November 18, 2013

What I Learned At School Today

This may be a recycled title but I don't know if you've noticed, I'm not creative. Sooo... yea... that's the title.

In the last couple years, I've become disappointed by my movie watching habits. I remember a plethora of days when I would come home and watch Rob Zombie's Halloween for the umpteenth time or even Ravenous-- RAVENOUS! The movie that ACTUALLY made me, ME, not eat meat for two days.

Totally random note: if anyone is looking for a movie with the most random soundtrack ever created and doesn't mind an intense amount of gore surrounding cannibalism and a bastardization of the Native American windigo story, check out Ravenous. You unfortunately see Robert Carlyle's butt and even more unfortunately, you don't see Guy Pearce's butt. However, there's a dramatic scene where the cannibal is chasing a bunch of soldiers in the woods which is... embellished?... by polka music. Folk polka. The director in the commentary said they wanted it to mimic a heart racing... um, ok, sure.

Anyway, in the last year or so, that hasn't been the case-- I come home and watch normal people TV and now that I have cable on my personal TV (biggest mistake ever), I've been watching things like "Bridesmaids" and "50/50". Ok, 50/50 is friggin' awesome; it's funny but makes you think about life. I already gave a play-by-play on Ravenous which is not that epic so I'll refrain from doing it again even though 50/50 is much more deserving. But Bridesmaids? That shit was ridiculous. And terrible. It made me want to Falcon Punch every woman I know and even slap the women I really like (like my best friends) just for good measure. And what happened to the main male role in chick flicks being hot? We used to have Cary freakin' Grant on the big screen and now it's that dude that I know I've seen in a couple films but he's not remotely interesting physically or personality-wise so I haven't really bothered to remember his name... you know, that dude.

Faith has been restored to my movie selection-- chick flicks are still terrible. And I should give myself even more credit because back in April, I had a friend tell me how the new "Evil Dead" movie was actually good. But everyone says that with horror films, I wasn't convinced... until she uttered the words, "The tree-rape scene was REALLY convincing." Tree rape?! Well that's different. Sold. So, go figure, when I got cable on my personal TV a month ago, the first thing I found was the Evil Dead and I started watching it.

This segues into the actual goal of my post: many people have asked me what type of stuff I learn in my human sexuality program. This semester I took a course on human reproductive biology and it is the icing on the "education will suck the fun out of activities you used to enjoy like horror movies" cake.

So, I missed the first few minutes of the movie (if someone could explain what the fuck the necklace in the end was about, that'd be great) but you come in on a mostly White bunch in the woods that have found some shit that is CLEARLY creepy and, obviously, start messing with it. This is where I start pondering how privilege allows White people from suburbia do the stupidest shit. Anybody that comes from a cultural place where you have to be concerned about your safety would never be messing with that shit.

But ok, one goob of the bunch finds a book with a bunch of Latin in it (which later in the movie has random phrases in English sprinkled throughout the pages, which makes ZERO sense) and he starts to read it... aloud. And on the first try, pronounces everything correctly enough to summon demons and shit. Now, in bio, I had to constantly refer to "y-aminobutyric acid", "17-hydroxypregnenolone," and, my favorite, "dehydroepiandrosterone sulphate". I still cannot pronounce these things unless I talk like I was kicked in the head by horse-- how the hell do people in horror movies magically pronounce this crap right to summon spirits. Oh and they just happen to know what the Latin means. Yes, because a) the American school system is that stellar everyone knows Latin b) kids always choose learning Latin over Spanish or French and c) Latin is spoken all the time, everywhere.

But ok, spirits are summoned and now they are going to enter this one chick in a very non-consensual manner, disappearing inside of the poor girl. Here's where my mind trails off to where does that part of the tree go? OMG, IT GOES WHERE THE SPERM GOES!!!

There's a story to this response-- when we were studying the female anatomy we reviewed how the Fallopian tubes/oviducts are not actually connected to the ovary, the edges just sort of open to the ovary, waiting to receive ovum. We continued on to sexual response and such where we talked about how the normal fertile range of ejaculate contains millions of sperm. It swims up the vagina, through the cervix, across the uterus, down the Fallopian tubes in a very survivor fashion. And since sperm is from dudes where they don't ask for directions to the egg, they just keep swimming straight... One of my classmates started putting this together and asked, "Where does the sperm go?!" and, naturally, I yelled across the room, "I KNOW, RIGHT?!?!?!" This shit is like the White House tour, we will show you a couple rooms like the vagina and the uterus, but you do not have permission to just go where ever the hell you want in my body now. No. Tour is over. Leave."

So I'm pretty sure that's where the tree went. And then I'm wondering, rape is about power, not sex, so if you're a demon, why bother? You're a demon. Do you need that extra power trip into the body? Is that necessary? You're just going to jack with the girl's mind for the rest of the movie, she won't have time to be psychologically scarred and vulnerable.

The girl starts acting a little devilish (get it?) and you get the stereotypical scene where it's very clear that she's off her nut and very dangerous but her oblivious friends are asking, "Are you ok? Why are you carrying a shotgun? I don't think you should do that." and she attacks her friend, vomiting blood all over her. This is when I realize, possession is like AIDS. You get it through the transmission of bodily fluids and it's not actually the AIDS that kills you-- what kills you is an infection that takes advantage of your weak immune system, making you cut off your own face.

The movie continues on predictably-- the possessed girl tortures and kills her friends with a couple of them having moments of clarity that save her ass in the end. All sprinkled with lapses of good judgment and poor nonverbal communication reading. Note: if someone is twitching uncontrollably and randomly while holding a shotgun, possessed or not, you probably shouldn't approach them.

And I sit there wondering what a possession movie would look like with all the characters being Atheist or Buddhist. Just something that isn't Catholic.

But that's what school has taught me. Possession is AIDS and you should wrap it before you go reading nonsense out in the woods. You are also probably screwed if you hear polka music.