Compare and Contrast

A couple of weekends ago, I managed to find some movies on Hulu that I was willing to watch ... or, at any rate, watch most of (I skipped the last several minutes of the third one mentioned herein). Anymore, Hulu just doesn't offer that much I'm willing to watch.

I think the best way to categorize all three of these movies is "light-hearted romantic comedy". The point of this post is to compare the underlying ethos of the three, the 'moral' so to speak. Hollywood does not come out looking good.

1) a non-Hollywood offering Griff the Invisible -- Griff, Our Hero, is a mild-mannered, much put-upon geek by day, and a crime-fighting superhero by night. In his imagination. One thing I thought was very good about *how* the movie was made is that the viewer is well into it before realizing that the superhero part is all in Griff's imagination.

In the end, Our Hero does Win The Girl. I wasn't entirely pleased with how that worked out, for in the end Griff had a choice:
1) put his fantasy behind him, and finally grow up ... and Lose The Girl;
2) stay planted in his fantasy life, not really grow up ... and Win The Girl;
Still, on a positive note, the ending implies that Our Hero and The Girl do at least channel their (now shared) fantasies in ways that won't turn them into crippling delusions. That is, while they choose to continue to be 'odd' or 'misfits', at least they won't be 'crazies'.

Now, here's the thing: this is a interesting story, well told ... and the movie has no nudity, no sex scenes, no profanity, little violence (the small bit of violence fit the plot), and no social engineering "message".


2) a Hollywood offering Please Kill Mr Know-It-All -- In which Our Heroine is A Writter. But, to pay the bills, she must deign to write a newspaper advice column, 'Ask Mr Know-It-All' ... But also, and which is important to the plot, to put it bluntly, she is a slut (as is her best-friend/business partner/roomate). She just hasn't yet found the "right" situation in which to "let her freak flag fly". This is a Hollywood movie, after all: the so-call Sexual Revolution must be advocated ... and protected from rational evaluation.

The Right Situation presents himself in the form of a murderer-for-hire whose face she inadvertantly makes nationally recognizeable ... which then leads him to need to murder 'Mr Know-It-All' -- that is, Our Heroine -- to regain his anonymity. But, by the time The Right Situation understands that it's Our Heroine whom he needs to murder, he is too smitten by her magical Snowflake Uniqueness to go through with it.

Of course, the story needs some tension before the resolution, so Our Heroine is temporarily put off ... not because she has learned that The Right Situation is a murderer, but because she learns that her magical Snowflake Uniqueness didn't so overwhelm him as to leave him no choice but to not murder her. That he consciously *decided* to not murder her is the intolerable part.

Still, in the end, in true Hollywood fashion, True Love, which is to say, raging hormones, prevails. After Our Heroine wounds The Right Situation and then kills the hit-man trying to kill him (she was aiming for his leg, but blew off his head), everyone who is still alive lives happily ever after.


3) a Hollywood offering Fetching -- In which, again, to put it bluntly, Our Heroine is a slut. Poor thing, it has been eight whole months since she broke off her engagement to "a great guy", quit her job as a lawyer to pursue her dream of running a doggie daycare ... and, most importantly, "got any" (that is the most delicate way to put that ... believe me, I considered writing something considerably more earthy that conveys far more accurately what I really think about her "problem").

This being a "light-hearted romantic comedy", the problem to be resolved in the movie is how Our Heroine and The Dreamy Guy are going to "get together" (OMG! He's soooo cute, they just have to get together!), especially after his advice to restructure her business loan lands her banker in her bed, and his coming to terms with that lands him in the bed of the too-rich doggie-person whose spending on her dog essentially keeps Our Heroine's business afloat.

This is a Hollywood movie, after all: the so-call Sexual Revolution must be advocated ... and protected from rational evaluation. So, this movie has it all: the hot-to-trot Mexican "hottie" who is there is teach Our Heroine to let her freak flag fly"; the flaming queen who is there to teach Our Heroine to *how* to be a Real Woman (that is, a slut), and The Dreamy Guy With The Soulful Eyes (OK, they're more unfocused than soulful) who will magically not even care that she is a slut and who will Be There when she's ready to use him.

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Women: despite what movies and your "education" have told you, there is no man on earth who is going to be OK your being a slut. To be more precise, the sort of (so-called) man whom my grandmother would have called a "whoremonger" will be OK with you being a slut, for that's your whole use to him. But a man who wants a woman he can cherish will never be OK with it -- much as you will never forgive a man for being "boring" (that is, for not making you horny), a man who wants a wife will never forgive you for being a slut. Moreover, when you do finally "land a man" via sluttishness, you will never forgive *him* for having been "caught" in that way.

If you want to be happy in marriage, you will greatly increase your odds of happiness if you come to the marriage a virgin. If instead, you follow the current practice of using premarital sex to manipulate a man into proposing marriage to you, what you will end up doing is poisoning your whole attitude and approach to sex and thus poisoning the marriage. Instead of sex with your husband being the loving self-giving God intends it to be, you will have made it into tool to manipulate and control him. And you will never forgive him for being the sort of man who can be controlled by his dick.


Men: despite what movies and your "education" have told you, you will never be OK with the woman you want to love and cherish being a slut. Oh, sure, because your "education" has beat in into you that your desire that the woman you love be chaste is "primative" or some-such twaddle, you try to pretend that it doesn't bother you that your woman is a slut. Nevertheless, it will always eat at you ... and you will never forgive her for it. And, when the inevitable conflict arises, you will throw it in her face.

If you want to be happy in marriage, you will greatly increase your odds of happiness if you marry a virgin. Oh, but it's so much worse than that -- if you want to be happy in marriage, you will greatly increase your odds of happiness if *you* come to the marriage a virgin. too.

Let's assume that you are a young man, still a virgin, and have determined to remain a virgin until marriage. Or, if not a virgin, you've determined at least to be chaste from now on. Weird, huh? And, let's assume that the young woman you are "dating" (I grow to despise that term) has begun to make noises about "taking it to the next level". What you need to understand is that this is the female version of "if you loved me, you'd put out" -- women pressure men into premarital sex just as surely as men pressure women into it.

So, finding yourself "dating" a woman who is making noises about "taking it to the next level", you have a few options --
1) you can, indeed, "take it to the next level" ... and thereby guarantee that when the two of you do marry, that: you will marry from inertia, rather than from a deliberate decision that *this* is the woman whom you have decided to love and cherish for the rest of your life; and that she will never respect you (and that is what you want from her, after all); and that she will eventually divorce you, and spitefully take your children from you along with as much of your future income as she can get;
2) you can attempt to have a real discussion with her about what "taking it to the next level" really means and entails, which is that taking that route is not compatable with future happiness in marriage;
3) What?! Taking about marriage would be "weird"? Look, if you can't *talk* to your (presumed) beloved about these things, then you (singular and plural) are not ready to *do* these things;
3a) if you can't *talk* to her about what "taking it to the next level" really means and entails because she becomes irrational, then dump her. If you don't, then you'll invariably end up at option 1)
3b) if you can't *talk* to her about what "taking it to the next level" really means and entails because your're "too shy", then you need either to grow some balls, or stop wasting her time.