Chris Hemsworth: Misanderistic gender traitor?
It’s a dark day for the world’s beleaguered male gender. Again. The Feminazi overlords at Sony have released a horrifying video of what appears to be actor Chris Hemsworth forced to play a buff hunky character who is sort of an idiot in the upcoming Lady Ghostbusters.
I have pasted this video in below. Make sure you are sitting down before you watch it.
Generally, that’s more comfortable, though there are people who swear by that whole standing desk thing. I haven’t tried it. Seems like it would be tiring.
But before you click play on the video, be prepared for some truly shocking footage as Kevin, the dude played by Hemsworth, appears to be somewhat less than competent at his job as a buff, hunky administrative assistant wearing somewhat tight clothing at Lady Ghostbusters Inc, specifically when it comes to answering phones, getting coffee, graphic design, and knowing what the company he works for actually does.
It’s a terrible fall from grace for Hemsworth, who has previously played roles as a buff, hunky dude in tight clothing, only he’s like cool and stuff. I think he was Superman, maybe? Man-Spider? The Batsman?
I’m not really up on that stuff.
In any case, men everywhere are protesting this terrible insult to their gender. And by “everywhere” I mean in the comments on YouTube, which are generally thought to be representative of sophisticated male opinion worldwide.
“This movie needs to fail hard so this sort of stereotyping can die,” says wonderboy2402, widely considered to be the wisest of all in the wonderboy2400 series.
“I though this movie was about equality,” ossander ken added.
Actually, just FYI, the movie as I understand it is about a team of ghost containment specialists — ghost “busters,” if you will — tasked with “busting” numerous ghosts in a short period of time. Maybe you’re thinking of Suffragette?
ohnjohnson, meanwhile, asks the question that is on everyone’s mind:
So, the only reason they keep him around is because he is hot. How is that not sexist or mysogonistic or just stupidity.
How is that not!?
George Hernandez also raises an important question:
So make the only main male role in the film a dumb air head but we say the film isn’t funny and we’re the sexist? That’s some bullshit
“I didn’t care about this film but seeing this made me mad anyways,” HandsomePagan reported.
Patrick Laceholder, already struggling with a not-very manly last name, lamented
It feels like these people who usually work on R-rated films are trying to appeal to the dumbass crowds so they throw in the awkward American hollywood humour and think it’ll work.
It is indeed shocking to see American hollywood humor used in this way in an American hollywood comedy film.
Stanley13579 was simultaneously concerned for Hemsworth and mad at him:
Chris Hemsworth deserves better. I hope he’s at least getting a fat paycheck for being a tool to help Sony sell their cynical product.
“MUH DIVERSITIES” added KarmaAce00.
michael white offers a different sort of critique:
Oh and P.S. Drinking coffee like she did after he drank out of it then kinda spit into it is by no means sexy or funny.. It’s fucking disgusting..😷
Actually, I have to take a teensy bit of an issue with this. While not sexy — I’m not sure why it would need to be? — it actually was sort of funny. Maybe even more than sort of funny.
OK OK OK I confess. I thought the whole thing was funny. The original trailer was a bit of a letdown for me, but this is giving me more hope that the movie will actually be worthy of its great cast.
Angry dudes: I’m not sure how you’ve managed to miss this, but comedy regularly involves comedians and comic actors deliberately making themselves look like idiots.
Sometimes it involves men making themselves look like idiots.
Sometimes it involves women making themselves look like idiots.
Sometimes both men and women:
Sometimes comedy plays with stereotypes and is funny. Sometimes it just reinforces stereotypes and while this is often not so great, comedically or otherwise, sometimes it can actually be funny too.
For comedic actors, the best roles are often the ones in which they make themselves look like the biggest idiots. Who was the most idiotic character on I Love Lucy? (HINT: Her name is in the title.) Who was the star in I Love Lucy? (HINT: Her name is also in the title. Because it’s the same person.)
Anyway, dudes, relax just a teensy weensy bit. Men are so overrepresented in movies these days, as protagonists and as supporting characters, that it’s still kind of seen as a big deal if two women characters in a feature film have even a single scene in which they actually talk to one another about anything other than a man. And lots of movies fail that seemingly rudimentary test.
And so, if you can’t stand Chris Hemsworth taking a comedic turn as an inept administrative assistant, if the very thought of it makes you mad or sad, it’s possible that your head is so far up your own ass that, well, I mean, that can’t be very enjoyable, your head up in there. It’s sort of disgusting to think about, really.
Anyway, angry Ghostbusters-hating dudes, if you’re concerned about people thinking men are a bunch of ridiculous idiots, one excellent way to fight this perception is to STOP ACTING LIKE A BUNCH OF RIDICULOUS IDIOTS.
Or not, I mean, I find you guys entertaining. I mean, not Flight-of-the-Conchords-level entertaining, but not bad.
The only thing about the Ghostbusters clip that really bugs me is that Sony decided to release it on Administrative Professionals Day. And that’s really kind of patronizing as hell. If most film heroes were Administrative Professionals that would be one thing, but this, not so cool.
But that’s a reflection on Sony’s marketing department, not on the film itself, which I’m sort of starting to actually look forward to again.
H/T — Thanks to @jamesjdominguez for bringing this to my attention!
Embarrassment humour makes me cringe, but I love Mr. Bean for some reason.
I have no idea if that’s because there’s not a ton of other people pointing and laughing at him or what? Or maybe just because I started watching it when I was rather young? Although my husband-type-man-thing hates awkward comedy even more than I do and he also likes Mr. Bean. Mr. Bean is universal.
His general loneliness makes me a little sad if I think about it too long, but still an excellent series.
I looked askance at the GMP even before the rape apologia, just because the name of the site kind of gives away what it was actually trying to do. “We are the good men,” it says, “unlike those other, bad men.” The very name centers the people who ran/wrote for the site, drawing attention to them, and their characteristics, instead of to the problems that the site alleged to address.
It just struck me from the beginning as a self-centered name, the kind that only a very privileged person accustomed to always being the center of everything would choose.
So the rape apologia didn’t exactly surprise me when it eventually rolled around. Rapists are experts at centering themselves. It seemed like a natural fit, actually.
No, Seriously, What About The Menz? was a good-faith effort to address men’s issues by erstwhile WHTMer Ozymandias. They got picked up by The Good Men Project but eventually had to stop after being overwhelmed with MRAs and general douchebaggery.
Unfortunately any attempt to repeat the experiment probably has the same fate if it gains any traction. Doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing, though.
While I think it would qualify on its face, I don’t think Mr. Bean really fits in with “embarrassment humour” because it’s not the “cringe moment” that drives the comedy, but rather Rowan Atkinson’s performances. I think skits like the nativity scene, getting dressed on the beach, and making a sandwich in the park illustrate this well. These scenes do include bit parts so that there is someone observing his shenanigans, but I think those are more to illustrate the fact that Mr. Bean is completely shameless, rather than induce embarrassment.
I’m sure there’s also something to do with how the people around him react; it’s largely with either bewilderment or annoyance. Not much to trigger those harsh 3rd-person embarrassment feels.
I get the ‘second hand embarrassment’ thing from a lot of media, but strangely, not so much from Lucy. Maybe it was because you knew things would usually turn out okay for her in the end. Her husband and her friends just rolled with it, too, instead of trying to make her feel bad.
Oh man, I hate embarrassment humor! I used to leave the room for those scenes when I was a kid. Not for the scary scenes in horror movies, but for the embarrassment scenes. Mr. Bean did feel pretty embarrassment-heavy to me, and also I always felt like he was some kind of mentally disabled stereotype that made me uncomfortable?
I really like Lucy though and I don’t find her stuff embarrassing at all. Maybe because so many of her routines are just classic comedy exercises (eg, one person being another person’s arm) done with so much technical proficiency.
katz: Oh god, right with you.
As a kid, I was beyond fidgety whenever embarrassment humour or bad lying happened. Couldnt sit still, often had to leave the room and try to block out the input. To this day, I am profoundly and painfully uncomfortable even watching someone I despise getting grilled on their contradictions ion an interview.
After an incident with my landlady this past year, I’ve started to wonder if those weren’t actually “mild” panic attacks.
OK, I don’t get how they’re mad! Chris Hemsworth is KILLING it in that. That was really funny. Hehe “They kept getting dirty.” He’s not known for his comedy, and he does it really well and convincing (at least in the short clip, and the actual comedians seemed to be impressed with him). It’s like seeing Brad Pitt in Burn After Reading.
I’m of the age that watched Lucy and laughed easily.
Decades later, I watched a doco series on humour and, it turns out, Lucy is an absolute champion.
She couldn’t get a couple in a double bed past the tv censors of the time, but she did force the issue of having a married couple in their bedroom (single beds) both wearing nightclothes at the same time. And, achievement upon achievement, she also got to portray an obviously pregnant woman … on camera … not just her face & upper body … a genuine whole, bulging pregnant woman.
And she did it by being screamingly funny within the very tight limitations of the time. On screen. Off camera, she aggressively pushed the limits of script writing and visual representation of married and family life as far as she could go.
My favorite Mr. Bean sketch.
Especially “listen to the herring” part after smacking it against the arm rail.
Smack the Pony has some seriously hilarious skits.
The Fast Show had an interesting reoccurring character: Girl Men Can’t Hear, a woman who tries to put forward an idea to a group of men but is completely ignored, only for a man in that group to repeat what she has just said and receive congratulations from the others for having had such a good idea. This character was apparently invented by Arabella Weir to parody similar experiences she’d had with the men in the Fast Show team.
If you can spot Never Mind the Horrocks somewhere, do give it a go.
I see nothing wrong with a ditzy, hot male character. For that matter, I see nothing wrong with a ditzy, hot female character. Both can be very entertaining to watch in movies. But when the vast majority of women’s roles seem to be that ditzy, hot character or one of a handful of other stereotypical characters, there’s a problem. But I don’t expect the MRAs to look past their privilege to see that.
That movie is a real mixed bag but there are some great moments, and he’s pretty hilarious; I almost used a clip of his little dance.
I adore Hemsworth. Thor’s my favoritest Avenger, and he’s always shown great comedic chops, even in that role. Not a GB fan, but he and Ms McKinnon kinda making me wanna see this. And to spite the sexist assholes, but that’s just icing
ETA: I like gifs