Guys and Dolls

I watch movies, so I've come across a new type of film that, by virtue of being prolific, deserves its own genre. For lack of anything better, I'll call it the dick flick.

A dick flick is the dude’s companion to a chick flick. The hero is some stammering, video-game-playing, public-restroom-masturbating schlob (Jack Black, Vince Vaughn, more recently Jonah Hill). These antiheroes have one thing in common: they’re in love with a girl. She’s incredibly hot, incredibly sweet, occasionally smart – and she doesn’t give a damn about him. Whereas he has her home address programmed in Google Earth, she doesn’t even know they go to the same high school.

Also: the mere presence of the girl reduces the hero to an inarticulate, rambling freak who accidentally says “suck my cock” when what he really wants to say is “you’re the most beautiful girl in the world and I want to lovingly insert my penis into your mouth.” Ok.

The movie begins. Schlob is hanging out with his friends, whom we’ll call C++, Han Solo, and BJ, each named for his favorite conversational subject. They’re talking about how they all got pants-ed in elementary school, and their assailants are all guys who now play lacrosse/football/beer pong with women far more attractive than Schlob and Co. will ever talk to. Boohoo. Well, along comes the girl. We’ll call her Hot, because that’s all we ever know about her.

“Hey Hot,” says Schlob helplessly, “maybe we can hang out some time and do our homework together.” She glances at him. Encouraged, he blurts out, “Penis.” Oops. Anyway, Hot moves on. The Company all take a moment to appreciate Hot’s…well…Hotness. “If she were an equation, she’d be perfectly balanced on both sides,” says C++. “If she were a lightsaber, she’d be green,” says Han Solo, inexplicably. “I whacked it to her facebook picture last week!” shouts BJ, triumphantly. “You guys, we’re such losers, and girls will never want us,” says Schlob. The audience, uncomfortably relating to their plight, can’t help but agree.

Fast forward 1.5 hours. By this point, Schlob has done all kinds of things to get Hot’s attention. They include: buying her alcohol, cracking jokes, babysitting her little sister so she can have sex with her lacrosse player boyfriend, etc. His ventures have fallen hilariously flat – witness the time he tried to get her drunk but ended up puking on her himself, the time he tried to send her flowers online but accidentally sent her a year’s worth of porn, the time he told her “I'd rate you so much higher than any girl who’s ever been in Playboy. I mean it. It’s all in the face for me.” Hot thinks that he’s an uncultured buffoon, although she probably doesn’t use those words in her head.

By the end of the film, however, God seems to have realized that he’s dealt Schlob a raw deal, and makes up for it by having Hot love/date/blow him, depending on the film’s rating and intended audience.

I just saw Superbad, one of those films. And while I laughed my ass off, I also feel like this storyline is a little played out. I mean, here’s how Seth (Schlob) “gets” Jules (Hot). He mimes jerking off all over her, asks her to scratch his cock, tries to get her drunk because in his opinion she’s too hot for him and won’t blow him while she’s sober, and then he punches her in the face.

In Will Smith’s Hitch, we laugh at the subplot where Kevin James falls in love with gorgeous heiress Amber Valletta. What does he see in her? Her incredible hotness. What does she see in him? A talentless slob. However, by the end of the film he charms her tiny leopard-print pants off. Despite the coy sweetness of the ending, I was left asking, wait, this movie is so awesome because Amber falls for his dorky cute-on-the-inside moves whereas all he cares about is her ass?

There are more mature variations. Witness Jack Black using his “original” (read: canned) sense of humor to win Kate Winslet’s heart in The Holiday.

Is there a cult of girl dorkiness? Can you imagine a movie in which Kelly Osbourne, despite her lack of ambition or talent, spends 2 hours cracking jokes about Pi only to get head from Jason Lewis in the end?

I guess there’s always Bridget Jones. If for every action there must be an equal and opposite reaction, then for every Matthew McConaughey lookalike who runs after a departing plane shouting “the thing is, Loralei, I can’t live without you because you make me a better man” there’s a Schlob who vomits into Jessica Alba’s lap but still gets love.

The dick flick. It’s a little emo, it’s a little ‘revenge of the geek’ but really it's about a flawed person with flawed standards shouting at their beloved's departing back, "Why don't you take me as I am? Believe me, you're getting an incredible deal..."