I Wish
…that movies would stop making jokes about getting people drunk in order to “have sex” with them. Deliberately feeding someone alcohol in order to get them drunk so that they’ll “have sex” “with” you is rape. Interestingly, it assumes that your victim would not willingly choose to do so when in her or his right mind, which ought to make it even clearer that plying her or him with drink is an explicit attempt to get her or him to the point where her or his judgment is seriously compromised and she or he is incapable of consenting to sex. Having sex “with” someone without their consent is rape. Getting someone to a point where they’re not capable of giving consent means that they are by default in a state of not consenting.
Rape is not just forging ahead and having sex when your partner says, “No.” Rape is having sex when you’ve made it so that your partner is incapable of saying, “No,” or is too drunk to know what the hell yes and no mean, or what they’re saying yes or no to.
The latest offender in this regard is Play the Game, an indie romantic comedy where a young, able-bodied white man tries to teach his old, white grandfather how to pick up “chicks.” One thing he mentions is that when you’re sharing a bottle of wine with a woman and she pours more wine into your glass than hers, it’s a sign that she’s interested in you. As an illustration of this idea, the young man has a bottle of wine with a woman at the bar and then tells her that he needs to go home to his girlfriend. Immediately, the woman asks him to stay for just one more drink and tops off their glasses. Cue a shot of the wine glasses, which look like this:
Her wine glass is a third full. His wine glass is full to the brim.
Hardy har har, indeed–except I must have been the only person in the theater not roaring with laughter. The wine pour becomes a running gag in the film, reoccurring again when the grandfather’s girlfriend slips powdered Viagra into his wine goblet and pours it completely full. Drugging someone without their knowledge! Getting Grandpa drunk and aroused when he’s already expressed an unwillingness to have sex with her! Specifically putting Grandpa in a position of physically wanting to have sex while mentally compromising him in order to overcome his intellectual desire to not have sex! HARDY HAR HAR! Later, the main character pulls the wine trick with the woman he’s been pursuing for the entire film, who has handily resisted him and expressed interest in other men the entire time–HARDY HAR HAR! Pouring people wine to overcome their stated resistance to having sex with you–HARDY HAR HAR!
Getting someone drunk in order to compromise their judgment so that you can have sex with them is rape. Yet, Play the Game treated it as a joke, presenting it as something that’s acceptable for young people to do at bars and as something that’s laughable for old people to do in retirement homes. It’s not a bloody joke, it’s a crime, but the movie normalized it as harmless fun, common behavior, and worst of all, as a sign that your rapist is romantically interested in you. Gee, I guess rape victims should feel flattered, eh?
On the one hand, women are frequently blamed when rapists rape them, and the victim-blaming is even more intense if the women have had so much as a drop of alcohol. The UK government even ran PSAs suggesting that being raped was the consequence of women drinking. On the other hand, pop culture serves up entertainment that treats getting people drunk in order to rape them as harmless fun. Rape is such a joke–if you’re the one pouring the wine.
pocochina said,
2009 August 27 at 3:40 PM
One thing he mentions is that when you’re sharing a bottle of wine with a woman and she pours more wine into your glass than hers, it’s a sign that she’s interested in you.
It’s taking femininity as permission for sex, too – the act of giving someone more wine than you have yourself is also pointedly saying that they deserve more sustenance,more enjoyment than you. It’s making light of the cultural idea that when women act in the manner in which we’ve been socialized, in this case giving away more drinks than she has herself – means she’s not just sexually available, but voraciously going after it, when really she’s sacrificing for someone else and avoiding looking like a SELFISH GLUTTON who keeps all her own wine. There’s no angle of this that’s not rape culture, and it’s not edgy to supposedly turn this on its head, it’s actively supporting rape culture myths.
The UK government even ran PSAs suggesting that being raped was the consequence of women drinking.
Having done some research into the UK social and legal response to rape, I can safely say that being here terrifies me from that perspective.
pizzadiavola said,
2009 August 27 at 4:12 PM
It’s making light of the cultural idea that when women act in the manner in which we’ve been socialized, in this case giving away more drinks than she has herself – means she’s not just sexually available, but voraciously going after it, when really she’s sacrificing for someone else and avoiding looking like a SELFISH GLUTTON who keeps all her own wine.
Argh, that makes my heard hurt so much!
The whole stupid movie is all about playing games and using tricks to win your true love’s affection, and when it’s not treating rape as a normal part of the romantic arsenal, it presents being a Nice Guy (TM) as the best way to win over a woman. Basic plot summary is this: Young Man plays Nice Guy, pretends to be friends. Eventually confesses that he was never interested in a friendship, he just wanted a romantic relationship all along. Young Woman says he’s an insincere jerk and she never wants to see him again. Later on, it turns out that YW was playing the same game all along (pretending to be friends with YM and pretending to be hurt by his deception), and YM and YW end up happily ever after. So, not only does YM achieve success by being a Nice Guy, it turns out that YW really deserves the Nice Guy treatment, because she was playing the same game. Vomit. Vomit vomit vomit. When we left the movie, I told the +1 that the only upside of the film was that now I liked him about a hundred times more for not being a jerk like the male lead in the film–who is supposed to be the protagonist! The sympathetic character for the viewer to identify with! The +1 replied that that was holding him to a really low standard, which just made me like him even more.
I really hope the film dies a miserable death.
Having done some research into the UK social and legal response to rape, I can safely say that being here terrifies me from that perspective.
: ( I hope that you’re safe while you’re there (not in an “it’s your responsibility to be safe” way, but in a “I hope rapists stay the hell away” way). Actually, I wish they would stay the hell away from everyone. :/
Whatevermachine said,
2009 August 31 at 11:07 AM
Heh. I’m in the UK, in scotland actually which has a 2% conviction rate for rapists. That’s just the ones that make it to court, of course! In this context, you’d think my male friends would recognise why I’m so averse to hearing rape jokes and seeing it played out on TV all the time, but no.
idyllicmollusk said,
2009 September 1 at 9:41 AM
The previews for this film made me kinda want to see it.
Note to Self: Do not see it.
double said,
2009 October 29 at 1:15 AM
I’m really glad I came across this post, albeit quite late. I also despise this “comedy” tactic of movie makers. For instance, the other day my boyfriend and I were arguing over a movie. He wanted to watch 40 Year Old Virgin and I didn’t. He jokingly suggested I could do a kind of feminist running commentary of the movie while we watched. Now, this I couldn’t resist. I warned him that if he let me do this I would be talking non-stop throughout the whole movie, and I was right. There was scarcely one scene which I did not criticise. Sometimes I got sick of talking and asked him to take over, which he could do adequately.
However, one part of the movie particularly disgusted me. It was a scene in which the entire point was for the virgin to get laid by going to a club and preying on drunk girls – the drunker the better. I ended up just saying “this scene is blatant rape propoganda”.
Both my boyfriend and I became so bored with the movie that we turned it off halfway. I said, “now can you see what I see when I watch movies like this?” He said, “yeah – but it makes the movies so boring!” I replied, “have you ever considered that these movies just ARE boring?”
He had nothing else to say.
pizzadiavola said,
2009 November 3 at 4:02 PM
I said, “now can you see what I see when I watch movies like this?” He said, “yeah – but it makes the movies so boring!” I replied, “have you ever considered that these movies just ARE boring?”
Good for you, and that is a good point! If a movie is “boring” once your eyes are opened to the misogynistic humor that pervades it, then maybe, just maybe, that movie is crap. After your feminist critique of the 40 Year Old Virgin, your boyfriend ought to realize that it’s male privilege that he can consider the misogyny a humorous element instead of offensive and disturbing.