I walked out of The 40-Year-Old Virgin pleased but also unblemished. The film is unremittingly sweet-natured about its scatology, not unlike Anchorman or Farrelly brothers’ goofiness. (This isn’t really a post about verdicts, but: I’d recommend it, but the film is never as delirious as Ferrell or Farrelly can get, and far from the exuberant heights of Parker & Stone or The Aristocrats.) But I’m curious about unpacking a little of the alleged return of the hard “R,” or the (now decades–or is it centuries?–old) “return” to the irreverently bawdy.
But rather than the neat either/or that pops up in so many reviews (is crude, or is compassionate, and on rare occasions like Carell’s movie is both) I was wondering if we could get at a bit broader range of options for examining the games obscenity lets us play. I’ll start. Continue reading Why Obscenity Matters