John Russell Houser, who gunned down 11 moviegoers at a showing of Trainwreck in Lafayette, Louisiana Thursday night, killing two young women, was a volatile, violent, woman-hating, anti-Semitic, far-right loser given to dark and bitter diatribes against what he saw as cultural “immorality.”
It’s a safe bet that if Houser had stayed for the entire showing of Trainwreck, instead of pulling out his gun, he would not have enjoyed the film, a comedy about a young woman living an unapologetically “promiscuous” life in New York city, written by and starring Amy Schumer, a feminist comedian famous (or infamous, depending on whom you’re talking to) for her frankly sexual humor.
A more important question: Did Houser deliberately target viewers of Trainwreck as a sick protest against its “permissive” politics? And if so, was he inspired by attacks on the film from right-wing media and misogynists online?
Trainwreck has been a lightning rod for right-wing “moralists” since the first trailer for the film came out five months ago. A glance through the comments to the trailer on YouTube reveals months of sniping at the film by an assortment of angry misogynists decrying Trainwreck as “propaganda” and a celebration of “whores.”
“This is unbelievably degenerate,” one would-be cultural critic on YouTube wrote shortly after the trailer came out. “No respectable man would even touch an overweight whore.”
“Movies like this are the reason people can’t have normal, old fashioned relationships anymore,” another YouTuber complained. “Thank you Hollywood for yet another huge, stinking, steaming pile of crap contribution to society whose sole purpose is to teach women to act like men, be sluts and take relationships for granted.”
Still another attacked the film as subtle “propaganda” encouraging women to “behave like sluts” — even though Schumer’s character repents and gives up her “slutty” ways at the end. As this non-fan of Schumer saw it, the fact that the film has a happy ending
encourages the viewer to partake in her abominable behavior, because the message is that such behavior has no consequences: everything will go your way in the end. This gives young women a license to party, do drugs and whore around in their 20s, because they believe they can count on a Prince Charming to rescue them when the time is right.
The apotheosis of this kind of, er, criticism comes not from some irate, anonymous YouTube commenter but from Armond White, movie reviewer for the paleoconservative National Review, who, in a review last week, blasted Schumer for turning “female sexual prerogative into shamelessness” and promoting “the degradation of sex.”
And he was just getting started:
Trainwreck should be a wake-up call for anyone — especially for any conservative — who thinks pop culture is guileless, harmless fun. …
Not really a sex comedy, Trainwreck is a comedy that uses sex to promote feminist permissiveness.
Like the angry YouTube commenters he almost seems to be cribbing his critique from, White is especially offended that Amy — it’s not clear if he’s talking about Schumer or the character she named after herself, or both — can be so unapologetically sexual without suffering “social stigma.”
As White sees it, Schumer is “a comedy demagogue who okays modern misbehavior.” Apparently confusing Trainwreck with the Chinese Cultural Revolution and Schumer with Madame Mao, White concludes that
Schumer doesn’t simply use humor for social readjustment; like all Comedy Central performers from Jon Stewart on down, she aims to acquire cultural power. … As the latest model of Comedy Central’s stealth comediennes (following Janeane Garofalo and Sarah Silverman), Schumer disguises a noxious cultural agenda as personal fiat.
Now, we don’t know if Houser was directly inspired by White’s antifeminist-diatribe-cum-movie-review; we don’t know if he even read it.
What we do know is that over-the-top attacks on feminism and feminists like his have helped to contribute to a widespread backlash, online and off, against outspoken women, a backlash that has both encouraged and excused attacks on, and outright harassment of, individual women who have challenged male cultural authority — from women daring to offer opinions about video games that offend misogynistic gamers to comedians like Schumer who challenge old-fashioned slut-shaming by joking unapologetically about female “promiscuity.”
No, movie reviews don’t cause terrorism, not by themselves, anyway. But John Russell Houser was a veritable rage bomb that had long been ready to explode, and “cultural critics” like White and his ideological fellow travellers online may well have inspired his choice of targets when he finally did.
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If women aren’t supposed to have sex with so many men and supposed to wait until she’s married then how do men get sex? They can’t have sex with each other because to them that’s a taboo so is society telling men to literally go f*** themselves?
“to teach women to act like men, be sluts and take relationships for granted.”
I’ve always thought that misognists (men in general from my perspective) were the best misandrists.
@dhag85 Yep. I believe the loop around goes something like:
You’re a slut.
What’s wrong with that?
You have promiscuous sex.
What’s wrong with that?
Society disapproves that.
Why?
Because it makes you a slut.
What’s wrong with that?
You have promiscuous sex.
What’s wrong with that?
Society disapproves that.
Why?
Because it makes you a slut.
And so on. -_-
I… go back to lurking because I can”t even and I already noped in the other thread.
The entire notion that women that bang alot of men are “sluts” while men that bang alot of women are, well, not is just ridicules completely illogical. Somewhat hypocritical to.
I think the main point is that women, in their minds, should be the gatekeepers of a vague concept of sexual “honor”. it goes like this. Men are the rascals of the world, women are the ones who keep the world in order (from a sexual point of view). If we don’t keep the gate, either men need to take some responsibility for the sexual order of the world, which is really a bummer, because they like running around trying to fuck everything in sight, or the whole world will collapse. Except, it doesn’t, because “the sexual order of the world” means nothing, in real life, but I’ve never seen a bigot pay any attention to facts.
This view of the world extends outside of sexual morality. Women are supposed to be the voice of common sense, while men are the lovable fuck-ups. Think Bart and Lisa Simpson, or Marge and Homer, for that matter. Every single sit-com and 95% of comedy movies are based on this trope. I positively hate it, I can’t even watch the Simpsons anymore.
Yup, that’s about what I figured. BTW, the question was largely rhetorical, and aimed at any lurking trolls of that persuasion, in an effort to make them think, and to help them see how stupid they sound when they talk like that. A hopelessly lost cause, I know. Against ignorance, even the Gods do battle in vain…
Oh gawd, it’s a good thing I’ve already finished my lunchtime beer, because that bit would have left me with a shorted-out keyboard. What a hilariously idiotic person this dude was. If this dude really wanted to PROTECT women, then how about getting rid of toxic masculinity, sexism and rape culture — all of which hang together like meshes in the same piece of chainmail? Because I’ve seen what sexism and double standards do, and they don’t protect worth a shit.
The whole virgin/whore dichotomy has got to go. Being locked up in a chastity belt is no fun, and being raped by all comers is a fucking NIGHTMARE. The only antidote to all that toxic crapola is a society where women are fully free to choose what they want to do and with whom, and where men cheerfully respect that right and regard it as self-explanatory. And where sex is not a game of upmanship (notice the “man” in the middle of that?) but a collaborative venture where enthusiastic consent is the only thing that isn’t negotiable.
BINGO!
This is something that’s been bugging me for the longest damn time. Why the hell can’t all these manly-manly men man the fuck up and take responsibility for their own damn wangs? It’s just a rather small piece of flesh — how difficult could it be? Why is it every woman and girl’s job to act as the guardian of some dude’s morals? Why can’t he just, you know, GUARD THOSE STUPID MORALS HIMSELF IF THEY’RE SO DAMN IMPORTANT TO HIM? Could it be…because those morals are garbage, they’re contradictory, they’re meaningless, there is no sound basis for them in science OR philosophy? They’re just something guys cooked up to maintain control of people they have no business to be controlling?
See, that right there is contradictory. If men control women, then how can women be the gatekeepers of male morality? Logic: They no haz any.
@sn0rkmaiden
I’m more disgusted by the photographer that helped themselves to an intimate moment than anything else. The worst the people in the threesome could be accused of is poor judgement (i.e. doing it in the street). The photographer was an entitled, malicious sleezebag. Surely there are laws against filming sex acts without consent?
And they’re going after the woman. Of course they are. Ugh, it is too early to start drinking where I am.
But, but, how can men be expected to build skyscrapers, mine coal and hunt dinosaurs if there isn’t the guarantee of a blowjob from a chaste virgin who has will never put out for anyone but will be 24/7 available to her allotted husband? Ask any MGTOW, they’ll explain it better than I can.
@Quiet Wolf, it illegal to distribute this kind of thing under Canadian law. I read that the police are trying to trace the person who filmed them. Though they can’t be trying too hard, it must be possible to trace whoever posted the clip online.
*it is
I really must proof read before posting.
My type-o was in my unironic comment beneath. 🙂
It about ethics in mammoth hunting.
#biggameergate
This White-guy (no pun intended) sounds like one of those Victorian moralist control freaks who thought bikes, phones and post offices would turn women into whores. Things haven’t changed that much have they?
Wow, I remember cultural conservatives railing about “permissiveness” back in the seventies, but I didn’t realize they still used that word. I thought “permissiveness” as a concept fell out of fashion once people started to realize that neither men nor women actually needed “permission” to make their own decisions about sexual behavior. Clearly, I am way too naive.
I do know quite a few of these black-shirted, fedora doffing hypocritical schmucks and I’ve often got into arguments to try to counter their mindsets, but I never win, they stay the same.
These fellas need to stop griping about other people’s degeneracy and fix their own first, because its a pretty degenerate attitude to want to kill/hurt/harm/abuse/bully people because they do stuff they don’t like.
I like that the woman involved in the illegally obtained/distributed video is fighting back, good for her. I hope she gets more support than criticism and doesn’t become a further target. I’d honestly be a little afraid for my life if I were her, putting herself out there and laughing at the haters has to be pissing off more than a few misogynists.
How about we have a similar argument for those womanizer characters someone mentioned earlier?
“[…] encourages the viewer to partake in his abominable behavior, because the message is that such behavior has no consequences: everything will go your way in the end. This gives young men a license to party, do drugs, and fuck around in their 20s, because they believe they can count on a supermodel-looking, caring, patient, virgin female character who puts up with all of their bullshit to redeem them when the time is right.”
That can swing both ways, but I’m sure people would sneer and shriek that I’m a misandrist for saying so, because men don’t want any of the “responsibility”, but they sure as fuck like pushing it on every woman they know exists.
One, who the fuck said that women need to be “pro-family”? Why does this not apply to men?
But when men are “pro-family”, they’re applauded for it and told what good people they are for doing something women are supposed to do automagically. Just like being a stay-at-home dad, doing the housework, or liking to cook every once in a while. Men are applauded for doing things that women are literally expected to do and/or are given actual grief over.
Two, who the fuck died and made you Arbiter of Lady-Like Behavior?
I’m a lady, so I get to decide what that means for myself. I will do what I please and I will still be a lady, because your so-called “biology” (which we all know is just evo-psych trying (badly) to cover its junk with a biology textbook) is full of shit, and you can fuck off with that nonsense.
One of the victims of the shooting was in a country band called the Figs.
They’re actually really, really good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0jnYCogohA
RIP Jillian Johnson.
@sn0rkmaiden I followed the women in the Canada video thing a little. My first reaction regarding trolls was. Urrgh what the fuck has it got to do with them. Second reaction was. If it was consenting between the three people involved in the video and everyone had a good time then good on them.
On a side note and OT bulimia.com have published artist representations of real world body types for the female characters. Another furore is gonna kick off
http://www.bulimia.com/examine/video-games-realistic-body-types/
I only play Spore and Minecraft with my sprogs, so I never get to see any of this stuff
A recent study about casual sex shows that were it not for these three variables women would be just as willing as men to have it:
1)Women deal with more physical consequences. We are the ones who must deal with a pregnancy; hormonal birth control can be dangerous or unpleasant for some women; we are more likely to contract STDs without condoms (as the semen hangs around inside us). Pregnancy, even in the modern world (a world which most of the world is not in), is no joke. Abortion, even in the modern world, is not easy to access, and never fun.
2)Women have to worry about potential rape (if they back out at any point during the sexual fun–say, decide the guy is too pushy or isn’t the greatest kisser, or simply that they don’t want to have sex with him despite having gone to his house for dinner), and even worse about potential murder (’cause yes, there are psychos, and they tend to be men)…the irony of all this of course is that no amount of dates can ever completely rule these threats out (as half of murdered women are killed by their partners). Nevertheless, it helps to get know someone first.
3)Women are far less likely to have an orgasm from casual sex. Most men even admit, in studies, to not bothering with casual partners. The same men will make an effort with girlfriends because they want them to stick around (nevertheless, women are most likely to come close to achieving orgasm parity with men–no pun intended–in lesbian relationships: 75 percent a sexual encounter to men’s 85 percent; only about half the time in heterosexual relationships). Of course, orgasm isn’t everything, but it shows how intercourse-focused (and therefore male-focused) the heterosexual idea of “sex” is. Sleeping with a guy who comes in two seconds and does nothing for you–or otherwise treats your body like an object instead of treating you like a partner–is no fun. And sometimes that guy seems great right up until then. (And insisting any potential partner sees sex on your terms–which might be not intercourse-focused–will open you up at the very least to a world of whining, if not fighting and struggling. You might as well look for a relationship).
I would like to add to this a fourth: stigma. “Slut” stigma. Like the stigma we see against the subject of this movie in 2015! (Why can’t you capitalize numbers?! 2015!).
Seriously–I do not understand. Men want women to have more sex (on their losing terms), but wait, nooo, those women are sluts (whom they would never marry)…
In my experience, the whole idea of the “cock carousel” followed by the “beta male” is young women encouraged by society to “embrace their sexuality” by having soulless, unsatisfying sex–by being used–and who wake up to what a lie it is after a while. How much do you want to bet rape culture plays into this (with what we know about campus hook-up culture?). Promiscuity following violation is little-talked about because of issues like shame.
It makes sense for women to value relationships more in a culture of protection rackets (literally the choice between dozens of unpleasant encounters that might have a few fun memories thrown in, or a long-term partner that yes, requires you to change your life for him–not so much in terms of sex with other people as your plans in life–but who treats you well, in bed and out). It’s not so much biology-based as people would like to think–that women want the “provider” because they’re stuck with the kid for a while, as opposed to men–and so look for well-off men who will stick around, because we can imagine many different communal societal models (not nuclear-family based) which would render this unnecessary. Scientists have said for a while it’s quite likely women were the more promiscuous in the past, to up their chances of conception (and this would make sense of why women’s orgasms take longer–still horny? Sleep with another man!–and men’s penises have larger tips: to scoop out other men’s sperm). That may be wrong too, but it is evidence enough that this whole “women don’t care about looks, seek well-off, older mates to take care of offspring” as opposed to “love to sleep with young fit men” is just the enablers of the protection racket talking (of course women, barred from true financial freedom, will seek mates who will stick around and take care of them and their offspring!).
Having said all this–and despite how much I am against the modern “sexual revolution” which has in no way helped women–it sounds like this movie is just an updated “Taming of the Shrew.” But I’ll see it before I reach that conclusion definitively.
And for any anti-abortion lurkers…you know condoms tear and fall off, right? And some women can’t use birth control (and should not have to be required to be the only ones to compromise their bodies in order to have sex–in fact, as we have to compromise our bodies for the consequences of sex–pregnancy–shouldn’t men take this one for the team? What is going on with male birth control?!). Any man who is anti-choice should take a “sex is only for procreation stance,” and ensure his partner is willing to bear his child, covered up or not (that is the risk she is taking, every time), and every woman who is anti-choice should take the same stance and be fully aware of the possible consequences each time she has sex. But obviously this is more for anti-choice men than women, as they don’t suffer the consequences: don’t have sex with a woman unless you are absolutely certain she is willing to bear your child in the near future, otherwise you are an insufferable hypocrite.
I’ve become even more freaked out about the possibility of pregnancy as I get older (which ruins any pleasure in casual sex–where I would have an abortion, which I never want to do again–and relationship sex alike, where I would keep the child, despite not being ready). I guess I was just (even more of) a doofus when I was younger. Like so many of us.
If ‘teaching women to act like men’ is such a horrible thing, why is it okay to teach men to ‘act like men’?
Having said ALL of that–I know, I type too fast and say too much (but, as a most-of-the-time lurker, I hope I am not spamming)–I want to amend two things:
1)I mean that the possibility of other social models casts a shadow of doubt over our current evo-psych ideas of heterosexual relationships and calls into question the scientific objectivity of evo-psych studies that confirm existing notions (but doesn’t necessarily prove anything in and of itself; only that we have no definitive scientific answers) and
2)I believe in love.
And number two is the real reason I think men have been shafted by patriarchal notions of masculinity and that hook-up culture is soulless. Because although some flings and one-night stands can be affectionate and wonderful–there’s no reason they shouldn’t be–that is far from the norm. Men often seem to treat casual partners like they might treat prostitutes (as objects in a one-way encounter at best, as objects of abuse at worst); women trying to do the same find that they can’t force men to give them orgasms unless they deny sexual intercourse before they get them (which would never work). Soulless casual sex–in which pleasure is the goal–is a lose-lose situation for women. And most women don’t want that anyway; for most of them sex is still tied up with feelings, so good sex=good feelings (that can turn to sadness if it’s just a one-night thing, for no good reason; even more so in that weirdest of relationships, “the friends with benefits” relationship; good sex and good companionship should equal good feelings, and keeping someone at arm’s lengths for bogus ideological reasons is just wrong, and cognitive dissonance-producing, and in my experience, never works); similarly, bad sex=icky feelings (otherwise known as “the majority of casual sex” for women).
Sex IS something special. Who we choose to sleep with is a part of our identity. There’s a reason there’s a difference between a friend and a lover, even if both are otherwise equally close. Every sexual relationship doesn’t have to be about true love, but ideally it would involve at least some affection, and mutual respect (both eminently possible in a casual sexual relationship, including a one-night stand). For some reason (confused social mores under patriarchy?) casual sex involves far too often abuse and disrespect of self and other.
That’s the main reason I’m against promiscuity. I think in the end it’s damaging. And this is coming from someone who knows.
If I’d been more selective in my choices of partners maybe I could have had a more rewarding promiscuous sexual life; but then, I wouldn’t have been all that promiscuous.