40-Year-Old Virgin 👎

"Because obviously biologically the perception of men and women... It's hard to imagine any male go without sex for that long a period of time, obviously."
"When it comes to men and women of a certain age, guys have more fun. It's a theme that comes up in Must Love Dogs, and it's sort of what you see In The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Even the loser gets to get drunk and make out with Catherine Keener"
-  Cinecast #31: The Last American Virgin   About 18:10

I have been relistening to Cinecast/Filmspotting from the beginning, and it's surprisingly hard to get by the male- and USA-centrism. Adam Kempenaar and Sam Van Hallgren seem to be OK guys, they most definitely don't intend to be that way, and it is possible they are expressing their compassion to women and women's position in the society, but it doesn't sound like that... it sounds more like they are saying men have to have sex, and men will get to have sex, while women won't. Middle-aged men just have more fun than middle-aged women.

And it is another thing that's wrong with movies and the subliminal messages!

IT DOESN'T MATTER IF IT'S A PARODY,
if something is said and not rejected or confronted as false, it is to be understood as not false.
So, when they joke about gays and there is no positive depiction of gays in the movie, then the movie's message of gays is that being a gay is somehow bad, ridiculous, negative, unmanly... a stereotypically offensive representation of gay people

X Bechdel test

X Mako Mori Test

It might, though... because of Marla, Tris' teenaged daughter. She might have her own story arc that isn't supporting Andy or any other male character.

Sexy Lamp Test

Most of the female roles can be replaced with a sexy lamp.

X The Crystal Gems Test

It doesn't have at least four major female characters, and even if you took one of the minor characters and made her into a major, it still wouldn't pass, because it doesn't pass Bechdel test, Mako Mori test and most of the females in the movie don't pass Sexy Lamp test.

So, does this movie has at least four major female characters?

There's Andy, who is the main character
There's Tris, his girlfriend
There's his 3 best buddies, Jay, Cal, and David
There's his boss, Paula
There's Marla, Tris' teenaged daughter

Is Beth a major female role? I don't think so.
Is Nicky a major female role? I don't think so.
Is Julia a major female role? No.
Is Jill? No
What about Bernadette? No
Amy? No.
Just because she is named and not a single-scene role, it doesn't mean she is a major role.
Beth is a woman he could have had sex with. She ends up being Cal's girlfriend.
Nicky is another woman he could have had sex with.
Both could be replaced with a sexy lamp.
Julia is Tris' youngest, and she has one scene.
Jill is Jay's girlfriend. She has one scene, which is totally irrelevant to the movie.
Bernadette is there just to be David's girlfriend.
Amy is David's ex. Another sexy lamp. Positive here is that she is colored, and seen as "ugly and fat".

X F-Rating

X Sphinx Test

If we accept Tris as a primary role, she isn't driving the action. The closest thing to that is that she suggests Andy could sell his collections through her business.
She isn't very active.
She isn't all that stereotypical, but on the other hand... she kind of is.
She is the love interest.
She is a mother.
She owns her own business, and there is a scene that happens in there. He asks her out and she says "yes". Then she is shown as ineffective, weak, uncertain, kind of bullied by this young male customer. Who, I assume, is kind of a loser, being fat, bespectacled and wanting to buy high-heel silver boots.
She is sort of a manic pixie dream girl.
She lets him set the pace.
She comforts, nurtures, supports, reacts emotionally.
She runs away.
She has long, wavy hair that is loose in every scene.
When they have sex, she is on the bottom.

She doesn't seem to have any friends, relatives other than her daughters, no own aspirations or wishes, no life. We don't know what happened to the father or fathers of the girls. We don't know anything about her, except that she was very young when she got her children, and that her eldest is already a mother. So - not a compelling, complex and multidimensional character with her own story arc.

CinemaScore A-
Rotten tomatoes 85%
IMDb 7.1

X The Feldman Score 0

X Furiosa Test

X The Roxane Gay Test


XThe Maisy Test for sexism in kids' shows

X Gender Balance - Gender Representation:

There are more females than males in this movie, but they are not equal.

X Gender Freedom:

Do girls and boys get to do the same things? Theoretically, yes, but in practice, no.

Do they all get to have adventures? In a way, yes. But not the "good women".

Do male and female characters subvert traditional gender roles and have the freedom to enjoy a whole range of experiences, unlimited by their gender?
In a way, it shows sexually active women taking initiative, but the boss is not seen as attractive and her suggestions are sexual harassment. The women in bars and dating scene are "hoodrats", easy "use and throw" sex toys. Beth is dangerous, kinky, good men should stay away from her. The dogs are free to have sex with her, because she, too, is a sex toy.
Jay cheats on his girlfriend, and she leaves him. He cries. She takes him back. We are supposed to believe he has changed, but I don't really believe it.
David is shown as sensitive, but that's "gay" and mocked, and he needs to be slapped, physically abused, to "snap out of it".
Andy is mocked through the whole movie for being a virgin.
When Jay becomes a father, it's all about how masculine his son is.
Andy seems to enjoy cooking and is good at it. He even cooks for his girlfriend and her family.
Paula wears pants and is the boss.

X Gender Safety:

I would say body shapes are OK. Of course, all attractive females are skinny, hourglass-shaped with big boobs, wearing revealing clothing, and white, except Jay's girlfriend, who is traditionally beautiful but black, and David's ex Amy, who is colored, and short, "fat and ugly" as she has been described by MSM. No-one says that being fat is ugly, but all the women who Andy hits or is told to hit, are skinny.
People are generally not treated respectfully.

Everyone is not safe. There's a lot of sexualization and objectification in this movie, also sexual violence. Most of it verbal, but there's also unwanted advances, caresses, fondling, kissing

There are snippets of porn movies, usually the part where a naked woman is riding a man. There's a lot of naked breasts, both male and female.
We have a scene where a woman bares her nipple in public, unknowing, but no-one stops her.
We have a scene of a woman masturbating in the bathtub, her nakedness covered in soap bubbles, but she is making sounds.
Not only that, in the movie she goes home with one guy and then goes to the bathtub and masturbates while he watches her. Then he leaves, and another guy goes into the bathroom and starts taking his clothes off, and... it's OK? And HE IS IN THE HOUSE BECAUSE ONE OF HIS BUDDIES KEPT HER KEY!!! It's not that she leaves her door open for random strangers to walk in and have sex with her, no... they stole the key and used it without her knowledge or consent.
What?
THAT'S A FUCKING RAPE!

The advice of finding drunk women and stag parties to get easy sex is disgusting.

The female lead is shown in her underwear. So is the male lead.

X Social Justice and Equality:
I feel like I have to give it pass because there is more than the usual amount of POC.
But, it really doesn't pass.
Most people are able-bodied white people,
LGBT people are not represented well,
social issues aren't discussed,
there is an appalling scene where they guys smash fluorescent tube lights.
*sigh*
Social justice isn't addressed at all.
The boss promotes the hero to the floor manager, because "he's the best salesman", even though we have no proof of it, AND the boss makes a move on him at the same time, indicating that she is attracted to him and tries to get him into bed. So IS he promoted legally, or is it just a move she makes?
Also
"I hired a 90-lb girl to work in the stock room at Smart Tech for you, okay? I should've hired a 300-lb guy to lift the 60-inch flat screen, but instead, I hired a hot girl who can't lift an iPod to bring you out of your funk."
So she'll be fired when the friend doesn't like her anymore? What about all the people who should have got the job being better qualified for the job, and didn't get it? Also, the movie just showed the 90-lb girl pushing a cart with a flat screen tv on... how did she get it on it? No, girls are weak, don't hire them. Unless they are hot. Brrr...

X The Uphold Test

X The Rees Davies Test
Location department and SFX fails
Camera and Electrical Department has exactly two women in it. 2 of 52.

X The White Test

V The Hagen Test

V The Koeze-Dottle Test

64% of the supporting cast is women
- don't cheer, though... most of them were in the show as someone Andy could have sex with.
I would say about the speaking roles that it was about 50/50, even perhaps more women than men.
I don't care to count the words spoken by both genders, nor take the screentime. It really doesn't matter how much of the words or screentime women get, when the presentation, what they say and do when on screen, is deplorable.

Questions to ponder about Gender Freedom:

X The Peirce Test

V The Villarreal Test

X The Landau Test
The female lead causes a plot problem to the male lead. First she isn't happy about he not having sex with her and not telling her why, so that he runs out of the house and gets drunk and into trouble, then she suspects him of being some sort of sex killer and runs out of the house, so that he runs after her and almost ends up dead.

X The Tauriel Test

I don't think Tris is being shown as a good shopkeeper, or recognized for it, neither is she a good mother.
Paula keeps showing the same stupid music video over and over again, ignoring the comfort of her employers, sexually harassing one of them.
We know nothing about Marla's "job". She is in High School, presumably.
We know nothing about Julia, either.
We don't know what Nicky does, but she has a history of DUI. One could assume that she's pretty good at what she's doing because she's still alive, but, no.
We don't know what Jill does. Her boyfriend never tells how proud he is of her.
Bernadette is shown pushing a wide-screen tv on a cart, but she apparently "can't lift an I-phone", and she was hired just to be a girlfriend to David.
We don't know what Amy does, except has sex like a man. Except that we don't know if she does. It could all be David's talk.
So, no, this movie doesn't pass Tauriel test.

X The Willis Test

This movie couldn't be genderswapped in a believable manner, according to the good men of Filmspotting podcast.

V Molly Haskell test

Now, this is a bit interesting.
The woman isn't sacrificing anything because she doesn't seem to have a life, career, personality, friends, dreams, aspirations of her own. Just unlimited amount of time to help Andy to realize his dreams.
She doesn't get a terrible disease, that one's easy.
Does she have a career? She has a business, taking people's things and selling them on eBay. I don't know if she does that because it's a job or because she is passionate about it. We don't know if she gives it up after the marriage. No-one is interested.
Does she compete with another woman? His boss flirts with him, and he let another woman take him to her home and undress him, and watched her fondle herself... that counts as cheating in my book. But, she isn't competing. She lets him make all the decisions.
So - I think I have to let this pass.

"Does the plot go something like this:
- woman gives the man the strength, reason, know-how, resources, support whatever necessary for him to succeed
- woman gives the man room for adventures, achievements, whatever it is
- woman waits, patiently, silently, fighting other females off for the man to come to her
- the reward for patience is the man's love, attention, company, marriage
- the evil woman, the competition gets silenced, ashamed, hurt, ostracized, perhaps even killed"

Yeah, it does!
The success is losing his virginity. He falls in love with her. She is being patient and not having sex with him. She advises him to sell his collections, and he becomes rich. She lets him have his adventures, going to bars, trying to sleep with women, never says a word about that. She gets a bit impatient and they have an argument, and he punishes her by leaving her, so she crawls back to apologize, like a good girl, and gives him all the time in the world to do what he has to do. And she is rewarded with marriage. Let the sunshine in!

"anyone who's never partaken of sex must be naïve about all things involving human interaction"

"the same culture that frowns upon women/girls enjoying sex ridicules men/boys who eschew it"

"guys are only interested in sex."

Most of the females are young, sexy, pretty. Most of them could be just as well sexy lamps.
The male characters aren't as attractive. Nevertheless, we have this problem - this man has never had sex. It's not because he hasn't had a chance. We are shown him in intimate situations, where a less awkward man would have had sex. It's not that he can't get women, he just doesn't want to have sex in situations most men wouldn't hesitate.
His friends decide to fix this problem. They are leading him to have sex with "hoodrats" who have to be "hot". Preferably drunk. Easy.

Two of the women with speaking roles are "hoodrats". One is drunk at a bachelor party. The other is dressed "slutty", so you know she's easy. So easy she'd have sex with this middle-aged loser.

Steve Carell: 43 (male lead)
Catherine Keener: 46 (female lead)
Paul Rudd: 36 (friend)
Romany Malco: 37 (friend)
Seth Rogen: 23 (friend)
Elizabeth Banks: 31 (hoodrat)
Leslie Mann: 33 (hoodrat)
Jane Lynch: 45 (men's boss - a shrew)

V The Representation Test B

There's plenty of POC in speaking roles. There are some racial stereotypes.
There are women who are not sexy lamps
Catherine Keener is over 45
The men aren't violent, there are colored men in this movie and there are some non-stereotypical qualities in men. Which is how it gets a B.
How it presents GLBT people is deplorable, and disabled people aren't even present.

X Kent test

There was a bigger role given to a POC, but this person was there because she was a male character’s ex and she never interacted with any other female – or POC. The narrative arc was that she once dated a guy, who couldn’t get over her. End of narrative arc.

X Aila test

X The Waithe Test

V The Ko Test

I am going to let this pass, even though Amy only is in 3 scenes, and speaks in only two of them because she isn't a stereotypical character.
And because this movie got so little passes, and it has quite a good representation of POC.

X The Villalobos Test

Notes 

Why is the personnel at the restaurant singing the stupid birthday song all women?

Tris "finds all this kinky stuff" - porn videos and an anatomical model of a vagina? Huh?
She believes he's some sort of sexual deviant who's trying to kill her?
He says he's a virgin and "oh! That's OK then! I thought you were trying to kill me, but no maniac sex killer would say they were virgins! You wouldn't lie about such a thing!"

They have sex and he knows exactly what to do and where to put it. I remember the first time I had sex. Neither of us had ever had sex before and it was a bit of "it looks so easy in porn movies!" :-D Even in porn movies, they have a guide the penis a little to find its way. But, no, this virgin was natural, and sex is really like that. A man lies on top of a woman, and that's it.

No foreplay... and no cuddling.