Cinematic Trends of 2008: Raunch-coated Sweetness

One of the reasons I wanted to see every theatrical release of 2008 was to get a comprehensive overview of the current state of American cinema, to let some of the obvious trends emerge as if from a developing Polaroid. Although the year is not yet over, I think I can begin to elucidate some of the ones that have been standing out as either new trends, or continuations of ongoing ones.

One such trend I have mentioned before in regard to Role Models: raunch-coated sweetness. There are basically two types of standard romantic comedies made by Hollywood lately: ones that are designed to appeal mostly to women (e.g. 27 Dresses, Sex and the City, Definitely, Maybe) and ones that are designed to appeal to both men and women (e.g. Role Models, Zach and Miri Make a Porno, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Sex Drive).

In regard to the latter type, the trend is obvious: any romantic story with a happy ending must be wrapped inside a layer of ever-escalating vulgarity involving sexuality and bodily functions. It is as if in order to see the movie, one must endure a barrage of pop-up ads for hard-core porn sites.

This simile is not by accident. This trend is obviously an extension of the ubiquity of pornography on the Internet. One of the best examples of this was, of course, Zach and Miri. Hollywood seems to assume lately that men won't go see a movie unless it includes enough vulgar humor to keep them titillated throughout the screening. Perhaps they are right. In my opinion, this has led to an "arms race" of crudeness, in which successive releases must continually increase the vulgarity in order to make an impact.

This is not to say that the raunch is entirely negative in the story, but in a decent movie it can wind up getting in the way of the narrative, and it sometimes renders a poor movie almost unwatchable in a disgusting way. In most cases, it seems like an unnecessary part of the story, coming across simply as bait for jaded porn-bloated male audiences.

Actually they are two levels of the phenomenon. One, as I just mentioned, was the wrapping of the romantic story within vulgarity inside the movie itself. The other involves the promotion of the movie, such that in trailers, movies are typically portrayed as being even more vulgar than they are. An example of this, I would assert, was What Happens in Vegas, which definitely has crude elements, but not nearly at the density suggested by the trailer.

But some movies which are not really vulgar are portrayed as being crude in the trailer. Probably the best victim of this kind of marketing was The Rocker, a lighthearted and fun movie that is not really vulgar, but that has a plot element exploited for maximum crudeness in all the previews.

I can't help but think that this trend cannot last much longer. I suspect it will come to be seen as a quintessential hallmark of movies of this decade.