blog? Is it annoying you yet? Do you think that it will start to? Also, can I have a cigarette now? Please. I want one. Please. 

Dudes I Might Possibly Have Dated Once: The Groundbreaking Social Study

So: while I am writing a long and terminally unwieldy piece which aims to set forth a postmodern theory of pornography (yes, I am doing this, may God have mercy on us all), it seems like a reasonable time to be catching up on books in the ever-growing and slightly bullshitty field of Masculinity Studies.

Specifically, I really wanted to read Guyland. The basic premise of the book seems sound: young middle-class white men are raised with a tremendous sense of entitlement, which is threatened by the successes of women and people of color in formerly all-white, all-male environments, and they are therefore retreating into all-white-boy societies where they can act out a particularly virulent and ugly strain of masculinity without actually taking on any responsibilities or having their perceived superiority challenged in any meaningful way? Yes! Okay! Tell me more!

Fifty pages into the book, however, I regret to say that it is not very rewarding. The reasons for this are twofold: first, Michael Kimmel is a horrible writer, and second, he does not get the young people, which would be fine - does anyone ever get the young people, really? - except that it renders his thoughts about youth culture quite suspect. See this:

You can find them in New York’s Murray Hill, or Silver Lake and Echo Park in Los Angeles, Houston’s Midtown, or Atlanta’s Buckhead district, sipping their mocha lattes in the local Starbucks… They are the “friendsters” with their wi-fi computers looking for love, friendship, or hookups, or on monster.com looking for next month’s job.

The kids today, with their fancy coffees and their Internet and their baggy pants! It is crazy, I am telling you. And their music?

… is some of the angriest music ever made. Nearly four out of every five gangsta rap CDs are bought by suburban white guys. It is not just the “boys in the hood” who are a “menace to society.” It’s the boys in the “burbs.”

OH GOD MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOPPPPPPPPP.

Yet it does not stop. As far as I can see, the writing remains precisely this terrible throughout the entire book.

There's also the fact that Kimmel views terminal boyhood (which is, I can confirm, a very real thing with the dudes today) as an escape from the "responsibilities" of manhood, by which he chiefly seems to mean that these men are not angling for high-powered corporate jobs and getting married at twenty-one. I find that this is actually the least annoying thing about contemporary dudes - the conflation of manhood with social power and the possession of a wife was one of the chief targets of second-wave feminism - and Kimmel's constant insistence that all of these men need to "grow up and settle down" (and stop "hooking up," a phrase which he uses constantly and with the prim, scandalized air of an old schoolmarm) is fairly grating. Yes, there are men who can only ever hook up, men who shy away from the word "girlfriend" as from a branding iron, men for whom an equitable and serious relationship with a woman seems akin to hacking one's balls off with a dull knife and putting them up for sale on eBay, and these men, my friends, these men are assholes - yet, when Kimmel's exploring how male sexual entitlement can lead to rape, it would perhaps benefit his study if he did not speak about consensual, casual sex in the same breath as if it were the same thing.

This is not to say that the book is entirely worthless. If you're looking for an Anatomy of the American Douchebag, this might be not be the worst place to start. It just has the same problem as a lot of social research: the person making the study aims to explain the culture at hand without absorbing it, and therefore ends by concluding that these people are freaks, so that while the actual behavioral patterns and insider perspectives can be enlightening, the framing narrative carries a strong whiff of normative crap. That problem is compounded, in this case, by hugely, spectacularly, breathtakingly bad prose.

Anyway, it's all worth it for this:

Guyland now even has its own literature… in such recent novels as Booty Nomad by Scott Mebus, Love Monkey by Kyle Smith, and the widely praised Indecision by Ben Kunkel.

This is transcendence. There can be no greater joy in this world. My entire life up to this point has been justified, and I know now why I was born - for I have seen Indecision referenced in the same sentence as Booty Nomad.

Actually, wasn't Booty Nomad the original title of Indecision? Either way, it would work.