Saw ‘Horrible Bosses’ today.
Funny film, except that for some reason, the writers thought that shoving a whole load of rape jokes in would be abso-fucking-lutely hilarious.
The synopsis of the movie is pretty simple: three men hate their bosses yet are unable to quit their jobs for various contrived reasons. One boss is manipulative and greedy. One boss is lazy and a cokehead. One boss is a rapist.
The rapist boss, though? Female. Attractive. Played by Jennifer Aniston.
You know what this means, right? INSTANT COMEDY.
The guy saddled with the rapist as a boss is constantly mocked by his friends. According to them, his continual sexual harassment by a superior is nothing to complain about compared to, say, being told off for being two minutes late or having to fire someone when you don’t want to. In fact, one character implies that he should be grateful to be sexually harassed – after all, he’s getting some action from a hot chick, what’s the problem?! When Jennifer Aniston sprays water on his crotch, he makes high-pitched squeaking noises. The audience laughs. When she accosts him in her office wearing nothing but panties and a labcoat, he can’t take her eyes off her hot body. The audience laughs. When she grabs his penis completely against his will, his face freezes in an exaggerated grimace. The audience laughs. The guy rightly accuses his boss of raping him and expresses a desire to work in a ‘rape-free environment’. The audience cacks itself.
A game I enjoy playing while watching movies is How would this be played if these characters were genderswapped? Would a young, female dental hygienist being stripped and molested by her middle-aged, male superior while under anaesthetic be played for comedy? Would one of her friends asking in a strained voice due to barely controlled laughter to see the photos her boss took during such an incident be treated as a reasonable, if slightly insensitive, reaction? Would the same friend sleep with the rapist boss because he was ‘really hot’ and ‘eating suggestively in front of a window’ even after she knew of the boss’s history? Probably not.
In fact, definitely not. Because male on female rape is serious, dramatic, tragic, a trigger for ruggedly handsome male heroes to go off on murdering sprees or broken female waifs to do the same.
Female on male rape? Unlikely. Impossible. Hilarious. Well, according to Hollywood.
The movie plays the reason for this man’s hatred for his boss as this: he does not despise her because of her sexual harassment, he despises her because her sexual harassment might jeopardise his relationship with his fiancée. Because, of course, he couldn’t be upset that he was being sexually harassed. Because he is man. And men don’t get sexually harassed. He is upset that his fiancée will find out that he is being sexually harassed and break up with him because being sexually harassed is the same as willingly cheating on someone amirite?
This man is, of course, the youngest, weakest and stupidest of the three main characters. The implication being that you would have to be pretty weak and stupid to be taken advantage of by a woman. This movie is pretty good, see – it manages to deny the existence of serious, cruel female on male rape and imply that concession to a woman is weak and unmanly. Koala tea.
At the end of the movie (omg, spoilerzz!!11), one boss ends up dead and another in jail. Rapist boss, though? She is blackmailed into stopping her sexually harassment. And that is it. The movie considers her punishment to be adequate. The boss who is sent to jail murdered someone, fair enough, comeuppance earned. The boss who is murdered was a cokehead who hired prostitutes and fired people because he didn’t like the look of them, comeuppance not really earned, but who are we kidding, this is Hollywood, comeuppance earned. The only significant change to the life of the boss who constantly molested her inferior is that she has to stop molesting her inferior. No restrictions on her life or liberty. Comeuppance earned, apparently.
Another thing that got me about the movie was the conversation the two other protagonists (you know, the normal ones with real problems unlike their stupid, weak, rape victim friend) about which of them would be more rapeable. Just, you know, a casual, jocular conversation about rape. One of the same characters makes a passing reference that his boss was spending the rest of his life down on all fours in prison. The implication being that he was being raped. You know, as punishment for what he had done. The audience howls with laughter.
For some reason, I find it hard to laugh at rape jokes. I’ve never been raped or sexually assaulted so I’m not going to pretend in a million years to know what it’s like or how a victim feels. However, as seems to come with being female, I’ve experienced my fair share of guys hollering poignant, well-thought out comments such as ‘Hey sexy!’ and ‘Slut!’ and ‘I’d do you!’ from car windows. I’ve had it drummed into me never to walk home alone at night, never to talk to strange (or even familiar) guys by myself, never to draw too much attention to myself in ‘dangerous’ (read: racially diverse) areas. I’ve had guys leer at me and ‘compliment’ me and even, in one memorable instance, ask the guy next to him whether or not he would have sex with me. While rape and sexual assault have thankfully so far not been a reality for me, the threat of them has been in a way that it wouldn’t be for a man. The way our society is constructed makes rape feel almost inevitable for me, in a way that it would never feel for a man. I am very conscious that rape has a distinct possibility of occurring to me at some point in my life, so I have a really hard time finding it funny.
If you look at it this way, you would never, ever make dead baby jokes to a pregnant woman, because there is an uncomfortably high possibility that something could go wrong and she could lose her child. You would also never, ever make cancer jokes around someone going through remission, because there is an uncomfortably high possibility that they could end up dying. So why is it a-ok to make rape jokes in a movie where around half the audience have an uncomfortably high possibility of being raped?
Reality check: it isn’t.
The thing about ‘Horrible Bosses’ is that it is very, very self aware. There’s a great scene where a presumptuous white man is humiliated as he tries to tell a black man that he understands discrimination and disenfranchisation. Yet shit like rape jokes are played 100% straight.
Oh, and one more thing about the movie. When the young, weak, stupid guy finally confronts and stands up to his rapist boss, he triumphantly pronounces her a ‘whore’. You know, that insult people use to shame promiscuous women. Because sexual assault is as trivial as sleeping around for women. Or being promiscuous is as horrible a crime as rape for women.
I can’t even decide which is worse.
11 Comments
Yeah, I’ve found far too often there’s an unwillingness to take the problem of men being raped seriously, and with some people to even acknowledge that it happens at all. (Unless it’s in prison, in which case it’s again seen as a source of comedy usually) Coupled with the stereotype that men are ready to have sex all the time with virtually anyone. (such a strange stereotype when you think of how much of the beauty and diet industries are based on telling women that if they don’t look a certain way men will not want them. So which is it?)
I wonder too how it would be treated if the rapist boss were not played by an actress regarded as conventionally attractive? Though I suppose if the boss were an “ugly” woman the comedy would simply center around her looks. The man’s problem would be seen as an issue not because of the lack of consent and violation of boundaries, but because the woman chasing him is undesirable.
You said yourself that the audience was eating this material up so it’s not just hollywood but the general public who thinks all of these things.
Having said that, in discussing this movie and other similar scenarios from men I’m only ever met with 100% agreement from the men that the movie is accurate, that they also would only care b/c they were engaged, etc. and they don’t feel at all bad for the guy for any of the reasons a woman would if the genders were reversed.
Which creates quite a quandry. I strongly feel it’s not right to co-op others and force them to feel a victim if they themselves do not. So if men don’t feel like they are victim from such behaviours, who are we to say that they are?
I know it seems to hurt the cause because it creates a double standard or might make women look weak because they don’t have the same attitude, but I don’t know how else to approach it short of getting more men to speak out on behalf of their own gender. But we need it to be a majority of men or it’ll be useless. Sadly I do’nt see that happening anytime soon.
I think the reason many guys would say they wouldn’t mind a woman assaulting them is probably because it’s never happened to them. I’m not trying to presumptuous, but female on male rape is rare. Most male rape victims are raped by other men, so it may just be that they have no conception of how being raped or assaulted by a woman would feel.
I know a man that was raped by a woman, and we’ve talked about it before. He shared some details which were glaring to me as a feminist. He said that when she forced herself on him, he felt like he couldn’t do anything because he was taught that you could never, ever, hit a woman (this is a terrible gender stereotype, in that a lot of men feel they can’t defend themselves if it’s a woman). And later that he felt so much guilt, like he hadn’t been raped and was a willing participant in what was causing him so much pain. He felt violated, but he also felt like it was his fault, and this came from a different source than the victim blaming women usually experience. It was the notion that men always want sex, that women want it less that made him feel like it was his fault. He felt he couldn’t tell anyone, because nobody would believe it, and many people would laugh at him.
Knowing the pain he went through, to me, makes it extremely important to avoid seeing any movies like horrible bosses, as they disgust and infuriate me. So from my perspective, I think we, as feminists need to keep taking female on male rape seriously (not that I’m saying you don’t! not trying to attack you) even if we never meet a man who has been through it. My friend alone is reason enough for me.
I’ve also known men who have been in the situation of being raped, both by other men and by women.
If you’ve asked other men who say they wouldn’t mind, well that’s them. And perhaps they wouldn’t, in which case I’d say they were consenting. However, from what Kate describes of the character’s reactions in the movie, it seems clear that he is NOT consenting, doesn’t like it, and feels his boundaries are violated. Which is how men I know who have experienced this reported feeling.
Ultimately, rap is about a lack of consent, a violation of boundaries. Just because Man A is ok with a sexual scenario, doesn’t mean that Man B will be as well, or that if Man B wishes it to stop or feels victimized we shouldn’t acknowledge that and be supportive.
“Ultimately, rap is about a lack of consent”
Ugh, that was supposed to read “Ultimately RAPE is about a lack of consent”
Are you saying it’s ok for a man to hit a woman under certain circumstances?
Didn’t they also define Aniston’s character as a “maneater” in the previews? That didn’t sit well with me, since it seems to undermine the severity of her actions. I haven’t seen the film, and I don’t plan to, since I don’t want to contribute to this kind of crap (voting with my dollar and all that).
Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you.
There were funny parts in Horrible Bosses, but I am so outraged by it…not to mention the fact that I have been invited to see it two more times by friends.
The persistent “who is more ‘rapeable’” conversation was so obnoxious, so nauseating, and so extremely wrong.
Whenever the audience laughed at those “jokes(?)”, I was just sitting there, burning up, with my jaw literally dropping.
I had a conversation with my fiance about this subject last night. We both find that, while this doesn’t make it an overall bad movie, it is a subject of concern.
It simultaneously smashes and enforces a stereotype. It smashes the stereotype because usually it’s a man harassing a woman, in this case, it was a woman harassing and attempting to rape, or blackmail him into unwilling sex. Typically it’s the other way around. It’s new, or at least pretty damn rare, to see a movie in which the roles are reversed like this.
But, on the other hand, it’s enforcing a stereotype because his friends just don’t give a shit. It’s the ridiculous “So what, she’s hot.” Attitude. That’s what really pissed me off about this plot line. His friends did not care how serious it was to him. They didn’t care that he was engaged. Which shows no respect for his relationship. They didn’t care that she had locked him in her office while she was wearing next to nothing. He didn’t want to be there, he was incredibly uncomfortable and literally could not get out because she locked him in. They didn’t care that she had actually drugged him and molested him while he was knocked out. “So what, she’s hot.”
I think being scared of what his future wife would think is a good reason to be freaked out by his rapist boss. I think it went beyond just that fear though, because he did call her a rapist and said he wanted to work in a rape-free environment. Something anyone should be able to do.
The high pitched squeaking…well, that’s just Charlie Day. He does that on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia too. In various situations. I think that’s just a noise he makes.
In a nutshell, I agree with you on the subject that his friend’s lack of respect for his situation and the conversation about who is more rapeable was just not funny. I really hate it when movies do shit like that. Rape isn’t about who is more attractive, it’s about control. Jennifer Aniston’s character was getting off on control over his job situation, the future of his relationship, and him. Not funny.
However, I did enjoy other things in the movie. Colin Ferral (sp?) was nuts! His house decor was gawd-awful, and Kevin Spacey did a great job in playing the world’s biggest asshole.
I love how you note that the “rapist” is played by Jennifer Aniston, dressed super sexy and hyper sexualized so that “rape” could be even funnier because a man being raped by a woman is already a joke but add to the insanity that his boss is our standard definition of a sexy woman and the “pain” or “embarrassment” of his unprofessional atmosphere adds even more disgusting content to the movies plot. Also, sexual harassment in the workplace is an issue still under close eye because sexual harassment (all genders included) and discrimination are still current issues we are dealing with. Jennifer Aniston’s character was a successful dentist where her dental hygienist was a male so the gender stereotypes for professional roles were turned which was nice- but I forgot Aniston’s character was a successful dentist when all her character became identified with was sex-crude and degrading sexual jokes at that. She wanted to have sex on unconscious patients and black-males her co-worker to get him to perform sexual acts. Not to mention, the cocaine snorting fool played by Colin Ferrell associates with seems to be Asian or Thai women that consort with his drug habits are seen leaving his home after “massages” and are portrayed as prostitues. The racial and sexual suggestions in this movie as being funny are sick and this only perpetuates the rape culture of our society.
Charlie Day’s character’s situation had to play out the way it did. The entire point was to establish that the regular avenues the character might use are unavailable to them. For Charlie Day this meant that it needed to be well established in the audience’s mind that a sexual harassment suit would be doomed to failure. The general opinion of the public when it comes to these cases was played by Bateman and Sudeikis, Day passionately explains his plight but he’s blown off, as he would expect to be in court. Had they cast a less attractive actress in the place of Jennifer Aniston this would have lent credibility to the idea of a sexual harassment case and in my opinion, cheapened Day’s character by chalking the revulsion to sexual harassment entirely to the attractiveness of the harasser, and not to the actual lack of interest by the victim.
Ultimately I think the movie was a fair analysis of what happens to men when they are sexually harassed, and the helplessness which is enforced by the cultural norms. Had it been written differently it wouldn’t have communicated this fact, it would have also would have diverted from the central plot, that these characters are going to engage in criminal behaviors themselves in order to get back at their bosses.