I saw it when it came out, when I was 12 or 13, and I distinctly remember thinking that, even then. It really stuck with me as something that was profoundly wrong and creepy. And yeah, it wasn’t unusual for that type of movie, but even beyond those, Hollywood movies with their disproportionately male protagonists, male gaze, and “reward sex” all reinforce/create the idea of women only existing as objects to be taken/granted as rewards for proper behavior or outstanding accomplishment. Even seemingly inoffensive movies are reinforcing rape culture.
So much of the hate happened before the movie even came out, but that probably was a factor in the actual reactions to the movie itself. Watching it, my first reaction was, “Wow, uncomfortable,” but my second thought was, “Still nowhere near as bad as the original.” (My third reaction was, “Huh, I guess I just don’t find the Paul Feig style of humor to be particularly funny.”)
“Have you seen that guy? He’s way too ugly for me to have punched him in the face like he claims.”
True, true. Not at all the point. @Boundegar is noble, and I mean that truly, to defend the lady’s beauty in the face of such nastiness. My frustration was with the ugliness defense being trotted out in the first place.
[quote=“enso, post:8, topic:87676, full:true”]
Try watching Ghostbusters with skeevy Venkman.
[/quote]Even as a young kid, seeing it the year it came out, I remember thinking Venkman was acting skeevy. He was the all-bravado alpha male with entitlement issues of the group, and that showed even then.
Have you seen Bridesmaids, The Heat, and Spy? My wife and I enjoyed them. The Heat in particular I liked. It’s a buddy cop movie that just happens to star two ladies. I haven’t seen Ghostbusters yet, so I can’t offer any comparison or opinion there.
Bridesmaids doesn’t necessarily do anything new but it does neatly invert the bros partying trope, The Heat is pretty much the same formula… nothing new but does a good job with flipping the script plus Sandra Bullock generally does a great job with comedies and she plays off well against McCarthy’s comedic style. Spy i can’t say much on since i never saw it.
Ghostbusters (the recent version) had the downside that the script was just not interesting, seemed like they tried checking as many boxes on what a studio would think makes for a blockbuster. Shame they wasted a good opportunity on that franchise
You don’t think Scorsese was encouraging that though, do you? The scene is meant to be a creepy display of privilege. Howard Hughes is not an entirely sympathetic character, and Billy Bush’s Adam Scott’s character is utterly repulsive.
We never see that side of him again, and remember this isn’t a character that was very literally obsessed with hygiene. He doesn’t know this girl, and based on ideas of the time about filth and sex, it seems to come out of nowhere. It doesn’t make him a more complex character because it’s a square peg in a complex-shaped hole. There is no sense on the part of the viewer that Hughes is being anything more than a powerful, confident, attractive man. She doesn’t recoil, she doesn’t, for an instant flinch away, the impression you are supposed to get is frankly a lot of what Trump said, “They just let you do it. You just grab them by the pussy.” You’re not left with a distinct impression that she’s uncomfortable by this point. In the beginning when she first starts talking to Hughes there is tension, but that decreases, it doesn’t increase, as the scene continues.
So what are we left with? We’re not really left with the clear sense that Hughes is a bad person, or acting in a problematic way. At worst we shrug and say, “it was another time,” but Scorsese didn’t inject any conflict into this scene beyond the interactions of the two men with each other and a broader conflict in the film. The woman here is not a character capable of conflict. She doesn’t have to be a complex character, but her purpose here is not to inflame tensions among the audience. If anything we’re taken away from a central tension in this part of the narrative.
Okay, but aside from Abe’s excellent analysis of the scene, i’ll reiterate that Scorsese doesn’t portray that woman reacting at all as if she’s being violated. He’s instead fueling rape culture by showing her enjoying Leonardo’s invasive skeeviness. The other guy at the table, playing the laughing Billy Bush “egg on the violator” role, doesn’t help either – too many men in the audience are encouraged, especially by the women’s positive response, to laugh along with that guy, and to wish they had that kind of “guts” when it comes to reaching out and taking what you want from women. So yeah, I think in that scene, Scorsese was portraying predatory masculinity positively.
I read her reaction as being uncomfortable but reluctantly acquiescent to a wealthy powerful (and incidentally not hideous-looking) man. Plenty of women would go to bed with Leonardo DiCaprio (or young Howard Hughes) no matter how gross he behaves.
You and @ActionAbe’s interpretations are just as valid though. I see where you’re coming from.
I had a feeling this subthread would devolve into someone insisting on this point – that “the movie’s just showing what some guys and some women would do, amirite?”
That may be technically right, but it’s not helpful. Movies have effects on their audiences. They can contribute to rape culture, and that’s what the particular dynamic depicted among the three characters in this scene from this movie does.
That’s a very charitable reading of the actual statement that you made and that I quoted, let me repost it lest you forgot:
“Plenty of women would go to bed with Leonardo DiCaprio (or young Howard Hughes) no matter how gross he behaves”
Better to just not use Weasel Words if you don’t actually mean what you stated.
It’s just sad how “women brag about letting Brad Pitt molest them!” is always and ever brought up when women are sexually harassed, because attractive people can’t sexually harass women, because all women enjoy being degraded non-consensually if the person is attractive.
I don’t know the point you think you’re making here, but the point you’re stating is a conservative cliche and most certainly on the misogynistic side.
I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make. We agree that the scene depicts a sexual assault. I don’t think it does so in a way that suggests the filmmaker approves of it. I don’t think the victim is portrayed as being enthusiastically into it, but the fact is that DiCaprio/Hughes could get away with it whereas, say, Clint Howard / homeless wino could not. Does depicting the reality of rape culture promulgate it, as @milliefink asserts? Quite possibly, but the alternative is for everything to be morality plays where everyone reliably gets their comeuppance. That’s especially problematic for biographies of people who did not, in fact, get their comeuppance.
Where in the scene is there any suggestion that he disapproves of it?
Then you see it differently from how I do. To me, she looks (unrealistically, for the vast majority of women) increasingly thrilled by it, and definitely into it. The character is denied the natural defensiveness that nearly anyone would feel when suddenly grabbed by the genitals. The movie itself giggles along with the other guy at the table, “Yeah man, you’re a real man, taking it like you own her! Show any woman that much power and she’ll definitely want it!”
