Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Spoiler Alert: "Hall Pass," and why it's a terrible movie

So, this is literally another spoiler alert. If you had planned on seeing the movie "Hall Pass," then don't read this - well, unless you want to. Ha.

Just a few minutes ago, I got home from the theater and I'm mad. If you haven't yet heard of this movie, or seen any TV commercials about it, here's the trailer:


Aside from the obvious humor, this movie, in my opinion, had an underlying message: marriage isn't anything to be taken seriously. Women's hopes and dreams are getting married and having children. They live out their dreams all the time. Ohhh, but men on the other hand, they don't get to live out their dreams. They don't get to "bone" any woman they want, whenever they want... because that's the ultimate man's dream, isn't it? Most poor men never get to live out that dream though, do they? They're overbearing, "neurotic" wives wouldn't ever allow that, right? Wrong.

Then "Hall Pass" was made. Every man's dream is to have a week hall pass in life, right? To have the right; the privilege to do whatever they want for one week... whatever they want. Imagine what that would do to a marriage?

According to the movie, a supposed "hall pass" could save a marriage. This movie made marriage seem like a chore. Men eventually lose interest in their wives, resent having children, and can't "control" their "manly" urges to look at other women while with their wives. Sex is a chore to the women and they'd rather pretend they were sleeping that actually have sex with their husbands.

This movie made me mad.

I understand that this movie was making fun and playing off of every stereotype that was ever created about marriage, and I also understand that there are situations, such as those shown in the movie, but there's a much larger issue here.

These men in the movie weren't satisfied with the women they had. No. They wanted young, sexy, easy women. Of course. I lost count of the shots of women's asses, breasts, stomachs, legs, etc. There was actually a point during the movie that I was taking notes. Yeah, I'm the kind of person that takes notes during a movie, but that aside, men are being told that this type of behavior is all right, and acceptable!

The husbands in that movie were seen as incompetent, irresponsible, and child-like. The first thing I thought of was Sarah Haskins and the skit she did titled, "Doofy Husbands." Sarah basically goes on to explain that the media portrays married men as "husbands that can't do stuff.... he was so cool and then he got married, and now he's slightly dumber than a dog."

These men in the movie, "Hall Pass," reminisce about their pre-married lives;  how much fun they had before they were tied down, all the chicks they slept with, and how hot and manly their bodies were. According to this movie, marriage ruins not only relationships, but can really "demasculinize" a man. Oh, dear.

The entire movie was riddled with stereotypes that made it so predictable. The ending was as expected - the wives took the husbands back after their "hall passes," and everything was fine. Everyone was happy and all that jazz... typical. Just to add, as well, one of the wives had sex with a complete stranger, as well as her husband sleeping with a women he barely knew. And the only reason I'm saying that is because I would hate for anyone to read this and think I'm sexist or leaving any part of the movie out. Believe me, I've taken every part of that movie into consideration when writing this post, and yes, you're right - most of this was written entirely out of anger.

Usually I would be mad at feminism for "ruining" this movie for me. Sometimes I wish that I could just be dumb and not understand social stereotypes, gender roles, or feminism in general. Just for one night. I mean, can you blame me?

I realize that I shouldn't be so upset over such a silly movie, but stuff like this needs to be talked about. So, if you're an avid feminist, I highly suggest not going to see this movie, or better yet, if you wish to add to my critique, please, I insist that you go see it.

5 comments:

  1. Haven't seen the movie, but I'm not surprised this plot has been thought up. You make some very valid points!

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  2. I am really tired of the whole 'men are bumbling idiots that only think of sex' thing that the media is putting out these days. I hated this movie.

    Yes there were a few funny parts but that is it, few.

    The women don't have sex with their husbands at all,but then want to feel wanted. Pavlov proved that conditions will form reaction. If a man is denied, denied, denied, he will no longer seek what is constantly denied. The further seeking of that thing is actually the definition of insanity.

    The men can barely keep it in their pants when dealing with nice looking women in day to day life. They dream of what their brains have romanticized over the years to where they feel that back in the day, they had but to snap their fingers and women would strip before them.

    This movie did a great injustice to both sexes and marriage itself. Are you always going to be insanely happy in marriage? No, but on the flip of that coin, single life isn't what its cracked up to be either.

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  3. Yeah! Comedy should be abolished because far too many people take movies so seriously they believe comedy stories are about real life narratives, and as everyone knows "real life narratives" are far from funny. Unless of course you can suggest a comedy that is feminist-safe fodder AND yet still remains funny.

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  4. Another problem I had was that the woman who slept with another man is seen as the bad person for doing it when her husband actually begged for a hall pass. When he did this I guess he didn't think his wife could actually like someone or anyone would want her. I think it's completely fair for her to hook up with whomever in this situation yet they had to make her feel really bad about what she did and that resulted in her getting into an accident and breaking her nose. Also to make it fair they had the husband hook up with a woman too. Yet they didn't try to make it fair for the women in the movie considering the fact their husbands were trying to get laid all week, yet the women actually tried to stay away from men hitting on them. I guess its okay for the husbands to try to hit on girls and try getting laid which they would have, if they were good enough for the girls they were trying to get but the women couldn't do the same without looking horrible, unless of course their husbands do the same deed to even it out. It really seemed like infidelity is worse when done by the wife oppose to the husband.

    Also I was annoyed by the fact they made it clear what the husbands' occupation was but what the women did or whether they even had jobs wasn't even mentioned.

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  5. ^ Hahahahahahahahahahahaha

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