Movie review time!
"Whats Your Number" is one of what I like to call "sex-com"...like a rom-com, but far more about the shagging, lots of dirty jokes and side boobs. I actually quite like them - lots of fun, and not quite so sappy as the traditional fare, although as always, the movie revolves around the finding of a man.
The premise of this particular offering is that Ali, a late 20s/early 30s single girl, reads a magazine article about the average number of sex workers a woman has (10.5, apparently), and which also claims to quote a study saying that women who have more than 20 partners cannot find a husband. As she hits number 20 within the first ten minutes of the movie, she decides to revisit her old boyfriends in the hope that one will have changed and become perfect for her. She does this with the help of her hot and slutty neighbor, who she hates at first, but then (spoiler alert) ends up falling in love with.
The movie has some great points. It's really funny. The actors are great, the characters believable (if a little cliche), and there are some fantastic side stories. The sister's wedding is a really cute side story, and the character of the mother is fantastically drawn - to the point that I made my sister watch the movie because she was so similar to our mother. There are moments that are truly relate-able, which is nice - and what feels (to me, anyway) to be an appropriate amount of drinking. One of my favorite things is also that our girl Ali seems to have a reasonably sized, styled and cleaned apartment. She also has something approaching a normal wardrobe, and spends most of the movie in jeans and a tank top. Thank god.
However.
While the movie itself is cute, funny, and surprisingly engaging, the basic premise makes my little horny soul hurt. It could just as easily be called "Are You A Big Ol Whore?"
This is slut-shaming at it's finest, and an hour and a half of it, at that.
Not only is the entire movie based on the idea that there is some magic number that will make all the difference to your chances of finding a husband, it perpetuates the idea that finding a husband is the ultimate goal. Despite the fact that Ali loses her job around this time, she is fixating on finding a man, not a career. Great role modelling. The wedding side-story really drives this point home. Successful younger sister gets married, throws hot mess older sister into a tailspin. All about the big white dress.
Frankly, when I first saw it, I was appalled at the number itself! Or more to the point, I was appalled that she was so appalled. Is 20 really so appalling? More to the point, who on earth would be so affected by one little article. At no point does it occur to her just to get over it, and be ok with who she is. Her girlfriends may have something to do with it, as they seem horrifically judgemental, asking who could possibly have slept with more than thirteen people (let alone twenty), and talk about "pelvic floor" as though it's all about numbers of men rather than amount of sex....(Monday Morning Rant is brought to you by...).
The most appalling (or possibly, the most reassuring) thing is the comparison between Ali and Colin, the slutty neighbor. Seeing as Colin sleeps with around four women during the movie (that we know of - there is definitely the possibility of more, seeing as part of the help-me-out deal is allowing him to hide from one-night-stands in her apartment), it is safe to assume that his number is well above the dreaded twenty. However, he doesn't seem to care. In fact, he is the only person who asks her why she cares. But Ali doesn't seem to be fazed by his man-slut behavior. She seems to think it's fairly normal for guys, simply calling him a "pig" once or twice. And by the end of the movie, when she realizes that she loves him (obviously), not once does she even think about the sheer number of people he has slept with.
Apparently, she is in on the double standard - fully on board with the idea that she is a skank for banging a few guys, but that he can (in her words) sleep with all of Boston, and it's ok.
The ending killed me a little. For a moment there, I thought it would work. It looked like she was figuring out that she shouldn't stress about an arbitrary number, that she shouldn't fake a personality for a guy....
But then they blow it. Not only does she leave her sister's WEDDING to go hunt down a man (who wouldn't exactly be hard to find the next day - for Christ's sake, he lives across the HALL), but it ends with the discovery that she had passed out next to someone on her list without actually having sex, so she is still not over twenty.
Sigh.
By all means, watch the movie. But only if you are old enough and ugly enough to make your own decisions about what, exactly, counts as "slutty".
Or just ignore all of the underlying messages, and pay attention to one thing. Colin. Who is sharp, funny, and makes a lot of sense. Pay especial attention to his advice on sex (give a great blowjob, but don't worry about figuring out the hand job, because every guy already has) and sluttiness (that a guy isn't going to care how many people you have slept with). Luckily, he is also played by Chris Evans, and he spends a vast amount of time partially clothed.
I can cope with a little slut-shaming for those abs.
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