Are audiences so sensitive and offended by movie content now

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^All of which proves my point: Hollywood has no new stories to tell.  Which is also why anyone who has seen as many movies as I have will often correctly guess the ending of a movie -- including who lives, who dies, and who "gets the girl" -- within just a few minutes after the opening credits have rolled.

Being able to guess common movie tropes and story or character structure is only really important under specific assumptions of what makes a good story or worthwhile entertainment.

You can go into watching a movie like Cabin in the Woods expecting you already can guess what is going to happen and who will be left, just to watch a movie that knows that you already know all of that and says that being able to do so is hardly something new or impressive. But it really can be the journey that makes something new and interesting, and chances are that you probably are not even looking for the weird and strange things that are out there.

Whether you want to read into the movie itself as a criticism of a somewhat stalling genre, that itself can prove that different things can be made. Good storytelling is not even about totally blindsiding you with something odd and unexpected, especially in mysteries where you want there to be good foreshadowing where it all makes sense in the end.

But I also think that this subject is misdirected because there are plenty of new and interesting things, but people just mistake these new and interesting things as just gimmicks, political theatre, and or subversion for its own sake. You can read critical reviews of the first Star Wars movies and see the exact kind of comments made about the later ones. It is laughable how awful critics can be at judging what will be memorable and considered groundbreaking in the future, both as what earns big awards at the time as what stands the test of time, and what will be considered culturally significant.

Hardly call myself professional, but I would consider myself a critic of the anime medium, and am well aware of responses about things like there never being anything new. Like the repeated instances of plot points about going to another world as being copied so much that it created something called the isekai genre and get treated as the death of creativity, before new and interesting things do come out of it. Sure I know that there is a lot of derivative garbage out there, but my response to those complaining that creativity is dead, you are either not looking hard enough or are too jaded.

If you think creativity is dead now, tell me when you think that it was not.

FYI: "Cabin In The Woods" was filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia -- not exactly Hollywood -- thus lending some support to my claim that Hollywood has no new stories to tell, especially since it was a mash-up between zombie and slasher flicks, with a heavy dose of Lost thrown in, besides.

<* big yawn *>

Thus, it was utterly predictable in all three modes, especially once you assumed that Joss Whedon used it to figuratively poke his middle finger into the eyes of Hollywood execs who futched up his creative efforts on Firefly.

Well I was thinking of the whole "men being raped by a woman for laughs" in a comedy, and one movie I thought to compare was The Hangover. In this movie, a man is blackmailed by the police into being tasered in his genitals.

I found this to be not funny back when I watched it. It was just too much I thought. However, what's worse, or more inappropriate for comedy? A man having his genitals raped by a woman out of comedy, or a man being tasered down there out of blackmail?

The Hangover one I thought was worse, and more offensive, but would I be in the minority on that one?

On the continued topic of female on male sexual violence subject, there was a sequel to the male on male one by Pop Culture Detective, if you have not seen it yet.



I see these as examples of how men can be helped against the influences of things like toxic masculinity. Another particular video I liked was against The Big Bang Theory, about certain negative jokes in the show that was called Adorkable Misogyny. An eye opener for things that become less funny when you think about you are meant to laugh at.

Yeah when it comes to movies like Horrible Bosses I remember thinking, maybe they went too far back then, but I couldn't help but laugh at a lot of the rest of the movie, aside from the sexual harassment/assault scenario.

Here is a clip from a movie I thought was funny, mostly because of it just going over the top:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkz-aUG ... e=youtu.be

But was I wrong to laugh at this, and it's actually distasteful and offensive?

I don't think the problem of portrayal of sexual assault on men as funny has blame on any concept of masculinity itself.

I think that it totally is. Masculinity says that men should be the "aggressive" party in sexuality, so even if you have never been directly told this, scenes where you are meant to laugh where the man is being pursued you are meant to laugh at his lack of masculinity. This is a part of what people mean when they talk about toxic masculinity, an expectation that men are meant to like the advances of any hot woman, like say a teacher, and that a woman that used to be a man is treated like certainly an attack on masculinity, that people in some parts of cultures refer to them as traps.

Because people seem to take concept like toxic masculinity so harshly, like just saying it is an attack on all of masculinity, I want to clarify the statement that not all masculinity is bad, there are just certain types that encourage men to act out in bad ways, or can ignore victims. I know that it is not exactly easy to prove a negative, but the root problem in senses of masculinity has generally been a part of a lot of different sources I watch that analyse culture, but I would be interested if you can tie it to something else. I do not think it is tied to femineity, although you probably could find some bad faith or toxic feminists who could laugh simply for men getting a taste of what a lot of women go through, but I really don't think it is the case in these main stream media where the audience is meant to laugh.

I don't think that this type of toxic behavior though is associated with masculinity. I think there are lot of people in the world who are users and abusers of other people, both men and women. There are a few women I've known throughout my life who use and abuse men like crazy. Same number as men I would say from all the people I have known.

So I feel that this toxic behavior is not derived out of masculinity particularly, but perhaps just immorality. And immorality is not gender specific I don't think. So I feel maybe people are therefore looking at it the wrong way? Or am I going off on a tangent now?

We are specifically talking about sexual assault on men being treated as comedy, done by women or other men, and why it is different from being done to women. If it was just a genderless immorality issue, then presumably women would just as likely be victims of sexual assault for comedy, but that is not the case. If you have examples to refute this, then please provide them. It is just a general thing that audiences have found the idea of a man being sexually assaulted or sudden advances as funny, while it would not be the same if gender was reversed.

Pick a random example, the very popular movie Ghostbusters. During a part of the movie where we get a montage scene with various ghost happenings, one particular part has one of the male characters wake to a sexy ghost above him, who proceeds to I think unzip his pants before he goes cross-eyed and we are meant to use our imagination. This point of this scene that is being played for comedy is that we are meant it is funny that this sexy ghost shows up and goes to town on him. Do you think that people would have had the same reaction if the genders were reversed?

This is not just about finding sexual abuse funny, it is that these things are rooted in what a common ideas of masculinity are held. A lot of old comedy has been based on finding it funny that a man would be assaulted, because it is based on the gap of expectations that the man should be the aggressive party. It is kind of irrelevant to say real life has examples of both male and female users and abusers. That could well mostly prove that assault and abuse are not tied to gender in a way that one should be treated as funny.

This is like how a very common insult of the past has been calling males sissy, that they lack masculinity and it makes them less of a person. And this is the basis of what is referred to as toxic masculinity. To differ it from feminine examples, you would probably have to pick out what are often treated like desirable traits within the feminine context, such as women shaming other women for things like not acting like a proper housewife. Or treating men like idiots like you probably could see in the average tv commercial about how men need to be looked after like they are children.

Oh okay. I agree that Horrible Bosses and Wedding Crashers have a sexual assault double standard, but I didn't think that Ghostbusters counted because, in Ghostbusters, the Dan Akroyd character fully consented to the sex and enjoyed it. He didn't try to resist it in anyway and, nor was he feeling bad about it at all.

So I didn't think that counted as sexual assault, unlike Wedding Crashers or Horrible Bosses. But am I wrong?

I agree with ironpony in that Hollywood has ventured away from dark storytelling, that's why I get my fix from Nordic noir these days. From Britain to Finland, Spain to Sweden, and France to Denmark, and sometimes South Korea, they're not scared of presenting the cold, gloomy, rainy, dark, depressing slices of life mankind is known for. In the past few years, detective films and series like Department Q, Bordertown, Jar City, etc haven't shied away from showing gore, male or female nudity, rape, etc. The Koreans don't go as far with nudity as the Scandinavians, but if subtitles aren't a bother, this genre is worth looking into.

Hollywood producers seem to want to appeal to the widest possible audience demographic -- families.  That means:

• Blatant nudity is out; but healthy young adult women in form-fitting costumes are okay.
• Bloody, gory dismemberments are out; but "clean" bloodless deaths are okay.
• Complex, multi-layered plots are out; but simple, linear, plot-driven characters are okay.
• Morality plays are out; but good old "Good Guys Win; Bad Guys Lose" endings are okay.
• Overt propaganda is out; but subtle hints promoting "God & Country Over All" are okay.
• Overt sexual activity is out; but a passionate embrace while standing up is okay.
• Realistic events are out; but unrealistic special effects are okay.
• Et cetera ... Ad Nauseum ...

Why is this so?  Profit.  The more people drawn in at one time to see a movie, the more profit the studio makes.

Follow the money.

Well take a movie like The Skin I Live In (2011) or Cell 211 (2009) for example. You don't see Hollywood making movies like that for few years it seems.

Well, those are both Spanish movies. Different markets of movies make different types of movies. I have not heard of any Spanish Avengers and stuff. I am not even really defending a lot of what Hollywood is, just that it is a little silly to complain about some big difference now. I would even happen to bet you probably could find the sort of heavy movies produced by "Hollywood", they are just not as heavily marketed as movies with wide spread appeal, where you just have to know the circles to learn about them.

You had psychological movies like The Lighthouse, which from my understanding is in black and white and the sort of thing people claim to not see anymore. You can find some of these types of movies if you want, just that Hollywood mostly advertises the ones with big appeal, not necessarily about a reaction of people being too sensitive, which this thread is built on. As it is, what do you even refer to Hollywood now that we have the likes of Netflix, where we have movies and tv series alike being streamed or as Netflix originals. An interesting science fiction thriller movie I watched the other day was called I Am Mother, a movie from last year that I imagine would be the type of movie people claim is not made anymore.

I am honestly not a big fan of movies that are about psychologically pulling someone apart or being edgy for its own sake, but I do think that you can find new ones if you actually look. Annihilation was a movie was looking forward to from a couple years ago for its Lovecraftian elements, and was a little disappointed that Netflix seemed to get rights for distribution, not that it was not made but that it needed to be streamed instead of cinema release. I guess because they thought that the audience would not be big enough. More and more varied stuff is being made than ever (disregarding since the whole pandemic thing), they can be found. The bigger worry is probably that Disney is starting to own all the studios and can start to dictate what can be shown in theatre.

Yeah I guess that's what I mean is you don't see dark gritty movies about people being psychologically pulled apart hardly anymore. So many movies coming out of Hollywood just feel so 'safe', if that's the right word for it.