“Dear fellow movie clubbers, Happy New Year.  

I noticed something a little weird while I was watching the previews before “The Fighter” this evening (good flick, check it out if you want, but not before you see True Grit).  Anyways, as it turns out Ashton Kutcher is in a new movie.  This is unremarkable in and of itself except for the fact that the movie is called “No Strings Attached” and seems to have a plot which is basically the same as the movie “Friends With Benefits” starring Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis which is also due to be released in 2011.  See for yourself:

No Strings Attached:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubfcfs98MBw

Friends with Benefits:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0ohJyykwL8  (which actually looks substantially funnier and doesn’t have Ludacris in it)

Now, you might think this is a coincidence, however, this is the SECOND time Mr. Kutcher has done this in less than a year.  What am I talking about?  Well maybe you remember two gems from last year called “Killers” and “Knight and Day”.  Both were action rom-coms (I really hate the term Rom-Com…why do we have to fucking abbreviate everything??….hmm, maybe I’ll rant about it) about dashing but dangerous dudes who kill people and their relationship with the unsuspecting blond female counterparts.  Only difference is that one starred Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl and the other starred Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz and got shat on substantially less.

I think the really important question here is whether or not this trend is going to continue.  I mostly hope not because while I really liked “The Butterfly Effect” I’ve pretty much hated everything else Ashton Kutcher has done, and the idea that he might continue to make shitty versions of other movies is a little much for me to handle.

ps:  I recently got around to watching The Last Airbender….beyond pissed. M. Knight Shyalamariduculousmotherfuckingshitheadman made a mockery of the awesomeness that is Avatar. And what’s worse is he had the nerve to sit with the creators in an interview and talk about how much he loved the series, and wanted to make it into a great movie….jackass.”

rant by Luke (showing some major holiday spirit by still wearing his holidaypants in July.  Okay nevermind this is my bad, he wrote this on January 2 and I am just posting it now … I blame work.)

Sooooo it’s been a painfully long time since I’ve been able to bust out ye ol’ computadora for some good old fashioned ranting.  I have about 70 rants chilling on the backburner, festering into unhealthy nonproductive poop.  And nobody likes nonproductive poop.  So here we go!  Alkaseltzer for the soul.

So as I was watching this holiday season’s classic family movies (aka thePotter and theNarnia), I noticed the trailer for the upcoming 3d movie, Mars Needs Moms, featuring the “uncanny valley” of creepily unattractive human simulations.  (They are just too close to human…so close that they look really off and unsavory.)  Anyway, the movie seems silly enough, good voice actors, chuckleworthy jokes, but man—I really hope that the trailer just completely dumbed down the movie premise.  Seriously?  Mars needs moms?  On one hand, yes, let’s give a big round of applause to mothers everywhere, who are generally awesome and constantly juggle 10,000 things.  In particular let’s take our hats off to the belittled “housewife” role that many deride: from what I’ve learned in the past 2 weeks after putting on my Big Girl Pant(suit)s and living on my own, being an adult is HARD, what with all the cooking and hygiene and….it just never ends.  A person who can do all that AND raise kids?!  Dude I already killed my thriving parsley plant within a mere 5 days.  Keeping something alive for 18 years until it goes off to college?! Unfathomable. 

So sure, praising mothers is theoretically a nice aspect of the movie.  And I’m a sucker for alternate reality, my-life-would-suck-without-you-and-I-can-only-realize-this-through-supernatural-intervention-or-alien-abduction tv shows/movies.  But errr can we also discuss the 10 bajillion issues with this?!

1. Let’s not perpetuate the myth that women are the only people who can raise children.  This hurts both women and men.  Sadly it’s a self-reinforcing myth: if we keep pushing this, will we ever completely break away from the idea that “the woman’s place is in the home” and that the man’s place is outside of it?  If men can’t raise kids, then women will never be free to leave the house to seek other professional opportunities.  I believe that feminism is having the freedom to choose, and being a stay-at-home mom or a career woman (or both! this is no longer a true dichotomy) is a life choice individual to every woman.  Additionally, men should have the freedom to make the same life choice without becoming socially emasculated. 

2. Why are fathers completely left out of the child-rearing equation??  Interestingly, I was talking with my sister the other day about how there is no male word equivalent of the word “maternal.”  If you want to say that a man has characteristics that predispose him to be a great father (which is a grand compliment), calling him “paternal” wouldn’t necessarily feel accurate.  ”Paternal” seems almost negative—just think of the word “paternalistic.”  It evokes the idea of being controlling, not nurturing.  Erf, shouldn’t it be socially acceptable for “manly men” to also be nurturing caregivers by now?!  Instead, whenever a man is portrayed in the media as the primary caretaker of his own children, he is called “Mister Mom,” or the premise is labeled a novel “role reversal.”  (I swear I read a tv article 2 months ago that still used these terms).  But it’s not like we don’t already have a concept to describe “Mister Moms”—oh yeah, remember dads?  Why can’t we just call them dads?!  In order to have a well-rounded definition of masculinity, we need to have the bizarre concept of the “nurturing father” become socially mainstream.  (I think Phil on Modern Family is helping this cause). 

3. There’s a scene in the trailer when the son is on Mars searching for his mom, and he stops to ask some Martians if they have seen her.  In an attempt to describe his mother in simple terms that the Martians might understand, he says, “you know, my mom, she feeds me, vacuums the house?”  Ahhhh it’s nice to see that gender roles have really changed.  Mother=maid.  Good breakdown of what a mother is, buddy! 

In summation: both women and men are much more than this movie premise gives us credit for.  On its face, it seems that the movie is celebrating women, yay!  But it’s also stomping them into their place.  And in a way, it’s stomping men into their place as well: as non-fathers.  Ahh I think we all deserve better than this by now, eh?  

rant by Liz (wearing her Big Girl Rantpants while watching the Chronicles of Narnia)

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p.s. - I hope I wildly misinterpreted this entire movie and that it’s secretly awesome.

“Shitness! While the black community certainly has not helped itself by long measuring success by the number of goals scored or platinum albums recorded rather than good grades and civic involvement, I am so sick of this same character rearing his head repeatedly in the media. Even in action movies, they always need to have “badass black mother f*cker” (I really think this is the persona they aim for) with muscles bulging from his neck. But more importantly, they always have to make it clear that he is uncontrollable and might snap at any moment. They won’t go so far as to call him Boo Radley, but he sure is always built like him, even the more “manageable” basketball stars. Other than Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington, I don’t know if there are many viable black actors who not gigantic, ripped, or otherwise in some freakish physical condition. And hell, despite his long and active career, Denzel’s only Oscar is for playing the badass black mother f*cker who might snap at any moment.”

rant by Brian (wearing some New Zealand tailored rantpants)

———

A clarification on Mr. Washington’s Oscars:

“I’d just like to add an addendum of sorts to Brian’s post, just figured I’d note that Denzel’s two academy awards were for playing the badass motherfucker who might snap at any minute (see best supporting actor win for “Glory”).”

rant by Luke (wearing some very movie-savvy rantpants)

First off, I have a really high tolerance for mindless action movies, because they are fun and are good brain-popcorn when you have the munchies for something non-serious.  Many of them are totally underrated, and I have respect for movies that know what they are and what they intend to do: entertain. 

So I went into Resident Evil with lots of excitement: the trailers were pretty badass, I love Milla Jovovich and Ali Larter (extremely kickass women), and had recently found out that there was gonna be a side of Wentworth Miller as a surprise bonus.  Wondrous. 

Now I really don’t expect movies like this to have any deep message or anything progressive, and I expected lots of gratuitous scantily clad slow-mo shots with the leading ladies, all par for the course.  I was just glad there were leading ladies being action heroes at all.  But I didn’t expect it to also be racially stupid.  And yeah, for a zombie post-apocalyptic fight-for-your life-as-time-runs-out movie, it was just…BORING.  There weren’t even enough redeeming action sequences or interesting plot lines to make the awkward racial stereotypes worth it.  

From chinamen with thick accents to weak-ass-mousy-assistants-who-can’t-fight-for-shit

The “not enough Asian Americans in movies” movement has been around for some time (mainly because it hasn’t really gotten much better in the last two decades sadly).  So whenever I see any Asian person in a commercial, tv show, movie, etc., I get so excited!  Represent!  Woot!  Enter “Kim Yong” (also, who makes these names?  Is Kim his first name?  Or just his Korean last name?  Because last time I checked ethnically Korean first names don’t really start with Kim.  And if it’s his last name, why did everyone call him “Kim Yong” the whole time, when he was clearly very American and not a foreign Korean national like Kim Jong Il or something?  I just….confused.)  Whoops sorry for side-rant.  My real point is that Kim Yong was basically portrayed as a sad-sack, subservient subordinate to this jerkface bigshot white producer.  As pointed out by another character, even after the zombie-pocalypse, Asian Guy somehow never quite grasped that White Producer-man was no longer really his boss, and he didn’t have to follow him everywhere and do what he said.  At this point, me and my sister were like….bahhhh eye roll, but we went with it and thought, maybe Asian Guy gets more awesome and redeems himself and is not just a cardboard cut-out of a weak Asian American man (hopehope)!

Alas, no such luck.  Even when Asian Guy shows that he indeed does have a moral compass and won’t leave everyone to die, he still kinda really sucks.  As we get ready for an awesome action scene of guns and zombie guts, every character gets their own slow-motion gun toss, proper gun-wielding stance, and epic camera angle of them putting on their “BRING IT ON, ZOMBIES!” game face, oh, except for Asian Guy of course.  Because Asian Guys aren’t brave, silly!!  They don’t deserve guns, because they can’t use them!  They just get to stand behind all the strong people and cower – yes literally cower – with their hands over their faces.  Errrrrrf at this point we were…unhappy to say the least.

And it’s a pretty sad day when I sigh with relief when Asian Guy finally dies.  Want to know how he died?  (*spoiler alert*) He was too scared to go into the tunnel that everybody else was climbing into in order to save themselves.  Choice was tunnel or death, and instead of go into the dark, creepy tunnel (oooo scary), he hesitates and decides to stay behind.  And BAM, he gets killed by this bizarre monstersized superzombie.  At least when he died he couldn’t portray more stupid stereotype qualities.  C’mon, I thought we were kinda past this bullcrap in the film industry.  Man.

I know this is fiction, “just a movie,” etc.  But that’s exactly my point! Movies both create social norms and portray social norms.  And this ain’t the norm that I want to see.  I get that Kim Yong is just one type of character in a movie, this type of character needs to be portrayed too, and that if he were a white guy, I wouldn’t be annoyed at all.  But the bottom line is, it’s not like there are 10,000 awesome Asian American roles out there to counter this one.  Asians aren’t really portrayed as running the gamut of general human stereotypes, sadly.  This is kinda all we got.  Emasculation-nation.

All black men are basketball stars 

So just as we have the cardboard cut-out negative Asian American stereotype in Kim Yong, we also have the cardboard cut-out “positive” African American stereotype: a strapping, muscular, bad-ass-mother-f-er black basketball star!  Talk about the most overused stereotypes in media…hypermasculine black man and emasculated Asian man.  YAWN.

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