If They Do Serve Beer in Hell, I Hope it’s Warm

The Boston premiere of I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell happened in Cambridge last night. For those of you that haven’t been following, (and I hope this applies to most of you), it is the film adaptation of a book, which was a based on a blog. The blog, in turn, is largely based around the exploits of Tucker Max (and here “exploits” is exactly the right word): getting women drunk, performing sex acts on them, and then writing about it. Many of the encounters detailed in the blog, book, and now the film, meet the legal definition of rape (this should come as no surprise). It is almost unbelievably predatory, so it should also come as no surprise that it was, for a time, very popular.
I first heard of Tucker Max a few years ago, but as I have yet to come accross a media personality named named “Tucker” that is not a complete asshole, I didn’t pay much attention. It wasn’t until Wednesday, when my boyfriend was alerted of a protest organized by NOMAS in response to the premiere of the film, that I really took a closer look.
Tucker Max’ writing represents the worst sort of trend in American males. It’s not enough to say that he doesn’t respect women – it’s that it would never occur to him to respect them. To disrespect them would be a conscious decision on his part (which he does sometimes make – at one point his friends dare him to say something insulting to a woman and he says, ” I’m sorry, did you just call out Tucker Max? About disrespecting a whore? My friends know how to push my buttons, so fasten your seatbelts folks, good times are ahead…”) – instead, what he exercises in is a complete denial of their personhood. And, of course, like all mysogynists, he is under the impression that this does not mean that he hates women. In fact, on his own website, he responds to accusations that his page is sexist, anti-women, and mysogynistic by saying the following:
“This always confuses me. For fucks sake, I originally put up a page dedicated to getting a date; how is that sexist? How in hell does that imply I hate women? I hate a lot of things… but nowhere on that list is women. I LOVE women. Now, do I treat some women like shit? Yes, sometimes, but I treat EVERYONE like shit, not just women. Sexism is treating one sex differently from the other(s). I treat people as individuals.” Of course, it’s a bit hard to swallow that he treats women as individuals when he refers to almost all of them, at some point, as a random whore.

I could go on, obviously, but it’s no great shakes to prove that Tucker Max is a mysognystic douchebag. He pretty much takes care of that himself. So let’s talk about the good news and bad news here:
Bad News: In this country, date rapists get book and movie deals instead of convictions. Tucker Max is currently finishing his second book, “Assholes Finish First.” Indeed.
Good News: The aforementioned movie will, by all accounts and purposes, do terribly. It is starring no one you know except that guy from Bring it On. At the Boston premiere, the female lead was literally giving away tickets. No one is going to see this movie.
Interlude: the Boston chapter of NOMAS organized a protest at the Boston premiere of the film, a move which at first I questioned. We’ve all seen how a good religious protest can make an otherwise mediocre movie skyrocket to the top of the box office. However, those movies usually have press to begin with. Upon further reflection, I realized that it is important to call out this kind of mysogyny at every juncture, even if it brings more attention to the mysogynist in question. Because the fact that this movie can be made is proof that the conversation on mysogyny and definition of rape in this country is but nowhere. To wit: about ten to fifteen people showed up to the Boston protest (full disclosure: I was not one of them – I had class – but my boyfriend reported back). There was one woman there with her child, who was carrying a sign that said “Yes Means Yes.” At one point, one of the guys in the line for the premiere got behind her with a sign of his own that said “She Said Yes!” with an arrow pointing down at the woman. The woman and her CHILD.
At one point, the female lead of the film, whose name I believe is Keri Lynn Pratt, offered the protesters tickets to the film. After respectfully declining and stating their reasons for doing so, she proceeded to try and explain to them that the film wasn’t disrespectful to women. “Trust me,” she said. “I’m a strong independent woman, and this movie is not disrespectful to women.”
It’s no surprise that mysogyny is still alive and well in this country, despite great strides on the institutional end. But what continues to discourage me is the degree to which we, as women, often collaborate in the sexism that is directed against us. There is a real problem in today’s generation of young women misappropriating of feminist language (“strong, independent woman”) while simultaneously engaging in anti-feminist behavior. This girl has convinced herself that there is nothing disrespectful to women about a movie about a man who has made his living disrespecting women. If that’s not proof that feminism is still necessary, I don’t know what is.
I’m not sure how one can really qualify the success of a protest: certainly not by box office take in this case since the movie was never going to make any money in the first place. My hope, however, is that simply showing up and providing a voice of opposition was enough to get people thinking, maybe to get that young woman thinking, about how we, as a society, think of women. If this experience has done nothing else, it has certainly reminded me that feminism is now more necessary, not less, in the lives of young women, if only because it will help them stay away from douchebags like Tucker Max.
(Here is the link to NOMAS – Boston: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=37491040940. For those of you in the area, please feel free to give me a shout-out of any other good feminist groups in the area. I moved here pretty recently, so I’m always looking to find more ways to be involved).