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Oh phew, it’s really dark. But not too dark. “Real” rape (the kind that “really” bothers people) is too dark for the creators of this film to really be able to go there.

I think that analysis might be giving a bit too much credit. We live in a culture which has, as Warren Ellis put it, “Law & Order: Child Rape Cavalcade” on as syndicated prime time entertainment four or five times a day in most cable markets. I sat down after cooking dinner last week and saw an episode about a man running around Manhattan gluing people’s assholes shut. Rape might be dark, but I think showing a straight date rape scene isn’t going to be “too dark” in the current social context. I can think of three adult-targeted basic cable comedies off the top of my head that have gone pretty dark as far as rape-related humor.

What is most telling, for me, is that the makers of this movie likely could have gone as dark as they wanted. They could have done a straight up rape scene. They could have made their protagonist as creepy as they wanted to. For some reason, they decided that this scene was going to be softened and they decided to soften it by essentially vindicating the rapist. They didn’t choose to make it an almost-rape, they didn’t create some humorous comeuppance for the rapist, all the did was remove the discomfort felt by the rapist. I mean, when all is said and done, the “consent” given isn’t really consent and just about anyone who wasn’t desperately looking for a way to pump up their own self image could see that. But it doesn’t seem like we’re supposed to be laughing at Rogan’s character’s denial…

Now, that may not have been the director’s original intent. It sounds like he wanted to go much darker and just have a rape committed by an essentially awful (BUT ALL TOO FAMILIAR) iconic character. And maybe that would have worked better in some ways — maybe the audience would have been more struck by how awful this character is and the depths to which both Rogen’s & Faris’ characters are sinking (she’s portrayed as pretty self-destructive and fucked up too).

However, I think it’s much harder to do that in a dark comedy, because it’s so dark. He couldn’t get away with it for a bunch of reasons. Some of those have to do with the genre and what actually works in the “doofy slapstick unlikeable anti-hero genre” as its defined not only in the industry and by individual creators but by audience expectations and understanding too. Some of those have to do with how bad rape is and how uncomfortable it makes people. Rape does make people uncomfortable — that’s why a lot of the bullshit about rape culture is about pretending that a lot of rapes are not “really rapes.” And that’s what Seth Rogen was talking about — Faris’s line is inserted in there to let the audience off easy, keep them from being so uncomfortable that they have a bad time at the movies seeing a dumb comedy, to create a sense of comic relief instead of utter laughing-in-the-abyss darkness. It definitely is the easier way out, and I think William still had it spot-on when he talked about how it’s “relief for the person worried about being a rapist.” It’s also relief for the audience worried that they are witnessing a rape, worried that they are complicit in a rape or even a straightforward depiction of a rape. Oh phew, Faris’s character is giving consent (sort of! but phew ok we’re looking for anyway out of this hell, that’s enough we’ll take it and run) so now we’re just watching two really messed up people playing on the edge of alcoholism and blackouts and desperation and comfort-pity-fuck-the-pain-away and consent/non-consent. Oh phew, it’s really dark. But not too dark. “Real” rape (the kind that “really” bothers people) is too dark for the creators of this film to really be able to go there.

Do you not realize that you’re in a forum with a whole bunch of educated people, some of whom analyze culture for a living?

Whoa, laughingrat. If you want to talk about the content of the film, go right ahead.

Um, as for “Things that can’t be joked about” — how about “a hilarious comedy” about some guy having his penis mutilated. Really, boys, where’s your sense of humor?

I seem to remember that being one of the earliest jokes in “Theres Something About Mary” (a movie which was unfunny primarily because a complete lack of comedic timing). Its also a central theme in the campy-as-hell “Teeth.” A man having his penis chewed off by a dog was the set up for a running gag in the Preacher series of graphic novels. Just last week on South Park there was a reference to genital injury played as comedy in South Park. I remember as a kid watching America’s Funniest Home Videos and every third video or so being a guy having some kind of trauma to his crotch. Guy start making broken dick jokes about a second and a half after they the social value tied up in having a penis and the anxiety they have around losing that power; they only stop when the ink dries on their death certificate.

“…but he’s quite clear that he’s not condoning the actions of the character.”

Oh really? Oh really? Because that’s not clear to me at all.

“He’s pretty clear that the humor for him comes from the incongruity between the formal expectations of the genre and the content he’s put in it. He hopes that will give people headaches and make them question stuff. Like a koan.”

Get your dirty patriarchal-apologist hands off my Zen, foo’.

I think the impression we’re supposed to get here is that Matt Knows A Lot About Movies. Step back, feminists! Matt’s gonna unleash his movie expertise and let us know why this is all really actually edgy and subversive and okay!

Oh lord. Do you not realize that you’re in a forum with a whole bunch of educated people, some of whom analyze culture for a living? That most of the people here probably know a whole lot about movies too? It’s nice that you like movies, and it’s nice that you can handily use academic terms to talk about it, but please do not think you’re telling most of us something new because of that. If we’re not addressing the “incongruity between the formal expectations of the genre” and the film’s content, it’s because we’re already past that kid stuff. It’s because we know that’s a cheap diversion, and that the issue, really, is that some young men with a reputation for cleverness made a sexist movie, and that we’re being told that the violence and misogyny contained therein is somehow excusable.