Elliot Rodger killed six people near the University of California, Santa Barbara on Friday night. Ann Hornaday, Washington Post film critic, suggested “outsized frat-boy fantasies” like the ones Rogen and Aptow make are “toxic.”
Actor Seth Rogen and director Judd Apatow have hit back at the Washington Post’s film critic after she suggested their movies may have played a part in motivating Elliot Rodger’s mass killing in California.
In an opinion column, “In a final videotaped message, a sad reflection of the sexist stories we so often see on screen”, Ann Hornaday referenced the pair’s work, including Rogen’s new film Neighbors.
Olivier Douliery/Abaca Press / MCT
Rodgers killed six people and injured 13 more in Isla Vista at the weekend after emailing a manifesto detailing his plan to commit mass murder.
He also created a series of videos saying he had been driven to violence after being rejected by women.
AP Photo/YouTube
For generations, mass entertainment has been overwhelmingly controlled by white men, whose escapist fantasies so often revolve around vigilantism and sexual wish-fulfillment (often, if not always, featuring a steady through-line of casual misogyny).
Rodger's rampage may be a function of his own profound distress, but it also shows how a sexist movie monoculture can be toxic for women and men alike.
How many students watch outsized frat-boy fantasies like Neighbors and feel, as Rodger did, unjustly shut out of college life that should be full of 'sex and fun and pleasure'?
How many men, raised on a steady diet of Judd Apatow comedies in which the shlubby arrested adolescent always gets the girl, find that those happy endings constantly elude them and conclude, 'It's not fair'?
If our cinematic grammar is one of violence, sexual conquest and macho swagger — thanks to male studio executives who green-light projects according to their own pathetic predilections — no one should be surprised when those impulses take luridly literal form in the culture at large.
from BuzzFeed - Breaking http://ift.tt/1weOK31
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