My Report report

Hey world, Observe and Report has something to say to you:

The mall is by design a source of many things, but in Jody Hill's Observe and Report, it's mostly a place to find misery. Through the double doors is a flasher, unrequited love that's more embarrassing than classically tragic (thus all the more tragic), a guy shooting up, a police beating and a pervasive sense of status anxiety. The shopping center as suffering center metaphor works perfectly in a film as deceptively noncommercial as this. It casts Seth Rogen, beloved Hollywood go-to schlub for middle-of-the-road yuks, as a rage-filled, racist failure in a film that's the fucked-up, reckless and cum-reeking brother of the decidedly frothier, much more popular Paul Blart: Mall Cop (that movie grossed over six times the amount of money Observe did in the U.S.). The people who did see Observe, who has no reason not to expect just another lighthearted stumble down the escalator, must have felt like this:

It's a film so slyly subversive, it's as though the point is to be unpopular. For the first half or so, we view Rogen's Ronnie, the head of security at Forest Ridge Mall who wears his personal insecurities like a badge (he berates a news reporter that dares to refer to him without his official title), as we would any other manchild-just-'cause in typical contemporary Hollywood comedy. We watch him bumble through the mall as he attempts to solve the case of a serial flasher who's been exposing himself to women ("I'm gonna fuck you!" "Touch it, slut!" "See my dick!" growls the flasher early on, setting up the film's ha...ha? tone). At the same time, we watch him fumble to win the heart of make-up-counter worker Brandi (Anna Faris), who's skeezy and kind of gross, but still way out of Ronnie's league. He doesn't do very well in any of his endeavors, of course. He's immediately upstaged by Detective Harrison, who's played by Ray Liotta (who I suspect has teamed up with Faye Dunaway to get matching plastic surgery so that they can become each other, a la Genesis P-Orridge and his departed soul mate Lady Jaye).

Little by little, the cracks start to show. Ronnie says inexcusable things ("Fuck you, Sadam Hussein of Iraq!") to an East Indian guy (played by Aziz Ansari), who works at a mall cart. He finds himself in the middle of a gang fight that he wins, tearing someone's flesh and exposing bone in the process (the film's flashes of brutal violence may distract some, but they feel really fucking honest to me). He admits to Brandi that he takes Clonazepam (you may know it as Klonopin), and she gladly helps herself to his stash (who's sadder?). Then, during an interview for his dream job (that of a real cop), he reveals that he has bipolar disorder. Here, Observe and Report ceases being the average dumb-guy-does-dumb-shit-because-dumb-is-funny comedy because it gives a reason for its anti-hero's behavior. In your average Will Ferrell farce, you're supposed to accept the idiocy and arrested development of the protagonist: why would you want to question anything that serves the comedy? And look, I get how absurdity works, but I can barely express how refreshing Observe's bit of levity is.

This explanation makes all the difference, and I'd argue that once Ronnie's condition is revealed, the film not only ceases being a dumb comedy, it ceases being a comedy all together. Sure, funny lines abound in either half of the film ("I have mace and Tasers. Fuck you."; "Part of me thinks this disgusting pervert is the best thing that ever happened to me."; "Everyone thinks they’re fine until someone puts something in them they don’t want in them."; "I’m switching to beer. I can pound those all day and still keep my shit together. And I’m doing it for you!" [The last one, by the way, belongs to Ronnie's mother, whose coddling, verbal abuse and overall inappropriateness also help explain why Ronnie is the way he is.]). Sure, the scene in which Ronnie and his security partner Dennis (Michael Peña) beat the shit out of rule-violating skateboarders is outrageous enough to elicit at least nervous laughter. But after Ronnie's reveal, it's unclear whether we're laughing at circumstance or his condition. Admirably, there are no easy answers, not even when Ronnie has sex with an inebriated Brandi after their date.

The controversial scene opens with him on top of her, and she appears to be passed out with vomit next to her. He stops mid-thrust and asks if she's OK. She comes to and slurs, "Why'd you stop motherfucker?" The scene sparked outrage in people who saw it as rape played for laughs. Antonia Zerbisias wrote, "...Retroactive consent is not consent," but the thing is that we have no idea whether the expressed consent is retroactive -- the scene jumps from outside of Brandi's house, so that we are unsure how aware she was moments before we cut in (if having sex with an obliterated girl constitutes rape, virtually every straight guy in America is a rapist). Regardless, this is a bold edit that shrouds the possible violation in the kind of ambiguity Observe is wrapped in. We could be watching rape, we could be watching two fucked-up people fucking. (It seems consensual to me -- they're both fucked up in their own ways and neither want to stop having sex.) Hill leaves the conclusion up to the viewer. There's barely an implied laugh track to be found in Observe and Report, and that might be the most disturbing thing about it.

Comments

[Vampy]

This was not a Let's Talk About Rape Forum, this was a movie review...FFS some of you need to have a cocktail and get over yourselves.

Two drunk people having sex is NOT rape - it's college ;)

[zamblee]

"When a girl is so drunk that she has puked on the pillow next to you and can barely speak, she cannot give consent."

So if the guy involved is drunk as well, is he also being raped? Are they both being raped by the situation?

[matthew]

This is the stupidest debate I've ever seen on fourfour. Of course you can be drunk and consent to sex at the same time. How do I know? because I've done it LOL

[matthew]

Also another thing is that rape is contextual and the only person who knows for sure if it has happened or not is the person it has happened to- it's their call and their call only.

[Magali]

I think what I hate most about reading all these comments is that nobody is considering that he is absolutely obliterated and has 0 capability to consent as well. That puts a lot more ambiguity back into the situation than what everyone is suggesting.

[metsa]

Hmm, I suspect that if he was as obliterated as her, he wouldn't be able to perform. But maybe not. at the same time, it seems to be consentual (from what Rich says), and I do think that rape is too serious a charge to be thrown round lightly. Obviously, this is just a movie. and obviously, the director is deliberately blurring the line, perhaps to make people think and perhaps just to drum up interest in the movie. I don't think all these discussions can resolve whether a fictional scene, taken possibly out of context (since we are not shown the start of the sex apparently) is rape - there's too many unknowns. And I'm a woman and I've never been sexually assaulted, thank God. Also, I know my fiance would NEVER take advantage of me when I was drunk, I have a hard enough time convincing him I really do want it when I'm drunk, he's worried that it's only the alcohol talking and I'll feel used in the morning. So decent guys do exist and not everyone think sex with drunk people is acceptable.

[Kerlyssa]

Sure, being threatened into having sex isn't rape, because she said yes!

It's threads like these which make the movie disgusting, Posters, because it shows all the nice attitudes people have towards rape.

Which is that the girl really wanted it, that the girl didn't want it but that doesn't matter because This Is The Real World, Honey, should have said no, should have said no even if she was alone with a guy that scared the shit out of her and wasn't accepting no as an answer, should have said no even if she was with someone she trusted and therefore had no idea that she had to spell out No Rapies as a rule, shouldn't have passed out(vomiting and unconsciousness=consent), and all guys do it so it isn't rape.

The amusing thing is then people go and say, it's a good movie because it brings up the messiness in life, and then waaaah when the following discussion brings up that rape is bad. Because apparently they just wanted a DIFFERENT neat answer, that fucking unconscious girls is ok.

[Jason]

This conversation has devolved into complete nonsense. Rape is bad? Seriously? Thanks for the news bulletin.

What I wanna know is how many people are commenting here without even having seen the film. Because we might recall that we're discussing that right now and not the varieties of everyone's victimhood. Do people just google the word rape and jump into a conversation screaming "Rape is bad! Rape is bad!" with nothing substantial to offer on the actual thing we're discussing, which is a movie that has 85 minutes around this scene and a review that has paragraphs around it addressing that scene?

I mean, perhaps instead of sussing out Hill's intentions with the movie I should just go on about that time I was playing the in yard when I was 7 while my mother was sexually assaulted by a stranger that broke into our house inside? I think that would definitely be a very important thing to discuss in relation to this movie. Because ME! Me is more important than any actual insight anyone might have on the actual topic at hand. Jesus Christ.

[The Savage]

Drink/drugging yourself unconscious near a man who has obvious designs on your honor is like walking in Brownsville Brooklyn at 3 am with a hundred dollar bill hanging out of your fanny pack while looking at a map of Manhattan.

Do you deserve to get raped/mugged? No. Should you be surprised? No. Do you share some culpability for the circumstances that gave rise to your victimization? Yes.

Side-note: great how the queens college woman who falsely accused 5 men of rape gets a slap on the wrist.

The intermediate state between the obvious "brave new world" style dystopian future that awaits and the Victorian handkerchief dropping male-female relationship of the past is this absurd cocktail of moral outrage and soulless thrusting into one another.

[Will]

His schtick might be getting a bit old, but I happen to think Seth Rogan is pretty hot (well, not in this movie... but other ones). I'm glad we have dudes in movies who are on the chunkier side and still cute. I'm sick of looking at skinny hollywood guys all the time.

[lm]

You know, I couldn't care less about the rape debate going on here. What I got from the review, was that the movie was supposed to be a dumb comedy, but once you find out the main character is bipolar your opinion of him is supposed to change. Is it?
I am bipolar, and the idea of him doing ridiculous, manic things, and it being funny when he did them originally, and not so much after the fact...well that hits close to home. In my past I've done some 'funny' things, and after learning later it was do to a manic episode, you feel like shit about it. Almost like I'd rather just be considered a dumbass, douchebag, crazy 20-something than my doctor telling me its a 'symptom' of my disease. And also the "well he's bipolar so maybe its no longer funny"....does that mean his behavior is excusable? Well its really not. Anyone who is dxed bpd and takes meds (especially like Clonazepam) is on a short leash with their doctor. You beat the shit out of someone, and chances are you're going to the doctor or hospital asap.

I could see how it is interesting, comparing the other dumb movies and their dumb characters with no 'excuse' to their behavior. I don't find it refreshing, this added dimension to a stupid comedy (which remains a stupid comedy), because well, it gives us all a bad rep. Just like the Informant is going to. It's not a true or fair representation of bpd. But c'est la vie, it's just a movie.

[cizmad]

As long as we can agree that everyone who has ever had sex with a drunk person is a Rapist, I think we can go forward with consensus.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go put myself in prison for the four-year-long Rape Nightmare Parade that was College. I can only hope all of my sexual partners are also taking themselves off the streets - I know two of them are still Raping each other almost every weekend.

Look, Kerlyssa, I get that your perspective is something that people need to hear, but it is a hyperbolic reaction to the other, equally ignorant extreme, which is the idea that rape is only committed by masked strangers in dark alleys and anything else is just "boys being boys". I'm not, and never have been, arguing that fucking unconscious girls is okay, but I am arguing that there's a lot more gray area than everyone's liberal arts school Sexual Information Center ever allows. If two people who are plastered have sex (and lots of people who are plastered want to have sex) and one of them passes out in the middle, it doesn't make the other a rapist. Yes, it's a problem that there are girls who can be intimidated into sex, and there are sleazeball guys who will do it. But there are also guys who will have no idea that the girl is intimidated, or feeling pressured by his presence, that are one missed signal or unarticulated boundary away from being called a rapist for the rest of their lives, and that is also unfair.

Obviously the solution is communication, but sex is wrapped up in hundreds of lairs of personal and societal insecurities, so that's not going to happen easily or quickly. Right now the running jargon pretty much calls any ambiguous heterosexual situation Rape or Sexual Assault against the man, which is massively unbalanced (granted, that unbalance works in exactly the opposite way in a lot of conservative courts) and right now the paradigm seems to exclude Queer sexuality completely.

So we need to step back from the Rape label, I think, as a culture, then again every time I take that stand I get a lot of responses starting with "It's because of MEN like YOU..."

[cizmad]

Eh... just realized that I implied that I think your position is equally ignorant to the other extreme, which I don't. I do think it's equally extreme, but the other perspective is obviously the ignorant one.

[Vera]

Sorry, Rich, but here sits another one who loves your blog, reads it religiously, and was severely disappointed by this post. I didn't see Observe and Report, so I can't nitpick on the scene in question, but to say:

"if having sex with an obliterated girl constitutes rape, virtually every straight guy in America is a rapist"

is both ignorant and really, really depressing to me. Because unfortunately, yes, there are a lot of straight guys who think that's totally okay (gay guys too, for that matter), and when they see other men saying things like this, that only reinforces the idea in their heads. Having sex with a girl so drunk she can't possibly say yes or no with any awareness of the situation is absolutely rape. Is it different if both parties are that drunk? Possibly. But the implication in your post -- and, I believe, from what I've read about it, the movie -- is that the woman is far drunker than the man. That's absolutely not ever okay.

Here's a decent guide, Men of America: if your partner is so drunk s/he runs the risk of choking on their own puke and dying in the middle of the act,they're too drunk to say no.

[liz]

I'm glad you reviewed this. My husband and I saw it in the theater and LOVED it--and we both thought, "Well, 90% of America is going to hate this movie." Well done.

[Bag It Tag It]

N (and others) - we're not angry at Rich, and neither are our little dogs. We're angry at the constant marginalization and dismissal of rape victims in our culture. It exists outside of Reclaim the Night meetings; it's part of the fabric of our culture, which includes fluffy li'l pop culture, and we are allowed to be angry. Don't try and take that away from us with an eyeroll.

[EZ Mac]

Step away from the "rape" label? Why? Because it makes the poor men uncomfortable?

Here's an idea, cizmad: if you and your bros don't want to be called a rapist, how about you don't fuck women too drunk to consent. How about you try to find out when you're being intimidating, or pay enough attention to your partner to find out what the signals are. Or better yet, GET CONSENT. What in the world is so hard about that? IT REALLY ISN'T DIFFICULT TO NOT RAPE SOMEBODY.

[Jason]

So I guess we're not gonna talk about the movie at all then? Okay, I guess I'll go over the forums at RAINN and see if anybody's seen it there.

[www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=656100197]

Ummmm are you serious? Of coarse the movie wasn't funny - it sucked. Marketing aside, I at least expected to see a film with relateable characters and good acting, not a bad attempt at a Todd Solondz film.

[Robert]

I tend to really dumb guys do dumb things so it's funny comedies and I really dug Observe and Report. It's really well acted and the reveal halfway through the film really takes it to unexpected places. I don't think my brother has forgiven me for making him go when it was in theaters. I think he would have rather seen Paul Blart on DVD. But that's the risk of going to a really subversive, twisted film with anyone who doesn't know exactly what they're getting into.

[moe]

I'm pretty sure both Seth Rogen and Anna Faris actually referred to the scene as the "date rape" scene, which should tell you something.

That, you know, it's rape.

[cizmad]

I've never been called a rapist, EZ Mac. Maybe it was the Women's Studies and Sexuality and Society classes in High School, the training and working at planned parenthood in east Cleveland and for my college's Sexual Information Center during college, the year volunteering teaching Sex Ed and Sexual Health in public schools, or just dumb luck, but I've somehow managed to only have sex with partners I trusted and could communicate with, some of whom are women.

And... maybe it's just the internal backlash from having come through all of that education that makes me feel like the pendulum has swung way too far in the opposite direction, from "Women showing ankle are of ill moral fibre and are responsible for arousing the passions of the gentleman!" to "Henry is a rapist because Joanna says so, even though she grabbed for his junk, because only a rape victim knows when it's rape", but I definitely feel like it's ridiculous, and most of my BROS (those people I know that agree with me?) are also the hyper-sex-educated products of a liberal arts school with an unusual focus on the subject, and many of those bros are women.

And no, we shouldn't step away from the rape label because it makes the poor men uncomfortable, we should step away from it because if we keep calling all of the ambiguities rape, eventually we'll forget what rape actually IS - an intentional violation, not a mistake or a miscommunication.

I know it's easier to picture everyone waving the "That's Not Rape" flag as Tall-Boy chugging cap-wearing puka-shell-necklace-in-middle-school-having dudebros, but do the people on the opposing side of the argument the justice of not assuming we're all roofie-slinging morons?

Though, again, if you've ever had sex with someone who was drunk, and are willing to agree that you too are a rapist, then I accept your point.

[cizmad]

I might also point out that though someone has now included "having sex with someone when they're obliterated" as something done not only by straight men but gay men too, has it really even been suggested as a possibility by the "That is obviously rape" camp that women, straight or queer, are capable of committing rape?

[matthew]

Rich was not saying that taking advantage of a really drunk girl is OK. I think he was just pointing out that taking advantage of said drunk girl is only a rape if the victim says it is a rape.
I can't believe how incapable these moralists are of comprehending what they read.

[matthew]

And just to clarify, for all the moralistic types here, yes , it would be still be a rape even if the victim had drunkenly said yes and then felt raped afterward. That's just the chance you take when taking advantage of drunk girls/guys.