I am not Catholic, but since we are in the middle of Lent, I thought I'd revisit my disgust with the film 40 Days and 40 Nights.
For the unfamiliar, 40 Days And 40 Nights is early-21st-century a (romantic?) comedy starring 2000s heartthrob, Josh Hartnett, and one-time “it girl” Shannyn Sossamon.
Hartnett plays a typical hetero horny dude, named Matt Sullivan, who decides to give up sexual stimulation for Lent, the 40-day period of abstention observed by members of the Catholic faith.
That premise alone is odd, yet I suppose if done right, the movie could have posed some interesting questions about sexuality, chastity and morality. Instead the whole film is basically a running joke on how to get a guy to whack off.
If you haven't seem the film, this next part is a major spoiler.
As Matt slugs along through the sex-free days, it seems like he might actually complete his mission. This is much to the chagrin of his “pals” who bet he couldn't last that long without his dick handled.
Problematic as betting on a friend's sexual activities may be, the real issue with the film comes at the very end, when Matt is raped, yes raped.
Convinced he is no longer able to ignore his urges, Matt asks to be tied to his bed. Unable to move, he hopes he can make it through the final night of Lent.
In a sweaty, sex-dream filled daze, Matt awakes to find his ex, Nicole, in his bed. In reviewing the plot, it says she “masturbated him,” but in my memory she 100 per cent climbs on top of his erection. (I don't feel much like re-watching the movie, so I'll let it be.) Whatever form of sexual stimulation Nicole performed, Matt did not consent.
It was rape.
It doesn't matter that he was aroused.
It doesn't matter that he didn't “do more” to stop her.
He was violated.
Go back and read those sentences and replace the he with a she. Ask yourself if that scene would have been anything other than rape if a young woman was tied to a bed and “visited” by an ex.
It would never happen.
We can accept and laugh at young man caught in a precarious situation, because we can't imagine a scenario where they wouldn't want sex.
Of course, the “she wanted it” excuse is often used to justify sexually assaulting women, yet I'm unaware of it being used for comedic effect in a major motion picture.
Back to the movie, Matt's dream girl, Erica (Sossamon) catches him in the act and is all mad because she thought he was something more than your average sex-driven dude.
Soon after, she realizes he was a “good guy” all along.
Re-visiting 40 Days had me thinking about other films where sexually assaulting men is used as a plot device or worse, comic relief. Of course we know men and boys are abused, and this is reflected on screen. More often than not, it is male-on-male perpetuated violence and the gravity of the scenes are apparent. When it is a man violating another man (or a boy) in the story, we know it is rape.
Yet, in a film like 40 Days and 40 Nights, we are cool with sexual assault as the climax (no pun intended) because we don’t think of women as capable of that behavior.
It is this odd sort of misogyny that forbids women from being in a position of power that excuses woman-on-man sexual abuse as comic fodder. Take, for example, Horrible Bosses, an otherwise funny film that includes a running joke about the insatiable sexual appetite of dentist Julia (Jennifer Aniston). Sex-crazed Julia is obsessed with her employee Dale (Charlie Day) and spends a good portion of the film trying to manipulate him into having sex. She considers fucking him as her white whale and even tries to screw him on top of a patient.
As cringe as that all may be (spoiler) it is kinda funny and excusable. Dale at least can rebuff her advances.
That is until the end of the movie when he is in a coma and Julia confesses that he had lots of “coma” boners
Yes, we can conclude that she sexually assaulted Dale while he was unconscious.
You know there was another film involving the raping of a comatose person. It was Kill Bill, and nobody was laughing at that situation.
In another film, Sorority Boys, two frat boys (one pretending to be a sorority girl) roofie one another's drinks (classic mix up!) Both pass out and when the frat guy comes to, it is implied that he had his way with the “sorority girl” who was in fact a brother from his fraternity.
Again, if this was an actual sorority girl in that scene, we wouldn't be laughing.
And yet, we do have the rape of a sorority girl in a comedic film, Revenge of the Nerds.
What do these two Greek-life assaults have in common? They both involve dorky guys who represent the sort of “beta” male we think incapable of having any real power or prowess.
In Sorority Boys, it is the younger frat brother with no skills at meeting women, who “gets” his “big brother” (again, believing this was a woman), a much larger man, adding to the “comic” effect.
In Revenge of the Nerds, a college man pretends to be someone else in order to get his crush to sleep with him. The way the film plays out, we as the viewer are meant to root for this “underdog.” After all, he is just a harmless “nerd.”
I know plenty of people (men) will say I need to “lighten up,” and not take these movies too seriously. If I am honest, I do laugh when watching these movies; I just fail to find the humor in rape.
As I wrote about before, humanity seems to have a system for categorizing sexual violence with some deemed excusable, even hilarious, and others so horrific, the mere accusation of such behavior could ruin a career.
I can’t speak to the nature of other country’s, but here in the United States, our Puritan-influenced sexual hypocrisy is alive and well.