Adventures in Profitable Misogyny: A Feminist Walks Into A Spirit Halloween Store...

...pukes on their carpet, then turns right around and walks back out.

No, not really.  That would have made for a much shorter post (although I still would have found it entertaining).  No, my mood was more "horrified amusement" than "this is making me sick".  Sometimes, you laugh to keep from crying.

Come along with me on a magical adventure through WTF Is This Shit Land, aka the Spirit Halloween Store, as documented with photographic evidence!

The "his-and-hers" versions of Harry Potter knock-off costumes hanging side-by-side.  The male costume is a set of black robes (closed all up the front) with a not!Hogwarts badge on the chest and a red-and-yellow tie, while the female costume is a grey v-neck minidress with red-and-yellow trim, a tie, and a black short cape as a nod to the "robes" idea.

If you're a guy who wants to be not!Harry Potter for Halloween, you're in luck - a costume that's closeish to the movie, close enough to be easily recognizable anyway.  If you're a woman who wants to be not!Harry Potter for Halloween, you'd best be ready to SHOW THEM ASSETS in a skintight minidress with lots of cleavage.  Oh, you still want to look not!Hogwarts-ish?  Eh.  Toss on a token collar/tie/cape-thing, but make sure none of it hides the ASSETS that are meant to be the main event for a woman's Halloween costume!  *hums "One of these things is not like the other ones..."*

Apologies for the blurriness; two different she-pirate costumes, one with the "for fatties" yellow stripe and one without.  This pic was supposed to highlight the size ranges but you can't even see them, so I'll just tell you: the "regular" she-pirate costume says it's for sizes 12-14, while the "for fatties" costume says it's for sizes 22-26.

I'm curious.  What exactly are those of us between a size 14 and a size 22 supposed to do?  That's actually a *really* common size range, judging by which sizes we got most of/sold out of quickest when I worked at LB.  Is there a "semi-fatties" version I can't find?  Don't get me wrong, I'm glad there's at least one costume available for someone over a 20, which is where XL/XXL sizes seem to stop in these things, but the gap there struck me as really weird.

Avast!  It be the Pirate Wall!  Four columns of four hanging costume bags each, separated by a bunch of pirate accessories (eyepatches, plastic swords, etc) in the center.

I realize you can't see the specifics very well (click through for fullsize if you want to see details) but for those who don't want to bother with that, there are on this wall at least six different variations on she-pirate costumes in the "regular" size, along with a couple he-pirate costumes.  (As an aside, I had no idea there could be that many versions of miniskirt-blousy sleeves-corsety thing-scimitar.  Was it really necessary to have half a dozen different "types"?)  There is precisely *one* plus-size she-pirate costume.  Hope you fat ladies all have the same taste in color and detailing!  Similarly, though I didn't get a pic of it, in the "vampire/witch/generic gothic-ish dress" section, there were a half dozen different dresses in crushed velvet with drapey sleeves and laced-up fronts labeled "vampire" or "witch", including one that was a truly gorgeous shade of cobalt blue which I might have been tempted to buy...except there was only ONE "plus-size" costume in the section and it was the generic black with red lining type.  Thanks for saving me money by refusing to acknowledge diverse tastes among fat people, Spirit! 

Two costumes side-by-side, "Sexy Venus" (a pink and white minidress with empire waist and drapey toga-ish fabric hanging from the shoulders), and "Venus Goddess of Love" (the plus-size version with "for fatties" yellow stripe; costume is similarly styled but has a full-length skirt and is cream and red instead of white and pink, with an actual wrap-shawl-thing instead of attached capelet)

 If this doesn't perfectly encapsulate the attitude mainstream Halloween costumes take toward "plus-size" costumes, I don't know what does.  The "regular" costume is the "Sexy X" and bears little resemblance to whatever it's supposed to be, inevitably consisting of a minidress embellished in some costume-specific way, while the plus-size costume is full-length (gods forbid anyone should have to see FAT LEGS on Halloween, amirite?) and drops any pretense of being "Sexy" anything (because duh, fat people can't be and wouldn't want to be sexy). 

The military costumes section.  A bunch of military-styled hats/helmets/caps, hanging beside two costumes, "Camo Pants" (which are apparently for men, pictured with a guy in the aforementioned pants and white t-shirt with dog tags), and below that "Camo Cutie" (the women's version, a olive-green camo print minidress with either over-the-knee black boots or black thigh-high stockings, I can't tell which)

Oh dear.  For the record, there was a "camo jacket" hanging above the pants, also shown with a young man wearing it.  So if you're a guy who wants to go as a soldier (and doesn't that seem vaguely disrespectful to actual servicemembers?  Or is it just me?) you get a pair of pants and jacket.  If you're a woman, you either buy the men's costume, or you buy the "cutie" costume that's, again, the standard template of minidress embellished for the specific costume.  And of course, don't forget your dominatrix boots/sexy thigh-highs.  That's totally practical for a soldier, and that's how all lady soldiers dress, duh.

The other side of the military section: Two men's costumes showing what seem to be Navy dress whites and, I think, Navy everyday officer's uniform (khaki suit-looking thing), hanging next to two women's costumes: "Naval [something] Doll" (glare covered the second word, sorry), and "Desert Dolly".  "Naval whatever Doll" is a navy-blue minidress with red-and-white trim, a gold embroidered anchor on the flared skirt, and a white bustier-top, shown worn with white thigh-highs and a sailor's cap; "Desert Dolly" is a skintight digiprint-camo-print minidress and soldier's cap, shown worn with black fishnet tights and knee-high black boots and holding a black assault rifle.

Wow.  I didn't think the military section could get worse, but here it is.  The feminine versions of the military costumes are literally reduced to DOLLS.  It's right there in the name.  "Doll" and "Dolly".  Fuck, how blatant can you get?  "You are not a person in costume, you are a doll that looks cute in stylized versions of real uniforms."  A doll.  Wow.

I can't even imagine being a female servicemember going into a costume store and seeing this.  I'd be ready to strangle people and burn the whole place down.  Is this really all we see female soldiers, sailors, as?  Dolls?  Fuck that.

And in all of this, I didn't even touch on the rampant racism.  The "Mexican Man" costume that consisted of a poncho-blanket-thing, sombrero, and fake moustache, with the guy on the package holding a beer and looking drunk; the "Pocahottie" (I wish I were kidding about the name, but I'm not; you can find the exact one here online) that followed the usual minidress-customized, in this case with fringe and beads and a feathered headdress. 

Just as well I'm pagan and celebrate Samhain instead of Halloween.  It gives me leeway to redefine Halloween as "That one night at the end of October when skinny white girls are encouraged required to show as much skin as possible while delighting in racist stereotypes and sexism in the name of "dressing up" and "fun"." 

I think that's much more accurate.  What do you think?

Jon Kyl Does Not Understand The Internet

Jon Kyl, he of the infamous "not intended to be a factual statement" retraction after claiming 90% of what Planned Parenthood does is abortion, has scrubbed the Congressional record of his 90% claim.  Instead of reading "If you want an abortion you go to Planned Parenthood and that's well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does," it now reads, "If you want an abortion you go to Planned Parenthood and that is what Planned Parenthood does."

All this proves is the man has no idea how the internet works, or how the world's memory works in the age of the internet.

Dear Senator Kyl: When your misstatement and hilariously bungled attempt at retracting it have spawned a whole internet meme, complete with Twitter hashtag (#notintendedtobeafactualstatement, still going strong days after the incident) egged on by Stephen Colbert, no amount of scrubbing the official record is going to make people forget.  It's like taking down a really dumb or offensive post.  Google Cache will remember, and all you end up doing is looking like an ass who's trying to cover your tracks.

Which, of course, you are, but you don't want to draw attention to it by trying to hide it.  Is it really so hard to admit you were exaggerating wildly for the sake of scoring rhetorical points in your ideological war on reproductive-care services for low-income Americans?

Too much honesty for you?

Commercializing International Women's Day

You may have noticed I've never been particularly good at observing "Days".  Coming Out Day, Blogging Against Disablism Day, I'm just terrible at getting posts up to coincide with observed Days.  International Women's Day would have been the same*, except for a thing I saw today which I couldn't let pass unremarked.


I'm a cosmetics-and-beauty-products junkie.  I have probably over 100 colors of eyeshadow, primers, liners, all kinds of makeup.  Lately, I've taken a renewed interest in painting my nails, enticed by Zoya brand nail polishes.  I love Zoya's polishes so much (I got my first bottle in January, and by now I have 11 bottles; admittedly, 6 of those were free thanks to their kickass Facebook promo, but still, for someone on a budget 5 bottles of polish in 3 months is kind of an investment) that I follow them on Facebook so I can jump on promos and sales when they're announced.  This morning, they announced an IWD promotion, so I clicked over to read about it on their blog.  The promo itself didn't really interest me, as it was offering their six-color spring 2011 collection at a special price that I still can't justify spending, and I didn't really like the spring collection anyway.  But in the copy for the promo, this jumped out at me:

Celebrate the great women in your life on March 8th – International Women’s Day! This 100 year old holiday is traditionally celebrated by giving small gift to the women that are important in your life.

IWD: Now non-procreative women can enjoy the tokenism and meaningless capitalism of Mother's Day, too!  


I suppose I shouldn't be so shocked, that a business catering to women is trying to capitalize on IWD to drive sales.  After all, Mother's Day began as an anti-war movement, and look what it's become.  But it struck me as ridiculous.  So I checked the official IWD website, and found a thorough explanation of the history of IWD, explaining the origins and goals of the movement, focusing largely on modern observance of IWD as a day to remind a complacent world that Feminism Ain't Dead Yet, with one little throwaway line...

In some countries IWD has the equivalent status of Mother's Day where children give small presents to their mothers and grandmothers.

...in three pages worth of text, describing how IWD is observed in some countries.  And this is what Zoya - a US company with a largely US customer base - boils it down to?  


Dear Zoya:  I love your nail polish, but please to not tokenize IWD as "another day to give small gifts to X woman".  IWD is not Mother's Day, nor is it Valentines Day.  It is a day to remember and celebrate how far we have come on the grindingly exhausting journey toward a truly equal and egalitarian society, while still being aware of how far we have yet to go and how many women have not even benefited from what advances we have made.  I get that you're a business and you're thinking of sales and your bottom line here, but could you at least have a blurb that reflects accurate reality, instead of turning IWD into a glorified Secretary's Day?


I would think the global struggle for complete social, political, and economic equality of half the world's population might deserve that much, at least.


*As it is, I'm high-fiving myself for squeaking in with 2 hours to spare on March 8th.

Salvation Army V Harry Potter. FIGHT!

The Calgary chapter of The Salvation Army, that bastion of anti-gay hatred and occasional fundamentalism, has made a bit of a stir lately over the revelation that donated Harry Potter and Twilight toys will not be distributed to children in need along with other toys they receive to distribute, nor will they be passed on to other charities who will distribute them, because they are toys revolving around "witchcraft" and "the demonic" and the rest of the utterly predictable list of objections this kind of thing always brings up.


Which is stupid, and denying children in need toys they would enjoy and play with simply because of one's personal religious beliefs is reprehensible, but nothing more than I'd expect from SA.  I just have one question, though, and this is for all the anti-HP types who freak out about OMG WITCHES over it:


If your god is, as you so love to claim, a "god of love"...why do you so vehemently hate a book series in which the entire premise of the protagonist's power against the main antagonist is, quite literally, LOVE?  

(For those who have not read Harry Potter, Harry survived Voldemort's original murder attempt and retains an odd, inexplicable power to resist him, despite being in all other ways a more or less average young wizard, because his mother loved him so much she sacrificed herself to protect him, leaving him with the lingering protection of love, something Voldemort cannot understand, fight, or control.)  It just makes no sense.  You're screaming about OMG demons and witchcraft for a book series where *love* is the basic premise of the protagonist's power, and in which the forces of light are doing battle with the forces of darkness.  Not to mention, spoiler alert, in the end the protagonist sacrifices himself willingly to help his side win the battle.  Jesus parallel much?  


It's just dumb, and anyone with half a brain can see through the fearmongering.  Please stop now, and stop letting your irrational hate interfere with children getting toys to play with.

Pregnant Women Are Public Property

If you don't know PostSecret, here's the quick version: an art project begun several years ago, in which people were asked to anonymously write a secret of theirs on a postcard and mail it in, blossomed and grew into a huge thing.  There's the website, where a selection of a dozen or so postcards are posted every Sunday.  There are, I think, four books now of collected secret postcards.  There's the exhibit, which travels from gallery to gallery around the country, displaying secrets of all kinds, all anonymous.  There are events, at which PostSecret founder Frank Warren talks about the beginning of PS, what it's done, what he's learned from it, and people have an opportunity to share their secrets.  It's all about finding our common humanity in the things we would never admit out loud.  I find it fascinating.


I also follow the @PostSecret Twitter account.  Frank tweets random stuff, and also sometimes tweets secrets from postcards that don't make it into the weekly post.  Then yesterday, this tweet was posted:

Today's Secret: "I work at Starbucks. I judge pregnant mothers and decaffeinate their drinks, even though they ask for caffeinated."

I'm sorry, what??? Now, I've seen secrets like this pop up before. A few months ago, there was one about a civil servant who always marked down servicemembers as blood/tissue donors in case of death, whether they had said they wanted to or not, which a lot of people were angry about, myself included. There are a half-dozen secrets I can think of that involve someone in some kind of service-based position admitting to the ways in which they judge, help, or sneakily undermine customers, from a grocery store checker who "forgets" to scan every tenth item for people paying with food stamps or using WIC coupons, to a call center rep admitting zie puts angry customers on hold to let them cool down instead of dealing with them. As a retail shift manager who does, in fact, decide whether or not we'll take your return based on how argumentative or pissy you are with me about it, I can relate.

But this one about the decaf for pregnant women goes beyond that. It's not just "customer service employee is judging you", it's "a person feels that they are entitled to decide how a pregnant woman's body should be treated better than the pregnant woman in question." And it ties into a long, ugly history of the public feeling like pregnant women's bodies are fair game for denial of bodily sovereignty. It's a way of playing "good mother, bad mother" with a total stranger who is just trying to have a damn cup of coffee. It's a person saying, "Because you are pregnant, I am going to make decisions for you instead of letting you decide for yourself." It's sexist, it's fucked up, and I have the sneaking suspicion that the person whose secret this was fully expects to have public opinion on hir side. Because after all, the person whose decisions zie's overriding so cavalierly? It's only a pregnant woman.

Halloween, or Teaching Girls Their True Value To Society Day

As an adult, I've become painfully aware that Halloween is not "dress up as something cool" day anymore.  It's "dress up as a pornified version of something cool to titillate your male friends" day.  Sexy cop, nurse, pirate, those are standard.  This year, I've seen some incredibly fucking weird "sexy ___" costumes.  Sexy Nemo.  Sexy crayon.  I'm not even fucking kidding.  Sexy Big Bird.  Also not kidding, dear gods I wish I was (and does it look to you like a tiny Big Bird is eating her brain? Or is that just me?).  This lead to an afternoon of my Twiends and I tossing around random "sexy ___" suggestions.  We had "sexy fluorescent bulb" and "sexy coffee cup" and "sexy stapler". 
This morning, though, I saw a whole new twist on the usual "sexy ___" costume thing.  Here: 

A simple enough "sexy cop" costume, right?  (I'm not even going to start on the disrespect a costume like this shows for ACTUAL female police officers, who DO exist and do NOT dress like that.)  But.  It's on a child.  And the costume is a "child size medium 8-10".  It's carried on the fucking Toys R Us website.  The "recommended age" is 7-9.  Let that sink in for a moment.  Let the horror and rage percolate through your system for a minute or two.  Now consider:

They are recommending that you dress your 7-year-old daughter up in a "sexy cop" costume.  Oh, it's not called that.  On the Toys R Us website, it's just billed as "Cop Halloween Costume".  Which almost makes it worse.  The adult version at least acknowledges, hey, this is a perversion of something that actually exists, it's only make-believe, this is a "special" version.  You're dressing up as a "sexy cop" not a "cop".  But this is presented as just a "cop costume".  As if this is how female cops dress.  As if this is normal, not something special.  You want to be a police officer when you grow up, honey?  That's wonderful!  Let's dress you in this minidress and heels, because that's how you pretend to be a cop!  (Also, who the hell dresses a 7-yr-old girl in 3-inch heels like those?  Aside from pageant moms.  That's got to be detrimental to her physical development.) 

Maybe I'm just old, and I've reached the point of mourning for Teh Childrenz already at the ripe old age of 25.  But I do NOT remember it being this bad when I was a kid.  When I went as Princess Leia for Halloween one year, it was in the long white dress from Empire Strikes Back, not the gold bikini from Return of the Jedi.  If it's just that my parents were exceptionally good at sheltering me, then Mom, thank you.  But I am absolutely sickened to see evidence that at a mere 7 years old, we're supposed to be teaching her that while the boys her age can dress up as police officers, her only option is "sexy cop". 

Dove's "Real Beauty" Campaign - Not TOO Real, Please

For those who aren't aware of Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty, it's a marketing effort by Dove, a bath&body brand owned by Unilever (which also owns the Axe brand of male scent products, with its stultifyingly misogynyst advertising; make of that what you will) to combat the effects of an increasingly-narrow airbrushed "perfection" standard of beauty, and particularly the effect that has on girls and young women.  They have workshops on self-esteem for girls, and their ads feature a *relative* variety of skin tones and body types.  Mind you, I've never seen an actually *fat* woman in a Dove RB ad, and it's still primarily young women, about 2/3 of them white.  But baby steps, right?  Women a little thick around the hips with thighs bigger than sticks and a greater than 1:10 ratio of WoC to white women is a start, right?  I would be terribly cynical and demanding to see even such meager signs of progress and get cranky and start pushing for *real* change, right?

If you're inclined to support the Dove RBC, and tell me to hush and not interfere with their worthy work, just read this casting call and then tell me that again.

DOVE “REAL WOMEN” PRINT CASTING JUNE 28-30, 2010 in NYC
ABSOLUTELY NO ACTRESSES / MODELS OR REALITY SHOW PARTICIPANTS or ANY ONE CARRYING A HEADSHOT!!!!
REAL WOMEN ONLY!
LOOKING FOR 3-4 REAL WOMEN for a DOVE PRINT CAMPAIGN!

AGES 35-45, CAUCASIAN, HISPANIC, AFRICAN AMERICAN, & ASIAN!
SHOOT: SUNDAY, JULY 18 in NYC! MUST BE AVAILABLE FOR THE SHOOT!
RATE: $500 for Shoot date & if selected for Ad Campaign (running 2011) you will be paid $4000!
USAGE: 3 years unlimited print & web usage in N. America Only
YOU WILL BE PHOTOGRAPHED FOR THE CAMPAIGN IN A TOWEL!
BEAUTIFUL ARMS AND LEGS AND FACE WILL BE SHOWN!
MUST HAVE FLAWLESS SKIN, NO TATTOOS OR SCARS!
Well groomed and clean...Nice Bodies..NATURALLY, FIT Not too Curvy Not too Athletic.
Great Sparkling Personalities. Beautiful Smiles! A DOVE GIRL!!!
STYLISH AND COOL!
Beautiful HAIR & SKIN is a MUST!!!
PLEASE SUBMIT SNAPSHOTS of FACE & BODY ASAP & WE WILL CALL YOU IN FOR A CASTING NEXT WEEK 6/28-6/30 in NYC!

Wow.  So, uh...first of all, to whoever typed this, there's this button on the far left of your keyboard, right next to your left pinky finger.  It's labled "Caps Lock".  Please to press it, make sure the little blue light on your keyboard goes OUT, and then type this out again.  >.<


But on to the substantive criticisms, of which there are oh so very many...

• ABSOLUTELY NO ACTRESSES / MODELS OR REALITY SHOW PARTICIPANTS or ANY ONE CARRYING A HEADSHOT!!!!
  REAL WOMEN ONLY!

Can I just say how very sick I am of the "real woman" thing?  All women are real women, period.  Being an actress or model or participating in a reality show does not strip a woman of her womanhood.  Actresses, models, and reality show participants, are still "real women".  I mean, what are they implying here?  That one turns in one's "woman card" when one begins a career in the aforementioned areas?  What is a female model or an actress then?  A nonwoman?  An unwoman?  A fake woman?  Plus the history of the term "real woman/man" as a slur against trans people.  Please, just stop using the term "real woman" entirely.  (Oh, and "anyone" is one word.  Not "any one".  Grarr.)

• MUST HAVE FLAWLESS SKIN, NO TATTOOS OR SCARS!

Apparently real-women™ have flawless skin, and tattoos and scars are flaws that unacceptably mar one's flawless real-woman™ skin.  Speaking as someone who is woman, real or otherwise by these standards, and who also has one tattoo (more to come someday when I have money and an artist to work with) and numerous scars from a variety of sources, fuck you very much.  I LIKE my scars.  I like the character of them.  I like the slashing one across my right calf, which really came from a slip of the razor in the shower, but which I like to think looks like the kind of scar that could come from a rock-climbing accident or some other kind of cool badassery.  I like the knobbly scar across the base of my middle finger's knuckle on my right hand, courtesy of a moment of lost temper when I was 16 and punched a tree really really hard after a fight with my then-boyfriend.  My scars tell where I've been and what I've survived.  Frankly, I think it's a lot less realistic to expect a grown woman to have gotten through life WITHOUT scars.  (This is not to say women who have no scars are any less real; just a lot rarer)  And that's not even getting into the tattoo question.  I'll just quote the sign at the shop where I got mine done: "The only difference between people with tattoos and people without tattoos...is that we don't care that you don't have any."

• Nice Bodies..NATURALLY, FIT Not too Curvy Not too Athletic.

Ahhh, I see.  So when Dove says the RBC is attempting to "[widen] stereotypical views of beauty" (from their about page), they forgot to add "...but not too far."   Don't kid yourselves; they're still looking for a certain beauty standard here, one nearly as narrow as the one we've already got. 

• Beautiful HAIR & SKIN is a MUST!!!

Because if you don't have "beautiful hair" - and how are they defining that, btw?  Particularly for black women, "beautiful" hair is a concept fraught with problems.  Do they mean straightened hair or natural hair?  Would an afro count as beautiful hair?  Dreads? - you're not a real-woman™ either. 

I guess Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty is just more of what we've already got.  Be "real", but not too real.  Curvy, but not too curvy.  Naturally fit, so your figure better not be the result of dieting or working out.  Of course, you still need to be fit, but not too athletic.  Your hair needs to fit our definition of "beautiful" and life had better never have marked you and left you with scars.  Flawless skin only.  This shit is, at best, slightly less worse than the current level of restrictiveness in our beauty standard.  It's certainly not the beacon of transgressive self-acceptance Dove likes to pretend it is.  I was a little wary about this already, given that Dove purchases fund Unilever, which also spends its money on Axe's egregiously horrible sexism-fests...but after seeing this casting call, I can safely say I'm *really* not a supporter of the Campaign for Real Beauty, or of Dove as a brand. 

It's a great theory...just a really, really shitty execution.

Rated "W", for WTF?

I present this review/rant in honor of St. Patrick's Day.  If you are a fan of the second Boondock Saints movie, TURN BACK NOW.  This is your last warning.

I want to start by saying, I really liked the original Boondock Saints movie.  I only watched it for the first time this past year, and that because my ex made me - it's his favorite movie and he wanted to share.  But I really, really enjoyed it.  Enough that I introduced Ozzmodious to it this past month or so, and he loved it too.  So when we found a copy of Boondock Saints II: All Saint's Day on Blu-Ray at Target over the weekend, we had to get it RIGHTNOWOMG.  So I'm not someone who's hated both of them, or who hates gun-porn movies, or whatever, just looking for excuses to tear this movie down.  I went into this with high hopes, I really did.


I. Want. Those. Two. Hours. Of. My. Life. BACK.  Now, please.  Someone give me a time machine so I can go back in time to yesterday afternoon and spend my evening doing something more productive.  Like reading MRA blogs.  Or watching YouTube of Palin rallies.  You know.  Something that would enrich my life more and piss me off less than this movie did.


The entire thing might as well be replaced by scenes of men screaming at the top of their lungs, "OUR PENISES ARE ENORMOUS AND ENGORGED AND ALSO WE HAVE BALLLLLLZ THE SIZE OF CANTELOUPES, DO YOU NOT SEE HOW MANLY WE ARE YET?  DO YOU NOT?  WE ARE MEN, DAMMIT!  MEN MEN MEN MEN MEN!" interspersed with scenes of random gunfights in slow motion, and the occasional shot of a stripper doing the "sexy businesswoman" look in towering stilettos while making sexyface and/or grinning seductively at the camera while her hair blows around her in slow motion a la Victoria's Secret commercials.  Seriously.  I have just described the movie, so if you haven't seen it, you can now spare yourselves the trouble and headache.  Toss a buck in the tip jar on your way out.  ;-)


For example.  When the ONLY female character in the entire fucking movie is introduced, it's with a getting-out-of-car stilettos-and-stockings slow-motion strut to sexy music, which lasts for an egregiously and unnecessarily long 30 seconds before you even get to see that hey, she is not just a pair of perfectly-stockinged legs with black stripper heels on, walking around without a body!  The first crime scene she does, she puts one of the (male) detectives on his knees in front of her, after taking down her hair and shaking it out all sexy-girl-like for no discernable reason, to "illustrate" a point.  There are several his-face-her-crotch shots to make sure we get, HEY HE'S ON HIS KNEES IN FRONT OF SEXAY-LADY!!  Her cleavage and legs are emphasized at EVERY. POSSIBLE. MOMENT.  She is absolutely the Token Badass Sexy Lady.  Yes, she is quite competent.  But that takes a backseat to her being sexy.  UGH.


But I think the worst part, the most ridiculous 3 or 4 minutes of film I have ever witnessed IN MY ENTIRE LIFE THUS FAR, was the Anxious Masculinity Montage, about 3/4 of the way through.  In it, the two brothers are in a dream sequence with their dead friend Rocco, from the first movie.  And they go on a rant about "real men" that is just...fucking.......there are no words.  Seriously.  Words fail me to describe that monstrosity.  Just read it for yourself.  

Connor MacManus, Murphy MacManus: Sláinte
Murphy MacManus: You know, he was sort of a badass though, wasn't he?
Connor MacManus: Shades of Eastwood. Charlie Bronson.
Rocco: Duke Fucking Wayne!
Connor MacManus, Murphy MacManus: Duke Fucking WAYNE!
Rocco: Men build things, then we die. It's in our fucking DNA! THAT'S WHAT WE DO!
Murphy MacManus: And when it all falls down?
Rocco: We build it right back up again.
Connor MacManus: But this time bigger. BETTER!
Rocco: Look! Look what we can do. Look how fuckin' beautiful we are. You think the men that built all this had it easy?
Murphy MacManus: Hard men!
Connor MacManus: Doing hard shit!
Rocco: and that gives me a hard on... But not in a gay way or anything like that.
Murphy MacManus: No, 'course not
Connor MacManus: Yeah it goes without sayin'
Rocco: I am so sick of all of this self help, twelve step, leftover hippie generation bullshit!
Connor MacManus: Now they don't want you to do anything, right? Just sit there. Don't drink.
Murphy MacManus: Don't smoke. Don't drive fast.
Connor MacManus, Murphy MacManus, Rocco: Kiss my ass!
Rocco: Fuck it! Do it all I say! Do you think Duke Wayne spent all of his time talking about his feelings with a fuckin' therapist?
Connor MacManus: There's no fucking way he did!
Rocco: John Wayne died with five pounds of undigested red meat in his ass. Now that's a man! Real men hide their feelings. Why?
Connor MacManus, Murphy MacManus, Rocco: Because it's none of your fuckin' business!
Rocco: Men do not cry. Men do not pout. Men jack you in the fuckin' jaw and say...
Detective Greenly: Thanks for comin' out.

And then they wake up and go kill more people.   That chunk right there advanced the plot not a bit, contributed nothing to the pacing, seriously had NO purpose whatsoever except to make sure, in case you hadn't absorbed it well enough yet, that every single viewer understood that THIS IS A MEN'S MOVIE.  And that by MEN they mean ONLY ADHERENTS TO TRADITIONAL VIOLENT-TOWER-OF-STOICISM MASCULINITY NEED APPLY. 

If you wanted to be able to name a movie that perfectly encapsulated the Cult of Anxious Masculinity and the anti-feminist backlash, and Judd Apatow's body of work wasn't doing enough for you, this should be at the top of your list.  I doubt we'll ever watch it again.