My pals and I have a word we use for skeevy ass grown dudes who scam on under-age girls because they are ‘easier marks’; a Wooderson.
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Lol i regularly reference that character mainly for the “alright alright alright” but also for the creeper quote in that gif
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The character also has a good quote about being the master of your own fate that I like;
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The age difference was creepy, but Knives was not underage. The story was set in Toronto, where the age of consent is 16 (as it is in the rest of Canada).
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In some places its legal at younger ages. Still doesn’t make it right.
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Talking about something and bringing in some critical views of media is not about dictating and censoring. it’s about having a conversation and trying to get better stories made.
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Yes, yes, and all women hate action films.
How about we accept that there are no genres for particular genders.
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Oh, and most of Kevin Smith’s work is romance for dudes, Clerks and Clerks 2 (which primarily revolves around Dante’s love life), Mall Rats (again, two dudes hanging out at the mall, dealing with their love lives), and Chasing Amy (a guy falls in love with a woman and can’t deal with her past). All rom coms. Every single one of those.
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Which is why I wrote this before that.
16 seems to be about the average age of consent for the global North, although there are usually restrictions in place to stop people in positions of power from abusing that power.
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And in none of those cases are the women pursuing them.
I think there is a perception that if some woman was hitting on a guy in the way the guys hit on girls in those movies, he would just say “yes” and they would bang, end of movie.
so, it’s ONLY romance if it’s a woman pursuing a guy? These are male centric rom coms. And actually in Clerks 2, Rosario Dawson DOES pursue Dante… And in Clerks, you have the relationship with Veronica, his girlfriend is clearly more interested in working on the relationship than Dante, because he’s hung up on Caitlan. OH, and I forget Zack and Miri Make a Porno! So yes, all of those films are indeed rom coms.
Same with Judd Apatow’s films, like Knocked up or 40 year old virgin.
The definition of Rom Com isn’t “a woman chases a man.” It’s that it’s a comedy with the narrative being tied to a romantic relationship in some way. Doesn’t matter if it’s a woman chasing a man, a man chasing a woman, or people of the same gender chasing each other.
I wouldn’t say that perception is correct, since there are plenty of women who are down to bang at a moments notice and there are plenty of men who are not ready to bang on a moments notice. Especially with millennials, who seem more interested in casual hook ups and seem to have less hang ups about it.
This is part of our problem here, that we feel that films that are meant to be romantic are perpetuating a trope that give a mistaken impression on how to carry on a romantic interest. Abduction isn’t romantic, it’s a crime and it’s scary.
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Indeed; as much as I adore Kevin Smith, those flicks all still feed into the trope of less than ideal men pursuing women who are ‘out of their league’ as trophies, as opposed to actual partners with agency.
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Indeed. Chasing Amy has that problem, but she dumps him in the end because he can’t deal with her past, so there’s that. For whatever it’s worth.
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Yep; and doesn’t Veronica dump Dante when she realizes he’s still hung up on his ex, or am I misremembering that?
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That was the point of the conversation, yes. There are no romance films where the genders are reversed and it’s the guy rebuffing the woman’s advances till the end of the movie.
Perhaps that’s because of what’s been said repeatedly throughout this entire thread: male characters nearly always have agency and are the heroes of their own stories, whereas female characters are all too often written as two dimensional window dressing; a price to be won, a unrealistic muse to inspire/enlighten the male protagonist, a vehicle to advance the plot.
That’s the inherent problem with tropes like ‘stalking as romance’ and “abduction as romance.”
To quote Fury Road, as I am often wont to do:
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What? The romantic comedy where the handsome male lead tries to avoid the beautiful female lead’s advances predates Hollywood. Here’s a small sample of recent movies in that sub-genre (one that apparently uses the same poster design template):
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Oh, god, it’s been a while. I think that’s right, plus the fact that he blew a gasket about the 37 blow jobs. “Try not to suck any dick on the way to the car!” That’s a terrible and hilarious line. The whole point is that he’s something of a narcissistic asshole who can’t improve his life and is continuously living in the past, when the present and future is Veronica, who actually cares about him (she brings him lasagna at his shitty clerking job, for Christ’s sake!) and wants to help him improve his life.
Some Kind of Wonderful by John Hughes? Or how about When Harry Met Sally, they sleep together and he’s out the door until the end of the movie. Silver Lining’s Playbook? Sleepless in Seattle?
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Just showed that one to my kid recently.
Neither Watts nor Amanda Jones actively pursued the protagonist, Keith.
Rather it was Keith that propped Amanda up on a pedestal (the ‘unattainable hot chick’ trope) while remaining painfully oblivious that his BFF Watts was in love with him, until the very end of the movie.
It breaks a few tired-ass conventions though; as Amanda checks Keith on his objectification of her, and simultaneously learns the value of standing on her own two feet, instead of needing a guy to ‘complete’ her.
(I’m still calling BS on the whole diamond earrings part of the narrative, though; that was an expensive-ass ‘gesture’, just to demonstrate that the protagonist is “as good as anybody else.”)
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Not that I’m that familiar with the genre as a whole, but the ones I’ve read or seen seem to focus on
female protagonist pursues several relationships at once. Quite often one of them turns out to be a real cad, and the underdog wins her affection.
