When in Rome...get married

When in Rome

Kristen Bell, Josh Duhamel
Mark Steven Johnson

Happy Superbowl Sunday, everyone. I’ll try to put my distaste in the ad scandals of this year’s football game aside for now and get on to the main subject of this blog: gender in movies.
This last weekend I saw When In Rome, which is about a business-minded woman (Bell) who goes to the wedding of her younger sister in Rome. She has the stereotypical “business woman syndrome” portrayed in movies: attractive, tough yet struggling at work, at a loss for finding men, doesn’t care to ever find a man. Never fear though, my faithful friends, because in a drunken stupor she pulls coins out of the Fountain of Love in Rome. And as everyone (apparently) knows, when you do so the people who owned said coins will fall madly in love with you. The movie chugs along with her attempting to avoid the infatuated crazies and decipher if one crazy (Duhamel) is simply under the spell of the Fountain or if he truly loves her.
And as predictable as an ice storm in Oklahoman winter, the business woman falls in love and sheds her work obsession for a hot man with nice abs.
There’s not a lot else I have to say about this one. It is pretty self explanatory. The Napoleon Dynamite jokes are great, though, for those of my generation.
I give this three vagenises.
The Goods: slightly funny, Napoleon Dynamite jokes.
The Bads: ridiculous “why should a woman be working so hard there must be something wrong with her” attitude.

New Moon

Whaaat? What’s this? I’m back? Yes, after my extremely lazy winter trek into doing nothing, I return anew. I would start with my latest movie tirade (The Book of Eli) but I think it is highly appropriate to bring something to the table that is much expected of me. Are you ready? Y’sure?

The Twilight Saga: New Moon

Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattison, Taylor Lautner
Chris Weitz

Before I begin, a statement: I do not hate this series, but I certainly do not like it.
I only read the first book before getting bored, so I hardly know anything about the movies to come, but I have seen the first two, and I think there is one main fact to be said about them. They are not good for young girls. What is the story about? A teenage girl who falls hopelessly infatuated with a boy in her new town, who turns out to be a dangerous vampire. In the second movie, however, her infatuation reaches a whole new level of dangerous. She is so desperate and depressed she pushes herself to the edge of life just to see her “love” in her mind, protecting her. She completely disregards her own safety because she is too wound up in a boy she’s known for less than a year.
I think the perfect example of the mindset of this girl is her car. The girl, Belle, drives her old red pickup truck to school every day and is often associated with this car. But what about, say, if she is in the car with Edward Cullen, or her new “friend,” Jacob? Why, they drive of course. Now, I do not know about any of my scarce readers, but when I am in my car, unless it is a parents, I am driving it. Why? Because it’s my fucking car. But, regardless that it’s her car, that they are driving to her house, it is obvious that her car must be driven by the man there and that she must sit in the passenger seat, twiddling her thumbs and swooning. Her car represents everything destructive about her whole life: the fact that, unless she is completely and utterly alone, she is incapable of ruling it herself.
But, like I said before, I do not hate this series. I think that, every now and then, people need to sit back and feel taken away by a romantic story with twists and heartache; just look at Romeo and Juliet. But is it necessary to push the already pressured, overdramatic young girls with an idea that they should be so utterly obsessed with a boy that they consider suicide? That they let him rule their life? That they’d give up everything, everything, just so that they can kiss him and make little babies together?
Hell no.
I give this one vagenis.
The Goods: romantic & occasionally blissful (plus, amazing soundtrack).
The Bads: everything else.
And on that note, I bid thee adieu. I promise to continue writing these this semester.