I enjoy the film Blockers—succeeding with its three hilariously entertaining adult leads—but it has a notable issue with double standards. The issue doesn’t just stem within the film, however, but also with misdirected praise towards the film being “feminist”. I’ve previously written a post on what defines a feminist film, and it stands to reason that Blockers is not one. A feminist film is one that has a fair balance between male and female portrayals regarding quantity (the ratio of both genders casted), character (the way both genders are written and represented), role (the presentation of both genders in primary and secondary parts) and importance to plot (how much both genders matter to the storyline). Blockers succeeds in two out of the four aspects, quantity and importance to plot. Its gender ratio is fairly balanced between male and female characters who play significant roles within the story.
It’s in character and role that Blockers has problems, with most of them revolving around Geraldine Viswanathan’s character Kayla, daughter to John Cena’s character Mitchell. Blockers approaches the teen-sex genre with the message that women have just as much right to be crude and crass and sexually promiscuous as men do, and they are 100% correct...but here’s the thing. If that is the case—and it most certainly is—then an argument can be made that women should be held to the same standards as men when it comes to such crudeness. Here’s the script to a scene between Kayla and her prom date Connor in Blockers:
Kayla: I just want to let you know that I am fully planning on having sex tonight. With... with you.
Connor: Yeah, I-I mean, wherever the wind blows us.
Kayla: Well, the wind's gonna blow us there.
Connor: Wherever the night takes us,
Kayla: It's...It's gonna take your penis into my vagina.
Connor: Okay, uh, you know, if the universe wills it.
Kayla: And the universe will will it.
Conor: (chuckles) Thanks for letting me know, I guess.
In these situations, I find it useful to mentally reverse the gender roles and see how the scene would play out if Connor had said Kayla’s lines and vice versa. Would it be disturbing if a male told his female date that they were definitely having sex and kept insisting it was going to happen despite her hesitancy? Yes, it would, with the guy coming off as creepy with a rapist vibe. What about when Kayla refers to penises as plungers just for their use? The scene is being used for crude humor and to subvert gender expectation since it's uncommon for females to talk like such in fiction. But what if it was a guy saying that vaginas are just there for their use? I think that line would be called out as being disrespectful, misogynistic, and the character being a pig.
At first, I thought these were moments of intentional misandry on the film’s part. It seemed as if these scenes were foreshadowing Connor not being ready to have sex, with Kayla realizing that not all men are sex-crazed, that she’s been just as bad as a perverted guy, and ultimately learns from the experience to be more considerate of others's feelings regardless of gender. Yet that isn’t what happens. Blockers does not condemn Kayla’s actions, nor does she learn any lesson from acting as such.
Here’s a film that advocates women’s equal rights to party hard like men, yet also advocates that woman needn’t be held to the same gentility men are when it comes to respecting their opposing gender. It’s a double standard in a film trying to make a point about the idiocracy of double standards. Now I’ve explained Blockers’ issue, but what could have been the solution? Quite simply, have the daughter learn a lesson and mature in her thinking by the end. Have the guy be uncomfortable with having sex, make her realize that not all men are horny animals and come out of the situation a more considerate and mature person. It would have allowed the film to be an effective, gender subverting teen-sex comedy without backfiring on its own message.
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