Liking Sarah Marshall

[sqbr]

I've seen a few feminist critiques of "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and they seem to have seen a very different, more sexist film to me. After some thought I get the nasty feeling that what they saw is closer to the creators vision.

See for example Forgetting Sarah Marshall: Superemosogynisticexpialadocious. If You Make a Film of It, It's Really Quite Atrocious! (Via Hoyden About Town)

See I liked the Sarah Marshall character. She didn't break up with the protagonist because she was a bad person, they just didn't suit each other. As she explains later, he just wasn't very much fun for her to go out with, and from the looks of things he didn't have much fun with her. Sure, she cheated on him, but tv stars are messed up like that. He's better off outside that world, and her in it. I sympathised with her career and boyfriend woes.

Yet the article is right: horrible things happen to her at the "happy" end of the film, and he does call her "the devil". I think I might have invented the non-2D aspects to the love interest as well, in both cases based on the charisma of the actresses. Though I did like that they both got some amusing zingers at other people's expense.

Keep in mind that most romantic comedies aimed at guys do annoy me. OMG do not get me started on "Knocked Up".

I feel like one of those people who was reading the Harry Potter books waiting for Snape and Harry to save the day and run off together and were Very Dissapointed when this didn't happen. I know, I know, the author is dead and I can still watch the movie my way but it's different when you know it's against the grain.

So what do other grumpy feminist types think? What about everyone else? What film did you see? (Within the comments policy people, there's a reason this was posted here)

I was going to wait until the 30th before posting anything here but eh, it's not like this is a deep and interesting post my lj friends will be deeply hurt to have missed out on. (I hope. If so, sorry guys. Get an OpenID account and you can comment if you want!)

Comments

[sami]

I... yeah. I haven't seen it - I rarely watch movies, and it's not the kind of movie I'd go at all out of my way to see. (And with very few exceptions, I have to go out of my way to see any movie, these days.)

Based on the description you linked, uh, yeah, that sounds kind of hideous.

The stalker-esque nature of a lot of romantic comedies may be why I really liked Addicted to Love, which went and made the stalking and how screwed up that all is nice and explicit. (As well as giving us Meg Ryan playing a character who isn't all super-fluffy and "sweet" for once.)

And, yeah, it's troubling when you have a nice idea of how something wasn't bad and find yourself confronted with people pointing out the ways in which, in fact, it totally sucked.

The degree to which I can handle that is variable. I mean, from the summary in that post it sounds like Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a movie I would find unpleasant generally - I'm starting to think I should never watch anything that involves Apatow or Seth Rogen - so I wouldn't give it an inch on skanky misogyny issues.

On the other hand, I've already forgiven occasional skanky moments in Supernatural, and I'm totally on side with ignoring the vague skanky race issues in certain Japanese shows I watch (because they are fun and awesome and I can ignore the harsh treatment of white people if I want to) and the not-that-vague skanky women issues in Garo (because, hey, even if almost all women are evil demonic villains, they're hot chicks in short skirts taking part in cool fight scenes with hot boys in awesome outfits and tight pants, and I am down with that). I can recognise the skanky factor while still appreciating what I like about !thing.

So, you know. Thingy. I am both totally superficial and profoundly engaged with Important Issues. Probably a mixture of the Hidden Benefits of ADHD and my own conception that if you get deeply wounded and upset by this stuff, then you get hurt and the world doesn't care, so I try, as much as I possibly can, to let this stuff have as little power to wound me as possible. I define my own boundaries on this stuff.

When I can. Emotions aren't all that controllable. But you get the idea.

[sqbr]

Sidenote: Quickflix/Bigpond Movies etc is really handy for seeing movies without having to go out much, assuming you have access to a post box and can put $10+ a month on a credit/debit card. Then again you seem happy enough with all your tv shows :)

Mm, I think Supernatural pinged really differently for us wrt gender, partly I think because it's not my sort of thing anyway so I don't have that buffer of twu wuv to make it all more enjoyable.

I find my reactions really inconsistent and unpredictable: sometimes I'm all "Grr! Feminist Rage! I can't engage with this sexist dreck!" and other times I laugh it off or don't notice, and any correlation with quality/how much I otherwise like the show etc is more complicated than I can immediately fathom. Then again I have similarly inconsistent reactions to plot holes and other sorts of flaws.

[sami]

I think part of why Supernatural pings so differently for me is that a lot of the stuff I actually register as sketchy involves Dean, who, canonically, is a jerk.

But yeah, the buffer of "do I like it in other ways" makes a difference of great magnitude to me. Plus, I can't sustain a good rage very well, so I'm more likely to be all, "ugh, it sucked" if it has skeevy issues it does not adequately redeem.

[sqbr]

Ah. See, once I get a good rage going, I can sustain it for ages :)

[sami]

lern2ADHD

[sqbr]

*laughs*

No thanks, I'm plenty distractible(*) enough as it is :)

(*)Safari says this is the right spelling, I'm not sure I believe it. Dreamwidth says "Spell checker not set up properly. banner=" which is even less helpful.