It's been a while since I've posted, and reading this you might think it should have been a while longer. But I have an axe to grind.
It all begins with the new Charlie's Angels movie. I hesitate to call it a movie as opposed to a "jigglefest" consisting entirely of scantily-clad women jiggling around as they "solve crimes" and "save humanity". (Not to mention the inane dialog, but let's stay on topic.) It isn't that it offends me... well, it is offensive, but that's not my major beef. It's utterly stupid, mindless, debased, whatever you want to say about it. The only point to it is to get off teenage boys. Any talk about empowering women is complete crap; I can't imagine any father that wants his daughter to dress like a whore and dance in a strip bar to get what they want.
Another area where this is obviously an issue is in the music industry. Many of the female singers start out only moderately slutty (cf. Brittany Spears' first video). Then, they "mature". And by "mature" I mean dressing in walnut shells and dental floss, and simulating sex with every goofy-looking, gold-toothed, grungy, tattooed mental midget out there. (Not that I have anything against goofy-looking, gold-toothed, grungy, or tattooed individuals. Mental midgets are another story...)
Even Shania Twain (yes, I'm watching more CMT these days) is getting into the act: in her latest video, "Always and Forever", she sings a sweet love song about how a couple will be together... always and forever. Beautiful idea, really pretty song, a little formulaic, but nice nonetheless. Yet, for all of the sentimentality and classic love story, Shania comes out wearing a piece of gauze for her sweater-type-thing. She makes sure to stretch out to show every inch of skin she can without actually stripping down. Guess she felt that since the women had the love song, men needed a little something to hold their attention.
Oh well, I'm sure I'm just uptight, I'm sure it's just a matter of living in a broken world, etc.
Posted by pcg at June 11, 2003 9:19 AMSo, for the record, you didn't like the movie?
Posted by: topher1kenobe on June 12, 2003 5:18 AMI would refine your statement of, "The only point to it is to get off teenage boys." The only point has become to make money, and they do that by appealing to the basest lustful desires in teenage boys. I'm not a Catholic, but they rate lust as one of the seven deadly sins for a reason. (Yet I often overlook some degree of "jiggling" in works that also aspire to greater things. Is that "wrong"?)
This technique of using lust as a way to expand audience reach isn't a new thing. In fact, Cecil B. DeMille was famous for it, even as he produced his popular Biblical epics. "You can't show redemption, after all, unless there's a preamble of debauchery." Today, we don't have the benefit of redemption at the end. It's debauchery for it's own greedy sake. Yeah, you're right to have a beef with that.
I haven't seen the movie. I haven't seen the first one. The trailers (for each) were enough to convince me that they are worthless. (They fall into the Coyote Ugly/Showgirls/Striptease category. Ergo, I coined the term, "Jigglefest".)
I agree that if there weren't money to be made, most of these movies wouldn't be made either. And I don't think there's anything wrong with looking past a little skin toward a greater plot; my issue is when the plot itself is missing. The plot of the Charlie's Angels movies appear to be to get three girls into as many compromising positions as possible in 1h30m.
Sorry, that probably sounds all high and mighty, like film cannot be worthwhile unless it's high art. I'll neither defend nor refute that argument. :-)
Posted by: pcg on June 12, 2003 8:23 AMWait... now we're knocking Coyote Ugly!?
Posted by: Ron on June 23, 2003 10:51 AMI usually will judge movies based on a few things, trailers being one of them As a result, I've rejected a lot of movies. I'm annoyed by how sex is used to sell movies, and in some cases, how sex is put into movies, but doesn't really seem in place (for example, in 'Entrapment': Did Catherine Zeta Jones *really* need to be that erotic, and wear those clothes? Probably not. Another example: The matrix reloaded. Probably didn't need the Rave scene. The Neo/Trinity scene was I guess warranted, but it could have been more tame. As well: the whole French Restaurant part about the woman eating the cake was overboard. It didn't give any more meaning to the movie to have the 'camera' zip right up... there.)
It's getting for me to the point where I wait for the token sex scene in a given movie (like in Stephen King books).
It seems like movies as a whole are getting more and more idiotic in order to appeal to the increasingly lower brows in society (Wow! It's "2" fast, and "2" furious! I can't wait 'till the sequel!") I'm waiting for the trailer where they show nothing more than scantily clad women and shiny things. Maybe they'll hand out band-aids for the movie-goers' knuckles as door prizes.