I like Bill Murray. I love Melissa McCarthy. So naturally I rented the movie St. Vincent from Redbox the day it came out.
Now I am not known for my critical taste in theater. I have fallen asleep in movies I claim to be my favorites. Actually, like my dad, I fall asleep during most movies, whether I like them or not. But there was something about St. Vincent that particularly set me off and actually made me pay attention. The next morning, I wandered out to the kitchen and said to Todd, “Hey guess what I didn’t like about St. Vin-“
“Another male-centric movie that glorifies assholes?”
Todd’s the best. He didn’t even look up when he answered. He probably knew I would wake up and pose that question.
In case you aren’t familiar, this is a summary of the movie. Bill Murray plays a curmudgeonly, drunken, lying, gambling neighbor, Vincent, who babysits Melissa McCarthy’s kid while she’s at work. When Vincent is not banging a Russian stripper, he is lovingly visiting his wife in a nursing home who no longer remembers who he is. At the end of the movie, Vincent is elevated to metaphorical sainthood, hence the title of the movie, because he is an incredible person. In conclusion, Melissa McCarthy, who has been working ceaselessly the entire movie to provide for her son, on her own, because her husband was cheating on her, is fat.
In case you haven’t guessed, televised or any form of scripted entertainment is difficult for me. Shows such as The Bachelor and Survivor are great examples. I can hardly even sit down when I’m watching because I’m usually standing up, yelling at the television. “Dammit Cierra! Don’t let him talk to you like that! Stand up for yourself, stop crying!” Before I go further, yes, I understand the way reality television is meant to exploit certain situations, of course.
But.
I love shows such as Survivor not for the storyline but for the ways in which gender is so explicitly on display. When one of the teams became mostly female, it was assumed they would lose the challenges without the “physicality” of men to help them. Survivor is also endlessly fascinating to me because I cannot understand why anyone would ever sign up to be on the show. Participants are naked, sometimes literally and always metaphorically, in a way that I find horrifying. If, in the freakest of accidents, I ended up on the show, I would trip over a snake and die within hours. If I somehow survived, the only shot the camera would catch of me would be of me weeping alone on the rocky shore. I would inevitably be voted off immediately because unless the challenge is grading a stack of freshman comp papers, knowing all the words to We Didn’t Start the Fire, or figuring out how to sleep on a queen bed with one other human, way too many pillows, and a couple of obese cats, I am worthless. What I’m trying to say is I understand why Cierra, a tall, graceful, barrel racer, cried when one of the older, rather unathletic men tried to point out her weaknesses in their tribe. It was a classic move. In order to avoid focusing on his own flaws, he assumed an authoritative role and, in front of the group, targeted Cierra as a weakness, thus taking away her agency.
A few months ago I asked Todd to read my cover letter. “Tell me if you think it’s too showboaty,” I said.
“A man would never say that,” said Todd.
“So, do you think I should put that sentence back in about how high my evaluations are?” I asked.
So many things are wrong with this situation. First, why is it even happening? Why am I asking Todd what I should put in my cover letter? Why am I trying to not sound overconfident?
The glorious Chelsea Peretti has a joke where she speculates what it must be like to be a man. “My fantasy of what it’s like to be a guy is you just wake up in the morning and your eyes open and you’re like, ‘I’m awesome!’” Watch her special on Netflix. It’s debilitatingly funny.
On the rare occassion I attend a social gathering, I’m that person loudly insisting that Breaking Bad, Mad Men, House of Cards, etc. would all be more interesting if there was a female protagonist. To be fair, I love Breaking Bad, Mad Men, House of Cards, etc. Of course I do. I’m not insane. I have unreasonably high hopes for Clair Underwoood. I don’t want to be excessive, but all of my hopes for the feminist movement rest on her shoulders.
Me watching The Bachelor is like trying to see how long it will take me to throw a chair at the wall. If I’m not out of my chair and yelling, I’m perched at the edge of my futon, eyes widened, both hands covering my mouth. This is a common position for me watching anything even vaguely mainstream. It is worse now that I have a daughter. The positive side of me, which does exist, albeit sometimes fleetingly, looks at my daughter and sees her years down the road, doing something powerful and good, like being the first female host of The Daily Show.
