Hot Tub Time Machine v. Casual Sexism

So, Hot Tub Time Machine. I first heard about this movie on /Film, when all that was knew about the film was the name of the film (and subsequently a little about what the film was about) and who was in it. The title alone had my interest, the shear absurdity of the main conceit tickled me, and the pedigree in terms of casting helped a lot. High Fidelity is a favourite for me, so I knew John Cusack could do comedy, Rob Corddry was always decent, if not charismatic, on the Daily Show, Craig Robinson gets some of the best jokes in The Daily Show, and Clarke Duke was great in the relatively unknown (web?) series Clark and Michael. Long sentence though it may be, I was pretty stoked for the movie.

Is stoked, a word, out of vogue? Is it just a stoner thing now? Sometimes I worry my vocabulary is full on lexical hipster-anachronisms. Full review/rant after the jump.

And I liked the trailer a lot. Well, sort of. I mean, it wasn't hysterical, but there was certainly some quality jokes, and the whole hot tub time machine gimmick looked to be just as ridiculous as the name would suggest. The eighties thing too seemed like a fun way to mine some comedy. I especially liked the red band trailer, like when Robinson declares that it must "be some kinda ... hot tub time machine! *musical cue*", and that he's not crying, it's "just water splashin his face from all the fuckin."

When the movie hit theatres I never really got around to see it because a) I just never got around to it, b) I was reluctant to spend the cash on it, especially since c) it didn't do very well with critics. I basically chalked it up to something to see on DVD.

Then I saw it on DVD. My verdict is that it's a serviceable comedy that flirts with mediocrity. There are funny moments (like the aforementioned bath-sex scene, the way the protagonists discover they are indeed in the '80s, the discussion of time paradoxes, and the one armed man shtick), enjoyable moments (Robinson's musical performance), and some decent comedic performances from the actors (Robinson and Duke particularly shine in contrast to the inoffensive Cusack and Corddry). I was also amused how if you take away the Hot Tub Time Travelin', Cusack's bit in the movie is essentially an obligatory Cusack role (see Serendipity, I guess). What did piss me off about Hot Tub, was the unnecessary and ignorant sexism that exists in the film.

I'm not even talking about the almost eventual sexism that occurs in most comedies that star a bunch of men, or even a bromance. I've come to accept this issue in some sense as a result of many male comedy writer's inability to write real female characters, or the tendency for these films to cater to their audience's (other males) or even their character's gaze on the female as a sexual object. By accept, in no way do I condone. It's shitty, but it's sadly the usual.

Yeah, so near the beginning of Hot Tub, where our troop first arrives at their weekend resort, Robinson asks the manager about reservations and tries to hide that he has a shared last name with his wife, in that he is Nick Webber-Agnew. Corddry upon hearing his shared name mocks him, and continues to do so throughout the film since hyphenizing his name has emasculated XX. This alone is fairly insulting, since although it is the most obnoxious character is that voices this mockery, Robinson himself never owns the hyphenization, indeed seems to admit that it wasn't his choice, or wouldn't have done so given the opportunity (i.e. balls), to take her name into his.

For more on this I'm going into spoiler territory. Here after, there be monsters.

So, later in the film we realize that Robinson's wife has actually cheated on him and that he knows she has but she doesn't know he knows (it's okay if you need to read that a few times, I'm not the most clear writer at times). And this tears him up inside, because he loves her and doesn't want to leave her but she's emasculated him. No wait! she's cuckolded him. Heh, don't get to use that word too often.

Further, thematically the whole movie basically provides the three adult characters (XX wasn't alive in the 80's) an opportunity to fix the mistakes they made this particular weekend in the '80's that apparently sent all their lives into the shittier (although it seems like their lives went into the shitter because they were essentially shitheads or losers, not because they all made some simple blunder this particular weekend, but whatever) and so Robinson gets an opportunity to kick off, rather than end, his musical career during his performance that weekend. Then, when we see him return to the present day, or rather the fixed present, i.e. the better life, he has a record label as a successful producer, a record label that proudly displays his surname, and only his surname. And when he speaks to his wife, who no longer has cheated on him, we discover that he has not hyphenized his name. He is just Nick Webber, a real man. In this ideal world, Robinson hasn't had none of that pussy taking your wife's surname faggotry.

Seriously? So, Robinson's character arc shows him regaining his masculinity from his wife, as symbolized in the hyphenization of his last name. Our lesson apparently: taking your wife's name is to be a cuckold. Awesome.

I'm sorry, but it's actually fairly forward-thinking to take part of your partner's name into yours. I mean, I think we've gotten passed the point where marriage means a woman belongs to a man, the whole legalized prostitution thing. Fuck, some people even make new names together, like they are two equal parts to a marriage. Call them crazy, I know.

SPOILERS END!!!

While, I don't think the writers (or I wouldn't accuse them of such just out of giving the benefit of the doubt) meant to admonish the hypenizing of a males name, the way they have used it as a symbol of Robinson's emasculation is touch of bigotry I don't think serves the flick well.

In Summation: Hot Tub Time Machine is decent enough. It is like The Hangover in that it is underwhelming despite some good comedic performances, and scrapes by in the three out of five gulf of a little better than bad. However, it is pretty damn sexist. But a lot of its audience won't really see it as such, which really irks me. People will laugh at the jokes and buy the hyphenizing as a symbol of emasculation, without recognizing how insulting this is to women, to equality. So in this way, Hot Tub propagates a backwards idea of gender politics, which isn't cool, and makes it far worse than a 3/5 really, since in the act of reviewing I shouldn't have to set aside issues of sexism to assign an objective grade.

Bah.

I've written Stargate Fan Fiction.