Bang Moms, But NOT Dads: 5 Weird Lessons From Movies

5

Congress Is Evil, Presidents Are Awesome

There are more evil politicians in movies than there are lower back tattoos at a Saliva concert. And yet none of them ever seem to be the president. Seriously, every movie with a shady politician somehow manages to limit their offices to senators and congressmen, with the occasional CIA director thrown in to keep things spicy. Operation Treadstone is always created and run without the president's knowledge or involvement.

Universal Studios"OK guys, the plan is set. Don't go telling the President about it now!"

Movies like Iron Man 3, X-Men, the Star Wars prequels, Bob Roberts, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, The American President, and others revolve primarily around conspiratorial senators, vice presidents, and the like abusing their power. But why? Wouldn't it make more sense to have an evil president? After all, isn't that a scarier proposition?

Then films like Air Force One, Independence Day, and the bizarrely interchangeable Olympus Has Fallen / White House Down combo take it a step further, depicting the president as a gun-toting ass-kicker who's immune to the seductive charms of stupid "politics."

Columbia PicturesPresident of the United States of FuckShitUp

So What's The Deal?

Americans tend to see Congress as a bunch of old, out-of-touch white men deep in the pockets of special interests. We don't agree on much these days, but we do agree on how much we hate the people we elected to office. In real life, the American government is protected by a system of checks and balances that don't allow any one branch (or person) to completely take over. But an efficiently run bipartisan commission doesn't readily lend itself to shootouts with M16s or badass one-liners.

Marvel StudiosAnd even fewer lend themselves to the president wearing Iron Man armor.

4

Banging Moms Is Awesome, Banging Dads Is Horrifying

A surprisingly large number of movies draw humor from a character's mom being attractive. This embarrassingly good-looking mother flits about, giving her child shame and everybody else throbbing erections. Stifler's mom in American Pie was the first woman in pop culture to be reverently referred to as a MILF. Barney from How I Met Your Mother (hilariously) loses his virginity to his friend's mom, Rhonda "The Manmaker" French, and "becomes a man" because of it. And pretty much all the guys in Always Sunny have had sex with each other's moms. Screenwriters love mining the humor potential of young men and older women lusting after each other. Sometimes it's supposed to be gross, but it's never seriously wrong.

Universal Pictures"We're really, really horny, which makes it OK!".

3

Bostonian Men Are Emotionally Stunted

From The Departed to The Boondock Saints to The Town, movies would have us believe that Boston is the national capital of repression. And even though Leonardo DiCaprio infiltrates a murderous gang in The Departed, while Matt Damon infiltrates the ivory tower in Good Will Hunting, you'd be hard-pressed to find many other differences in their characters. Casey Affleck has built such a career out of his Boston accent and mopey face that he desperately tried to avoid using the accent in his Oscar-winning performance for Manchester By The Sea. To no avail.

Roadside Attractions"It was really hahd ta do. Go Sox!"

2

The Death Of A Woman Is Way More Important Than The Death Of A Man

When we see Bruce Wayne's parents murdered in Batman v. Superman, we watch his mother die so very, very slowly. This is a huge part of the film, and who Batman becomes. Stupid or not, the whole third act hinges around his mother -- specifically, her name. Oh, also his dad died too. Probably. Who gives a shit?

Warner Bros."We've seen these assholes die too many times as it is. Get to the bat-punching."

In Braveheart, it's definitely sad that Billy Braveheart's father dies, but when his wife dies, he decides to burn Scotland to the ground. Women are just inherently less killable than men.

So What's The Deal?

For decades, we've seen men killed in every imaginable way. Limbs are torn off, brains are blown out, and so many dicks have been punched that it's a wonder children are still being born at all. And yet it's usually "Oh no! He's dead! Welp, no use dwelling on the past!" We've been conditioned to expect men to escape from all sorts of harrowing situations using their wit and brawn, so it feels like a real man would have found a way to turn the tables on his fate. If a man dies, you don't want to rub it in by, like, making a big deal out of it. But women usually need saving. Having a woman beaten, murdered, or otherwise harmed is supposed to remind us that the stakes are high. To Hollywood, a woman's death simply means more. Not her life, though. Haha, don't be ridiculous!

NBCUniversalShit's about to get real.

1

People With Prosthetic Limbs Are Evil

You see a person with a prosthetic limb and think, I wonder what happened to that otherwise entirely normal person? Screenwriters see people with prosthetic limbs and think, What did those evil bastards do to deserve losing a whole limb?!

TriStar Pictures"Fuck this guy and his difficulty wiping!"

What is the final step in the loss of Anakin Skywalker's humanity? Getting all his body parts chopped off, forcing him to be remade as an evil magical space robot ... wizard. The one-armed man in The Fugitive was hired to knock off Dr. Richard Kimble's wife despite A) it being way harder to kill people with only one arm, and B) a one-armed guy being infinitely easier to trace. That leads us to think that in the world of The Fugitive, it's damn near impossible to hire a murderer with all his appendages. Bucky from the Captain America: The Winter Soldier isn't merely killing people; he's killing people with a robot arm. That's so much worse!

Marvel StudiosOriginally, instead of the red star, it was going to be little stamps for how many puppies he crushed.