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Same. I started off trying to dislike SJP, because horseface and annoying, but the relentless cruelty of the family towards her got to me, and in the end I wished Claire Danes would die of cancer too.
"because horseface and annoying"
Even I, a 40 year old divorced man who sincerely misses in-office work because I did have age gap inappropriate sexual relationships with interns and that's harder to do now, thought the movie was too obvious in its direct contrasts of the sisters. Until SJP switches to clothes the family approves of at the end, we see her in less and less flattering light and makeup as the film progresses. She is made visibly uglier right around the time 2005 Claire Danes shows up. Watch how those two are visually depicted and you'll start to see that radical feminists were not making everything up.
Claire Danes is the fantasy character of the creative class men who finance and create films. Young, eye meltingly hot, and her brain can instantly be turned off by uttering a few words about deep artistic yearning. She will stand in the dark with you and describe her satisfaction seeing a totem pole erected, filling a hole in the soul of the man who thrust it into the air, penetrating the heavens. A massive, solid, powerful totemic symbol of...something. A mystery for the ages.
The SJP character makes no sense but the actual version of that woman would not be so stupid to not realize that men who talk like Dylan McDermott in that scene are indeed possessed with an overwhelming need to fill a hole but it ain't the one he's talking about.
(It's her mouth and/or genitals. In case it wasn't plain. He wants to fuck her.)
I’m not watching that again (if I’m rewatching any family christmas movies where the matriarch has cancer this year, it’s going to be A Christmas Tale (2008)), but what’s the radfem angle? That men prefer pretty women? That they want to fuck them? If the two sisters were equally plain or equally lighted, would the cause of feminism have been advanced?
The radfem angle is the generalized radical feminist / woke / po-mo / identitarian media criticism.
Visual language in a film is not accidental. These are professional story tellers using specific techniques to evoke specific feelings and thoughts in the viewer. Even if you want to argue that the choices are subconscious all you're saying is that the visual language is a tangible representation of ingrained misogyny. A patriarchal society will, whether it wants to or not, represent its values in its cultural works.
What does the visual language in The Family Stone convey? SJP's character is shown as bony, angular. The lighting gets harsher and the makeup more naturalistic throughout the film. The film is telling you that this woman is unlikeable. You are supposed to viscerally hate her. To do this she is depicted as old.
Claire Danes gets nicer light. More loving shots. She's warm and inviting. SJP is a hag that insists on accommodations for her needs. Claire Danes intuitively wants the same thing as the Man. She is obviously and unmistakably younger and more beautiful visually.
Combine this with the narrative itself. We do get some nicer shots of SJP at the end: when she's wearing the clothes of and is enmeshed with the family. She obviously can't get the Man - she will need to make do with the stoner, rapist brother - but she at least gets some visual dignity. Provided she strips away everything that made her who she was and adopt the visual signifiers and behaviors of the family.
The message that these professional artists wanted to transmit to the future? Old women are irritating and lose their value as they age. You are right to dislike them.
Ok, that’s pretty much what I suggested. I don’t think there’s value in that. Older women are just less attractive. It may be sad, but there’s nothing to be done. It is a peculiarly sad feeling when you see a woman who used to be hot and capable of inspiring great passion in most men, instant fantasies of love even, relegated to invisibility. Somehow, I feel less for the originally plain, even though they probably have it much worse. There’s nothing to be done for them, either.
I don’t consider that misogyny, or some preference implanted into us by films like this one. They tried these last years to make fat, old, and ugly, the new beautiful. I don’t think that campaign has been a rousing success. It was a futile battle against reality.
Value in what sense? Calling attention to the fact? I agree with you - and though I am not a radical feminist I will presume to mansplain on their behalf - and the radfems agree with you too that it is a fact. Their core point isn't that the film is implanting the misogyny. Sure, it does reify it. Cultural artifacts are meant to be transmitted outward and downward. Their point is that you are right: these things are inherent facts about the world and men's sexuality. The filmmakers used those cues because they work and they work because that actually is how men feel and you agree with that because that actually is how you feel and I agree too because that actually is how I feel. I do dislike SJP because of her horseface in that movie. I'm just so offended by the family's dickishness and familiar enough with scene composition to still see what's going on.
Radfems are saying "uh oh" when you say "oh well". That's an understandable reaction when you actually are the prey.
Andrea Dworkin (1946–2005)
This is pushing it to the extreme. But - as an average man I agree that there is an element of what they're describing inherent to male sexuality which is present in varying degrees in individuals. When you look at the world as it exists through this lens, you tend to find evidence that the distribution is not skewed towards the lower end. Yes yes; keys and street lamps, if ye look ye shall find. The fact that you agree with them on the underlying facts and there is such abundant evidence, however, is strong Bayesian evidence that you should update towards their positions. That doesn't mean you have to accept their conclusions or framing. But they do seem to have a point at a factual level.
lol I don't understand what you're talking about - or why (you're a man who fucks interns ffs - this is a jews for hitler situation. Do you realize these broads want you castrated? Don't sleep in.).
I should give radfems credit for recognizing something obvious? That the common man, along with most of the right, discusses openly?
So you think radfems are educating women about the biological preferences of men? Because presumably women know life only from romance novels about princesses and horses. Maybe that's how a radfem is born: she steps out of rainbowland for the first time.
I don't think desire is sex is rape. Like at all. Radfems sound like crazy people to me.
A man who fucks, wants to fuck, or would fuck interns under a pretty broad range of circumstances can be shortened to "man". Are you a man? If so, do you seriously deny the impulse?
I'm sure plenty of broads want me castrated. Plenty of [redacted] would be thrilled to [redacted]. I live in a diverse city. Yes, the tacos are good but the real benefit is knowing for sure that I'm never far from people who would, if they but knew me and could get away with it, kill me. 1 dedicated weirdo has a 99%+ chance of taking me out. 2+ and we're at quantum fluctuation levels of likelihood that I'll be able to stop them. It bothers me not at all to know that admitting to - horror of horrors - being by default attracted to a 23 year old over a 45 year old. Doesn't say anything about any given 23/45 pair and it doesn't mean I can't find a lot to appreciate about older women. But not by pretending that reality isn't what it is.
Anyway, I know what I did and what I didn't do. My entire department was also broad strokes aware as was HR - as they worked in it, I was not able to keep anything from them even if I'd wanted. Nobody's decision making skills are 100% when drinking their way through a prolonged divorce and I can defend everything without endorsing or being proud of it. It sure as shit wasn't seemly, no. That was the point. It was an inappropriate but nowhere near illegal age gap. Sometimes people want inappropriate things. God himself can cast me in a lake of fire if he really wants and I'll go pissing and screaming - but I can't say I'll agree with his decision.
(Edit: this background awareness of the violent possibilities of your neighbors / community must be how Jewish people feel. Their hypersensitivity is an obvious trauma reaction and isn't something that could be stopped if they wanted to - and I'm not sure why they should want to, all things considered.)
Yes. They are acknowledging that there are deep, unbridgeable divides between the sexes. That men and women are fundamentally not the same. This is not a convenient fact and not everyone is willing to come out and say it. See: "sports, trans".
I think lots of things have been done that can be described as broadly radfem and some of them include educating other women about men, yes. We are not born with an innate understanding of every fact in this world. The opposite. There are many, many facts that people would do well to internalize before experience forces the issue. Regrettably, the more important lessons are often the ones most difficult to act on. You should eat better and exercise more. Me too.
By default, women are not going to understand men's sexuality. Men and women are different, remember? Because they are, by default, also attracted to men they will find it very difficult to internalize some of these facts. The dissonance causes some women to go all the way to the extreme: think of your stereotypical literal man castrating radical feminist. They're all the way at 100. I'm not saying or implying that their maximal claims are true. I'm saying that you don't need to start sanding away the extremes until you come to simple, true facts.
Take your example: "desire is sex is rape". I'm sure there are some people who would accurately be described as radical feminists who do or at some point have believed the most extreme version of this statement. There are quotes. They've said it, I take them at their word. And that's much too far. You're correct that it's plainly false.
But I know the statistics that go around These Spaces. Men are more violent. Period. We can debate the causes all we want but this is a fact. For whatever reason, men on average are significantly more violent than women. If you don't believe statistics, trust the human body. Look at its structure. Squeeze the glands. Would you say that the male of that species is more predisposed to violence?
I would. I don't understand how it could be otherwise considering our evolutionary history. But if you need personal testimony - behold, I am an average man, and there are dozens of nights I can remember where a little extra alcohol at the wrong time or one too many bad memories in sequence and I might have expressed myself through violence. That doesn't count the nights I don't remember.
(I don't feel bad about this - my tone should not be read as confessional. I'm the fleshy appendage at the end of a very long line of decisions I did not make. I had zero input into most of the most significant decisions that shaped the broad contours of my likely development. Not all of them turned out great - it never does. Too bad, so sad.)
The question at the core of "desire is sex is rape" is: do you really think that deeper than bone deep difference in violent tendencies stops at the dick? It does not. Men's sexuality, like women's sexuality, entails danger. From men that danger often manifests as violence and it is inextricably bound through human biology / psychology to the reproduction process. How could it be otherwise? You don't need to agree with everything they're saying to agree with the bits that are, in fact, true.
No, I don't deny the impulse. Of course I want to fuck interns. But I'm not catholic, so I don't feel bad about it. It's morally fine to want that. It's even morally fine to do that.
I don't like the fuzziness of your argument, the lack of conceptual boundaries. Yes, I am more capable of violence than women, physically and psychologically. "The human body" does not make me residually responsible for the violence of others. If I murder someone, hang me. If someone else does, I am zero amount responsible . And if something I do is morally permissible - sleeping with interns, for example - then there is no residual guilt. I am as pure as the driven snow. And so ; desire is not 'a little bit' sex, sex is not 'a little bit' rape. Clean boundaries.
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