Men are sex crazed horn dogs who become babbling idiots when up against a nice pair of breasts--- at least that's what pop culture wants us to believe. Look at the new movie Hall Pass which earned a gabillion dollars opening weekend, (okay-I'm inflating the figure slightly-but you get the idea). In the film two men played by Jason Sudeikis and Owen Wilson are so obsessed with sex their wives (Jenna Fischer and Kelly Bundy) give them permission to sleep with other women over a weekend-or a week or..... something. I'm not completely clear on the facts because I haven't seen the movie.
1) it looks stupid
2) the plot was funnier as an arc on Curb Your Enthusiasm where the only reason Sheryl gave her husband the OK to have sex with another woman was because she knew he was too neurotic to seal the deal......and in true Larry fashion he was.
3) I'd rather not endorse a film that makes married women out to be sex loathing harpies
4) Maybe if no one sees these paint by number comedies talented actors will actually appear in movies more deserving of A-list talent. (Why Christina Applegate and Sudeikis chose to do this movie after the refreshing Going the Distance I'll never know.)
Now-even though I have not seen the movie I can venture a guess as to what happens-our hapless heroes realize casual sex with vapid twenty-somethings isn't all it's cracked up to be and they come home with a new appreciation for their wives. Happy Ending. Role Credits. Blah, blah, blah...............Guess what-it doesn't really matter how the movie ends because it's the television ads and trailer that put butts in the seat. There may be a moral at the end of the rainbow but the audience is coming to see hilarious shenanigans that ensue when men get a break from marriage! Yeay! (The TV commercial is particularly offensive because it features the men making fun of an attractive women with a strange, large nose. Correct me if I'm wrong ladies but when you think about attractive MEN with weird noses isn't Owen Wilson the first person who comes to mind?)
I'm not going to sit here and write that some men aren't horn toads......some women are horn toads. What concerns me is that in our culture we like to imply that what every married man really wants is to have sex with a succession of women other than the one he made those stinky ole' vows to. Keep in mind I'm not saying married people never do a double take when an attractive person walks by, never look at porn, or never fantasize about people other than their spouse-but there's a big difference between Roman orgies in fantasy land and actual sex. I'm also not saying you can't have bed hopping male characters on television and film but does it have to be EVERY male character. Obviously I'm exaggerating slightly there are still lots of interesting characters that run the gamut of American male sexuality. A great example of a show that shows different sides of male behavior is How I Met Your Mother where Barney's promiscuity (Neil Patrick Harris) is tempered by married and super-in-love Marshall (Jason Segel) and serial monogomist Ted (Josh Radnor). However what concerns me is that the 'man as sex crazed idiot' has become pervasive enough that it's a common archetype in advertising. Here, as an example is my least favorite commercial of all time.
What really drives me nuts about this commercial is that it could have been HILARIOUS. All the advertisers had to do was substitute a teenage boy for the middle-aged husband. No married man-I don't care how hot the plumber is- should be that desperate to see the sexy version of plumber's butt. Now I readily accept that teenage boys are horny idiots, (teenage girls are too- how else do you account for the popularity of the Twilight books), and to a fifteen year old boy the idea of clogging a toilet to meet a Kardashian like plumber might seem like a brilliant idea. In fact a mother who finds her adolescent son flushing inanimate objects down the drain would be mad at first---but would most likely laugh about it over time, especially if she knew it was done to meet a beautiful woman. A woman who finds her husband doing the same thing-----well, you get the idea the couple in the commercial are going to have a long talk. It's a pretty dark ending for an ad that's supposed to be humorous, then again the Hall Pass commercials are supposed to be funny too.
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