The TV Addict 

With this year already featuring no end of groups boycotting films (THE GOLDEN COMPASS, THE LOVE GURU, TROPIC
THUNDER) with the vigor of over-rampant political correctness, I thought for the heck of it I’d also indulge my over-sensitive side and discuss some of the recent films that did actually manage to offend me. Needless to say, many will find my complaints utterly ridiculous, because – after all – what offends is subjective. That being said, any attempts to remind me that “Come on, it’s only a movie” will fall on the deaf ears of this former film student suffering from academic withdrawal. In fact, if that’s an argument you tend to lean towards then you may just want to skip the next few paragraphs. Well, probably the whole article.

For those of you who do stick around though, feel free to post away on the films that managed to irk your offensive bone.

300
I’m possibly one of the few people I know who really didn’t like 300, something I receive no end of chiding for in public (it makes for very hostile party conversation). Though I’ll concede visually the movie is stunning, I found the film to be incredibly racist with its monstrous and freakish portrayal of anyone who proved to be “the other” to the headlining Spartans. Remember the tent sequence? And what would a Frank Miller project be without a little homophobia (the Persian king) and masochism as well (Lena Headey’s character’s story).

SHOOT ‘EM UP
Speaking of masochism, SHOOT ‘EM UP demonstrates more callous, gratuitous violence towards women in its first fifteen minutes alone than I think I’ve ever seen in a film. Admittedly, it’s blowing out of proportion what in many ways is already inherent in the over-the-top action film – including a beyond reproachable villain – but it’s because it seems to project itself with such “Isn’t this cool?” enthusiasm that it becomes so hard to take for me. Saying “Nice tits,” to a dead corpse, or a character pleasuring himself by fondling the breasts of a dead corpse? That’s masochistic and not cool.

BAD BOYS II
Speaking of breasts and dead corpses (huh, all these films seem to provide seamless segues for each other), BAD BOYS II was another impressive entry in masochism and general disregard for human life. Again, part of the action genre, but having to sit through a scene of the boys hiding out with big breasted corpses in a morgue, or engaging in a highway car chase scene with dead bodies flying everywhere, or – the piece de la resistance – another car chase where a Hummer plows down a South American hill through a never ending see of shanties (which were either miraculously empty, or after would be full of dead hit-and-run bodies)? It made me think the film should have been called BAD BOYS II: GRATUITIOUS.

SIN CITY
Like most of Frank Miller’s work, SIN CITY is a feminists’ nightmare, full of violence against women, female subjugation, and seemingly empowered women who aren’t really at all (Rosario Dawson’s character for one). Then there’s Miller’s rampant hyper-masculinity, which isn’t so much something to be offended by, but it does make me a heck of a lot insecure about my own masculinity. Kidding. Well, sort of.

HOSTEL
I’m probably the last person who would be inclined towards moral grand-standing outrage or calls for censorship, but watching HOSTEL was a case where I really felt that here was a filmmaker who clearly has some form of talent, and I just couldn’t understand why anyone feels the need to use it to make something like this. I felt that with all the horror in the world – and the fact that this sort of thing probably does happen in real life – do we really need a film where I have to watch a girl have her eyeball ripped out and then the socket blowtorched closed, all in the interests of satisfying the dark urges of a spoiled rich yuppie? I think no, but I imagine there are no end of hardcore horror fans who would disagree, or give me an arm length list of films that feature worse acts of horror (and they’d probably be right).

THE HILLS HAVE EYES
There are four things I can’t stand seeing in a film: people vomiting, people getting raped, children getting hurt in any way, and women getting hurt in any way. THE HILLS HAVE EYES remake had all of the above, almost in one extended sequence. The combination of that, HOSTEL, and the overall emergence of the “torture porn” genre has pretty much turned me off of most horror for good.

I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU CHUCK AND LARRY
Admittedly this is a case where I am as bad as the boycotters. I haven’t actually seen this film. The trailers told me all I needed to know though. They made me realize I had no interesting in seeing a film that would spend its entire time making fun of gay people and channeling unrealistic gay stereotypes for the sake of Adam Sandler style low-brow humor, only to patronizingly retract it all in the end with a “But seriously folks, gay people are great” message.