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aboxofchocolates
Joined: 21 Mar 2008
Location: on your mind
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 Posted: Thu Feb 26, 2009 12:42 am Post subject: Why "She's Just Not That Into You" depresses me |
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I am updated on all episodes of battletar galactica, heroes, greys anatomy, and the office, so I thought I’d watch a movie. Browsing most popular links in tvshack, I saw “She’s Just Not That Into You”, and I thought I could watch it and apply the old feminazi analysis. I got to the part where Scarlet Yohanson or whatever her name is won a cooler and I got bored and decided to read other people’s criticisms instead. I bet I might have thought this way if I had finished that movie:
http://www.feministing.com/archives/013772.html
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This weekend I girded my feminist loins and bought a ticket to see He's Just Not That Into You. You've probably heard the basic criticisms of this movie already. Yes, the film pretty unequivocally portrays women as vapid, needy, and weak. (At one point I whispered to my theater-going companion that the film was making a misogynist out of me because I was identifying with all the male characters, and rolling my eyes at the women.) Yes, it portrays gay people as hollow stereotypes who only exist to provide commentary about heterosexual dating. Yes, it's all high-income white people giving gentrification their best shot. All of this is entirely unsurprising.
To me, the most striking thing was how easy it would have been to make this movie not sexist. In my experience, every relationship scenario experienced by the female characters in the film -- from being cheated on, to getting overly fixated on someone they just met, to misreading "let's be friends" signals as "I love you" -- is a situation that I've known to apply to just as many men as women. (And to just as many queer people and people of color, for that matter.) These stories still would have been compelling if you'd switched the gender on any number of characters in any number of scenes.
Ah, but that's not how media/movie powerhouses are built. As Rebecca Traister writes,
People writing about the "HJNTIY" phenomenon (still No. 2 at the box office, by the way) often make the point that the powerful phrase could have been, "You're just not that into him." But it wasn't, and the Behrendt media rocketship helps to demonstrate why.
Imagine a world in which a person had an opinion that a problem with modern dating could be boiled down to women just not wanting men enough -- maybe "she just doesn't find you attractive," "she's not going to call you," "she doesn't want to go home with you" or something like that. Then imagine that that person was a woman, and imagine her getting a talk show and a couples counseling deal and a book and a movie, all based on whatever vaguely emasculating generalization she'd happen to score with.
Like Latoya, I laughed at all the wrong parts of the movie. Maybe because that's the only way to deal with a gender trainwreck like this.
A few random comments/spoilers after the jump.
I loved Ben Affleck's speech about why he doesn't want to get married, but he DOES want to be in a committed relationship. Yes! Of course, it's implied that he's only saying this because he is a dude. (We all know EVERY woman wants to get married!) And he caves and ends up marrying Jennifer Aniston on a sailboat. Barf.
One of the cardboard-cutout gay stereotypes is played by the dude who was Ricky on My So-Called Life!
During the "heartwarming" scene in which Ginnifer Goodwin and that Apple computer guy finally get together, he says a bunch of stuff about how he was so hellbent on being in control of his life that he couldn't fall in love. *Insert commentary about patriarchy hurting men, too.*
The one plot line in which a male character is way more clingy and let's-get-serious-right-away than his female partners is with Connor, the real-estate agent. But rather than functioning as an acknowledgment that dating roles don't always break cleanly along gender lines, he's sort of implied to be the exception and, in many cases, a joke.
Again, like Latoya, I thought they were going to have at least a few of the female characters end on a note of "who cares about dudes when you have your career and your girlfriends and your renovated house in a gentrifying neighborhood!" However, they really go out of their way to portray the women who are single at the end as either wet blankets or sluts who are basically unhappy with their single status. How very Sex and the City. |
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Chuvok
Joined: 25 Jan 2009
Location: Russia
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 12:38 am Post subject: |
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Men want sex. Not relationships.
We will date a girl we don't really like that much, if there is a hope of getting the above mentioned sex.
Once we have had 'the sex', the chase is over, and we realise we don't actually "like" this girl enough to put up with relationship BS from her, and we move on to a new hunt.
When we males get to a point in life where dating becomes boring, we ask the next girl we bed to marry us.
So, girls, keep that in mind. Give us sex, and hope we are ripe for marriage. |
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TheMrCul
Joined: 09 May 2003
Location: Korea, finally...
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 2:24 am Post subject: |
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| Chuvok wrote: |
Men want sex. Not relationships.
We will date a girl we don't really like that much, if there is a hope of getting the above mentioned sex.
Once we have had 'the sex', the chase is over, and we realise we don't actually "like" this girl enough to put up with relationship BS from her, and we move on to a new hunt.
When we males get to a point in life where dating becomes boring, we ask the next girl we bed to marry us.
So, girls, keep that in mind. Give us sex, and hope we are ripe for marriage. |
I love it how you speak for all men, when really you're only speaking for yourself, and other rather unattractive members of society.
Ps.. You're wrong. |
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endo
Joined: 14 Mar 2004
Location: Seoul...my home
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 2:24 am Post subject: |
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| Chuvok wrote: |
Men want sex. Not relationships.
We will date a girl we don't really like that much, if there is a hope of getting the above mentioned sex.
Once we have had 'the sex', the chase is over, and we realise we don't actually "like" this girl enough to put up with relationship BS from her, and we move on to a new hunt.
When we males get to a point in life where dating becomes boring, we ask the next girl we bed to marry us.
So, girls, keep that in mind. Give us sex, and hope we are ripe for marriage. |
Can't argue with this as a fellow male. |
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aboxofchocolates
Joined: 21 Mar 2008
Location: on your mind
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 3:24 am Post subject: |
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| Chuvok wrote: |
Men want sex. Not relationships.
We will date a girl we don't really like that much, if there is a hope of getting the above mentioned sex.
Once we have had 'the sex', the chase is over, and we realise we don't actually "like" this girl enough to put up with relationship BS from her, and we move on to a new hunt.
When we males get to a point in life where dating becomes boring, we ask the next girl we bed to marry us.
So, girls, keep that in mind. Give us sex, and hope we are ripe for marriage. |
I think some people- hell, a lot of people- just go through a period in their lives where all they’re after is sex. I have a theory that women who “fall in love” with asswholes are just in it for the sex and the pop culture crap around them has warped them into believing they “love” these guys when really they just want to fkuc them. It’s not a particularly insightful theory, by the way. People usually get over that at some point.
On another note, bet people in their thirties (if they’re all grown up in the head, too) probably have the best dating relationships. They’re still young enough to be in good shape and keep up with each other, but old enough not to be social retards. It doesn’t seem to work like that if you date a man in your thirties if you’re in your twenties. It’s like the few years between you just translate into missed social cues and cultural references that differ because of your tiny age gap. If you cannot have a discussion about watching batman- the animated series at lunch time when it first aired when you were a kid (re-read that, realized it needed a little fixing), you are either too young or too old for me (or wrong on some other level, but that’s another story).
I used to be a comma wizard- what happened to me? Thanks, Pidgin, for making me doubt myself.
The idea that sex is something that is given is victorian and a little yicky. Women don't give sex, they have it. For orgasms. |
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eamo
Joined: 08 Mar 2003
Location: Shepherd's Bush, 1964.
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 3:43 am Post subject: |
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| TheMrCul wrote: |
| Chuvok wrote: |
Men want sex. Not relationships.
We will date a girl we don't really like that much, if there is a hope of getting the above mentioned sex.
Once we have had 'the sex', the chase is over, and we realise we don't actually "like" this girl enough to put up with relationship BS from her, and we move on to a new hunt.
When we males get to a point in life where dating becomes boring, we ask the next girl we bed to marry us.
So, girls, keep that in mind. Give us sex, and hope we are ripe for marriage. |
I love it how you speak for all men, when really you're only speaking for yourself, and other rather unattractive members of society.
Ps.. You're wrong. |
You're both wrong.
Men want sex......... and love. So do women.
The sooner we get over the old-fashioned idea it's always men who mindlessly lust after sex, and it's the woman's whim to grant it or not, the sooner we will gain true equality of sexes.
Men and women lust equally. It's just that we have some kind of moral hangover from the middle ages that women should seem demure while men should seem lustful. |
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Temporary
Joined: 13 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 4:14 am Post subject: |
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I disagree I am a male a heterosexual one and I don't give a rats ass about sex. I feel like its an overated experience.
Love bah, bunch irrational behaviour caused by excessive hormone release. People in love are susceptible to dumber behaviour then drunks. I have seen way to many people regret their choices when they were done whilest they were in so called love. |
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aboxofchocolates
Joined: 21 Mar 2008
Location: on your mind
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 2:34 pm Post subject: |
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| aboxofchocolates wrote: |
| If you cannot have a discussion about watching batman- the animated series at lunch time when it first aired when you were a kid (re-read that, realized it needed a little fixing), you are either too young or too old for me (or wrong on some other level, but that�s another story). |
Worst dating litmus test. Ever. |
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aboxofchocolates
Joined: 21 Mar 2008
Location: on your mind
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 6:06 pm Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| aboxofchocolates wrote: |
| If you cannot have a discussion about watching batman- the animated series at lunch time when it first aired when you were a kid (re-read that, realized it needed a little fixing), you are either too young or too old for me (or wrong on some other level, but that’s another story). |
Worst dating litmus test. Ever. |
Really? finally broke a record.
It would narrow down the field to a small generational pocket of geekdome where I would be at my most comfortable. In it's defense. But that's it for defending my little off the cuff theory. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 7:30 pm Post subject: |
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| aboxofchocolates wrote: |
| Kuros wrote: |
| aboxofchocolates wrote: |
| If you cannot have a discussion about watching batman- the animated series at lunch time when it first aired when you were a kid (re-read that, realized it needed a little fixing), you are either too young or too old for me (or wrong on some other level, but that�s another story). |
Worst dating litmus test. Ever. |
Really? finally broke a record.
It would narrow down the field to a small generational pocket of geekdome where I would be at my most comfortable. In it's defense. But that's it for defending my little off the cuff theory. |
I'm going to take a wild guess and say you're single. |
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blackjack
Joined: 04 Jan 2006
Location: anyang
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 9:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| aboxofchocolates wrote: |
| Kuros wrote: |
| aboxofchocolates wrote: |
| If you cannot have a discussion about watching batman- the animated series at lunch time when it first aired when you were a kid (re-read that, realized it needed a little fixing), you are either too young or too old for me (or wrong on some other level, but that’s another story). |
Worst dating litmus test. Ever. |
Really? finally broke a record.
It would narrow down the field to a small generational pocket of geekdome where I would be at my most comfortable. In it's defense. But that's it for defending my little off the cuff theory. |
I'm going to take a wild guess and say you're single. |
I'd prefer transformers or batman (non-animated) or even danger mouse. Who didn't love danger mouse?
off topic but can anybody remember banana man? |
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aboxofchocolates
Joined: 21 Mar 2008
Location: on your mind
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 9:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| aboxofchocolates wrote: |
| Kuros wrote: |
| aboxofchocolates wrote: |
| If you cannot have a discussion about watching batman- the animated series at lunch time when it first aired when you were a kid (re-read that, realized it needed a little fixing), you are either too young or too old for me (or wrong on some other level, but that’s another story). |
Worst dating litmus test. Ever. |
Really? finally broke a record.
It would narrow down the field to a small generational pocket of geekdome where I would be at my most comfortable. In it's defense. But that's it for defending my little off the cuff theory. |
I'm going to take a wild guess and say you're single. |
What gave it away? The copious posting, the half-assed theorizing on dating? That I said I was single in former posts? Single, bored, and whiling away my time on the internet, you got me.
Oh yeah, and the concrete blonde song! I just like concrete blonde is all. |
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aboxofchocolates
Joined: 21 Mar 2008
Location: on your mind
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 9:35 pm Post subject: |
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| blackjack wrote: |
| Kuros wrote: |
| aboxofchocolates wrote: |
| Kuros wrote: |
| aboxofchocolates wrote: |
| If you cannot have a discussion about watching batman- the animated series at lunch time when it first aired when you were a kid (re-read that, realized it needed a little fixing), you are either too young or too old for me (or wrong on some other level, but that’s another story). |
Worst dating litmus test. Ever. |
Really? finally broke a record.
It would narrow down the field to a small generational pocket of geekdome where I would be at my most comfortable. In it's defense. But that's it for defending my little off the cuff theory. |
I'm going to take a wild guess and say you're single. |
I'd prefer transformers or batman (non-animated) or even danger mouse. Who didn't love danger mouse?
off topic but can anybody remember banana man? |
You're getting old school on me here. the non-animated batman, whew! And who is this banana man character? Definitely ringing a bell.... |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 9:38 pm Post subject: |
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| blackjack wrote: |
| Kuros wrote: |
| aboxofchocolates wrote: |
| Kuros wrote: |
| aboxofchocolates wrote: |
| If you cannot have a discussion about watching batman- the animated series at lunch time when it first aired when you were a kid (re-read that, realized it needed a little fixing), you are either too young or too old for me (or wrong on some other level, but that�s another story). |
Worst dating litmus test. Ever. |
Really? finally broke a record.
It would narrow down the field to a small generational pocket of geekdome where I would be at my most comfortable. In it's defense. But that's it for defending my little off the cuff theory. |
I'm going to take a wild guess and say you're single. |
I'd prefer transformers or batman (non-animated) or even danger mouse. Who didn't love danger mouse?
off topic but can anybody remember banana man? |
Danger mouse was awesome. Transformers okay. |
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