What a drag
If there is a movie that might make me agree with
conservative pundits assailing the "vulgarity" and
gross-out humor of contemporary U.S. culture and much
recent Hollywood teen fare, Sorority Boys would be
it. This is not to say that I agree with the diagnosis,
that dick jokes and potty humor point to a "fundamental
moral breakdown" or "coarsening" of social life (or
something like that). Rather, my diagnosis would be that,
contrary to the self-justification for their
"inappropriate" humor as an antidote to liberal PC
bullshit, the increase of films like Sorority Boys
demonstrates the persistence of structural and systemic
bigotries like homophobia and sexism.
Who would have thought that one day I might recall
American Pie 2 and think it showed considerable
restraint and some rather sophisticated humor (at least in
comparison to its scions). Or that I might come to
appreciate Tom
Green's generally atrocious Freddy Got Fingered. But
at least Freddy knew what it was doing, which was
basically daring us to laugh at its vulgar excess and
outrageousness. Sorority Boys, on the other hand,
never quite rises to the level of self-conscious parody,
but merely replicates the same old stereotypes.
In its defense -- well, sort of -- Sorority Boys
never falls into overt racial, ethnic, or cultural slurs
(except for the hairy French chick), but this is perhaps
due to the general overwhelming whiteness of the teen sex
comedy. There are a few black characters scattered here and
there (a fraternity brother named Big Johnson, for
instance), but of course they are, with one exception,
non-speaking roles.
Much worse, Sorority Boys assumes that its audience
is complicit with its humor, that we all "get it" and on
some level agree with it, even if we wouldn't admit it
publicly. The film plays out the power struggles between
several Greek organizations on some imaginary college
campus. The very names of the houses establish the humor's
level of sophistication, as well as the presumptions it
makes about audience. The frat from hell here is Kappa
Omicron Kappa, or Cock, er, I mean KOK, a stereotypically
piggish group of beer-swilling Neanderthals. The KOKs
police their parties with the game of "dog catcher," in
which the brothers locate an "ugly" girl who has somehow
infiltrated their house, throw a net over her, and toss her
out the front door. This is usually done to sisters of the
Delta Omicron Gamma house across the street, who have it
out for the boys and their misogynist abuses. Of course, as
their Greek acronym declares, these are the girls who live
in the DOG house. They are sad, pathetic, and, well, just
plain ugly -- except for the romantic lead, Leah (Melissa
Sagemiller), who is "ugly" apparently because she wears
glasses -- just like the real dogs "we" all know in "real"
life. If these girls would spend more time on looking good
rather than on complaining about patriarchal oppression,
they wouldn't be alone on Saturday nights, or so the film
suggests. The DOGs are contrasted to the "pretty" sorority
on campus, the Tri-Pis, who are superficial and bitchy, and
all of whom -- as one KOK brother asserts -- "give great
head." So we have cocks and dogs and pies. Very original
and very clever.
The plot isn't really worth going into. Suffice it to say
the story is contrived at best, filled with an endless
litany of fag jokes and derogatory remarks about women's
bodies and bodily functions. One might expect this to
change a little bit, once our sorority brothers, Dave/Daisy
(Barry Watson of tv's 7th Heaven), Doofer/Roberta
(Harland Williams) and Adam/Adina (Michael Rosenbaum of
Smallville), get into their drag routines. But of
course, this just brings the boys closer to the real lives
of the DOGs and gives them more fodder for their sexism.
This girl is totally hairy, that one is having a "heavy
flow day," and all they do is mope around and complain how
poorly boys and the world in general treat them.
Sorority Boys does, however, try desperately to
overcome its own prejudices by tacking on some "ugly girls
need love and respect too" moral to the end of the film.
It's an afterthought that doesn't quite fit with, or make
up for, everything that precedes it.
One thing director Wally Wolodarsky was seemingly blind to
is how Sorority
Boys undoes its own self-satisfied ribbing of political
correctness and
assertion of the progressiveness of "inappropriate" humor.
One of the film's
subplots is about Dave/Daisy's impending graduation and how
his father is going to set him (and his pals) up with a job
through the old-boys-network. When we see these older KOK
brothers/father figures ogling the Tri-Pis and slapping
their asses on the annual "KOK-tail Cruise," we realize
that, indeed, this is exactly how things still work.
Social, economic, and political power accrues to KOKs, not
to DOGs or Tri-Pis, or any other "others." The doors of
power and authority are opened via connections between
(white) men, which are most often based on a series of
intolerances and prejudices against women, gays, blacks,
etc., and as all these members of the fraternity, young and
old, demonstrate. But didn't "we" already know that?
