Laser Jock wrote:I agree with Fredjikrang. My personal take, after a little thought, is that it's not really objectionable because the characters have implied immoral behavior; I wouldn't have had a problem if Captain Hammer had stopped after "I'm going to show her the night of her life." At that point, most people probably figured out what he meant. To me, the other remarks were simply crude and offensive. I understand that most of the rest of you here don't see them that way. :) But it was the crudeness that disappoints me. It's the crudeness that means I can't recommend this to my family or friends.
I know there's plenty of crudity in Shakespeare; I was rather surprised after reading The Taming of the Shrew back in high school, for instance. And I didn't like it there either. :)
On a more general note, some people made arguments that I found intriguing. Why is "Shakespeare did it too" a convincing argument to those of you who used it? Along the same lines, other shows/commercials/people are crude, true; how does that affect this example of crudeness? (I promise, I'm not trying to pull some sort of "morality card" here; the arguments just don't seem all that logical to me, so I'm curious to see if anyone can make them make sense to me.)
(Note again that I have only watched through the second act.) Well, I guess that unless such references are meant to be pornographic--meant to make you see another person as a sex object, or be titillating, or some such, I just don't see it as that personally offensive. Thus, I don't like the type of innuendo found on your typical dumb sitcom, if the implicature is "look how happy we are with our loose sexual mores! You're just silly if you don't sleep around like us!"
I didn't get that, however, from Dr. Horrible. It wasn't painting The Hammer in a favorable light, and I don't think Mr. Whedon was trying to get you to do/think things that we would consider inappropriate. I think he's trying to portray The Hammer as having the mentality of a teenaged boy, and as I recall, guys will make dumb jokes like that all the time.
One objection I could see being raised if you thought it was excessively misandrist or something--if it seemed like it was saying that all guys are just that dumb all the time. But I don't think that is quite true either.
I think the Shakespeare card works for me because the common consensus is that it's not some trashy bodice-ripper . . . pretty sure his works are among the greatest English literature ever produced. And comedies are meant to be funny, and well . . . some of the double-entendres are pretty danged funny and clever. With Shakespeare, there's always another layer of meaning, so there certainly a way you can read it that is more innocent but still makes semantic sense. Also, sometimes it's quite critical to the plot that characters have had sex (
Measure for Measure), so . . . it makes sense that he would reference it, I suppose. Hopefully people don't object to it on those grounds . . . also pretty critical to
The Scarlet Letter, and that's definitely not a dirty book by any stretch of the imagination.
Not that I never object to crudeness.
The Grapes of Wrath had the "F" word about every few pages, it seemed like, and I hated that book. That's something I find to be crude, unnecessary, etc. But as far as such language goes, I think saying the actual anatomical term is pretty mild, and if anything, it's The Hammer's ego and lack of consideration for others that is more offensive.
But it was the crudeness that disappoints me. It's the crudeness that means I can't recommend this to my family or friends.
