GROIN & BEAR IT (Hollywood Thinks It's Hysterical When Men Take A Shot the Groin)

Los Angeles Times ^ | July 20, 2004 | MARTIN MILLER

[presidio9]

MAYBE it's the expo sure, the vulnerabil ity or simply a white-hot resentment of men.

But few things from Hollywood's greatest creative minds elicit the crowd-pleasing merriment of watching a grown man take a monster shot to the groin.

Around since antiquity, assault on a man's nether region is enjoying a sort of renaissance — if such a highbrow word can be used in such a lowbrow context — becoming a virtual staple of the summer comedy, as evidenced in such current films as "Dodgeball," "Napoleon Dynamite," "White Chicks" and "Anchorman."

There's a good reason for the lack of protest and abundance of laughter, humor scholars say: Men, in society's eyes, deserve it.

"Women would certainly be screaming and complaining if men were kicking women in the genitals [in popular culture]," said Murray Davis, author of "What's So Funny: The Comic Conception of Culture and Society."

"But men by and large still hold almost all the positions of power in society, and the powerful are always targets for humor."

But a perceived injury to the distinctly male body part must be set up with the proper amount of distance, even empathy, to provoke belly laughs instead of painful groans.

For example, in "Dodgeball," Rip Torn plays a crusty coach in a wheelchair who's charged with whipping a bunch of misfits into shape for the "big tournament." In an effort to teach the team the ropes, Torn hurls ball after ball at a nice but geeky high school kid who catches a few in the groin.

Today's writers can probably claim much the same motive for using the prank as the Roman playwright Plautus, known for his comedies of middle- and lower-class life around 200 BC.

Plautus made numerous explicit references in his works to the injury men most fear, according to Amy Richlin, a classics professor at University of Southern California who teaches a course on comedy.

Like many Romans, she added, Plautus believed superstitiously that writing about something would make it less likely to happen.

"They thought that if you laugh at it, you take off the curse," said Richlin.

Of course, this doesn't explain why women — at least those who can remain in the room while an episode of "The Three Stooges" is airing — think it's funny.

The action levels a man, literally and sexually, and the joke may be especially effective when the force behind the blow is a woman.

In "Anchorman," an up-and-coming female television reporter gives a workplace sex harasser — who has just groped her — his comeuppance with a fist to his private parts.

"When a woman kicks a man, it's a way for her to temporarily assert her power relative to a man — in a short, sharp way," said Davis, a retired sociologist.

"It has to be clear the injury is not really terrible, not life-threatening. I mean, if they castrated a man, that wouldn't be funny."

A measure of schadenfreude underlies a man's laughter as well. Quite simply, a man is tremendously relieved it isn't him bent over and bug-eyed.

"It's well disguised, but there's still an element of sadism here," Richlin said. "I'm really a firm believer in the basic tenet of Freud's theory of humor, which is that it's grounded in hostility and aggression; the cream pie in the face is a substitute for a punch in the nose."

[Bush4304]

Dude, the fact is, those actors who take the shot at the groin in the movies are men themselves. Some of it, may not be funny, and some of it may. But the fact is, liberals have made their money by making cheap shots at us, in the same fashion that you are doing right now. Im not the type of person to whine and cry over something stupid like this, come on man dont lower yourself to their levels. What you say might be true, but its not worth bringing up.

[RockinRight]

Conservatives get kicks in the groin by liberals daily!

[Cooter]

A measure of schadenfreude underlies a man's laughter as well.

I thought schadenfreude^TM belonged to FR. Someone send the LA Times a cease and desist letter.

[truthkeeper]

ping

[atomicpossum]

Come on...this is less about Hollywood out to 'castrate' men. It's more about Hollywood being unable to write comedy anymore. Take away groin shots and poop jokes and Hollywood has nothing to say on the subject any more.

[Larry Lucido]

"When a woman kicks a man, it's a way for her to temporarily assert her power relative to a man — in a short, sharp way,"

But, God forbid, she so assert herself with a Colt .45.

Unless, of course, she downs the guy with one shot to the shoulder, then drops the gun and turns away crying while he slowly revives......

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

"You don't have to 'kick him in the nuts.' You can just graze the nuts and the man will be in pain."

Eddie Murphy "Raw."

[Corin Stormhands]

A kick in the groin doesn't hurt a lie'bral...

[discostu]

And playing on my stereo while reading this article, track 8 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000002JNN/qid=1090423085/sr=8-6/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i6_xgl15/103-1086048-3054261?v=glance&s=music&n=507846

Sometimes you just gotta love the natural sense of humor reality has.

[presidio9]

Do girliemen even have balls?

[Corin Stormhands]

When they need 'em for a movie they have to call special effects...

[Fintan]

 

Hysterical.

[SunkenCiv]

I'd disagree that it's hysterical, but would use that photo as exhibit A as to how soccer is the European precursor to the WWF.

[SunkenCiv]

But without the showmanship or class of WWF. ;')

[hobson]

When I first glanced at this headline I thought Hollywood was asking Bergler to expose his docs.

[Question_Assumptions]

It's just slapstick and it works well because such hits tend to cause a lot of pain (the bread and butter of slapstick) without any lasting injury. And the reason why it is funny for a woman to hit a man but not for a man to hit a woman is that in the real world, men send women to the hospital but the reverse is rarely true unless the woman picks up a weapon. Women really get hurt when men hit them.

[Centurion2000]

They have to kow-tow to the woman otherwise they are some barbarian from the dark ages. Chilvary is sneered at.

Proud to be a barbarian and sneered at ... feminazis are evolutionary dead ends.

[50sDad]

Women really get hurt when men hit them.

So, if wimpy effeminate Michael Jackson were to b!tchslap Lucy Lawless, the really buff actress who played Xena, who could supposedly take it without serious injury, that would be funny?

My mother-in-law, a passive-agressive lady who's husband is a recovering alcoholic (30-years dry, but she's not forgiving nothing) simply LOVES the Funniest Home Videos where a guy gets a brick right in the "meat and two veg". You don't have to be Freud to get that one.

In my experience, it's nothing but taking a cheap shot by promoting a cheap laugh by using a cheap gag. Some things ought to be off limits. No one would think of getting a laugh today in the movies by showing a black person doing a minstrel show, a stingy Jew, or "playfully" slapping a woman around "because it is funny." If we are going to "respect" people, then it should be everybody, and I don't care if the Left drags out the "its funny because men are evil bastards and deserve it" excuse. It is no more funny than "America deserved what it got on 9-11".