Movie Thread

[tifosi77]

I'm sorry, what

[MalkinIsMyHomeboy]

if you’re referring to his last sentence, I agree with it but I can see how it’s worded poorly


if I was a Shystery lawyer, I’d argue that Ace was sexually assaulted because Finkle “forced” a kiss, which is bad enough, but also did so under false pretenses and Ace never consented

[tifosi77]

The premise of the bit was anti-trans at its core when it was conceived and performed. It's just that when it was conceived and performed being anti-trans wasn't viewed as being as lame brained as it is today.

Finkle/Einhorn wasn't the same as Jame Gumb/Buffalo Bill in Silence Of The Lambs where the fact that Bill most certainly was not actually trans played a central role in what made that character.......... I'll use the term 'tick'. I don't think the writing and comedy in Ace is exactly replete with that kind of nuance. Finkle being Einhorn, and that being innately gross, is the full breadth of the premise.

There are lots of famous tricksters in movie history, but they don't normally send the other characters into fits of nausea. Kujan doesn't start hurling chunks because Verbal Kint can read the bottoms of coffee mugs. Michael doesn't go full Mr Creosote when he overhears that yes Fredo has in fact met Johnny Ola before. The cops, and Ace, and Dan Marino, and f**king Snowflake (how great a name is that, in retrospect) are not moved to bouts of vomiting because they were merely duped.

[dodint]

Verbal Kint didn't suck Kujan's dick either, though.

The point is that you've removed the disfavorable behavior from the 'trick' and are now judging the reaction sans the deceit. Of course it's transphobic if you remove the bad intentions of the trans person and only judge the outcome. But that's a complete straw...man.

[MalkinIsMyHomeboy]

The premise of the bit was anti-trans at its core when it was conceived and performed. It's just that when it was conceived and performed being anti-trans wasn't viewed as being as lame brained as it is today.

Finkle/Einhorn wasn't the same as Jame Gumb/Buffalo Bill in Silence Of The Lambs where the fact that Bill most certainly was not actually trans played a central role in what made that character.......... I'll use the term 'tick'. I don't think the writing and comedy in Ace is exactly replete with that kind of nuance. Finkle being Einhorn, and that being innately gross, is the full breadth of the premise.

just because he filmmakers didn’t intend for the nuance doesn’t mean the nuance doesn’t exist

Silence of the Lambs is a good parallel too because it’s a film where the writers go out of their way to show that Buffalo Bill isn’t trans but the film still gets accused of being transphobic. I disagree with it being transphobic but also I’m not trans so my take is probably different than someone who does feel demonized by it


even though the filmmakers probably had no intention of it being this way, Ace Ventura is a very interesting piece of art regarding gender. Think of it this way…who do you think a super hot woman is? what if in some big revelation you found out that she actually has a penis in balls? would you be like “oh that’s cool” or would you be sexually confused? Even as someone who feels supportive of trans people I feel like most hetero men are lying to themselves if they didnt say they’d be a little weirded out because there’s a bit of cognitive dissonance

[NTP66]

I never once thought of the scene as anti-trans, and I'm kinda surprised that this has snowballed like it has. Still a comedy gold movie, and I will always be a fan of it.

[nocera]

I’m not saying cancel ace ventura. That would be stupid. I’m saying the joke isn’t that she’s a slut. The joke is that she used to be a man. I’m actually pretty surprised it could be interpreted any other way.

Doesn’t the disgusted reaction of others happen after Ace spins her around to reveal her package?

[tifosi77]

The joke is that 'trans' itself is the bad intentions insofar as all the macho straight males are concerned. It's not a layered multi-faceted complex web of deceit that the cops find revolting. They aren't creeped out that Einhorn stole someone's identity and murdered someone in a ploy to exact revenge on Dan Marino over the laces not being out. Their reaction is to the fact that they kissed a dude. It's gay/trans-predator stranger danger post-The Crying Game (I think Ace even plays that same music in the shower scene iirc), and that's really the full extent of it from the perspective of the joke; 30 years on it is the mindset that has given us 'grooming' paranoia.

(There are other cringey gay jokes in the movie iirc, but the whole movie is premised on the Finkle/Einhorn bit..... EDIT, yes the cops lose their lunch when Ace reveals Einhorn's worst "case of hemorrhoids")

You want nuance.............. let's talk about casting the pre-op trans character with an actress who has a male-nominative first name.

[MrKennethTKangaroo]

Full on discussions on transphobia in ace ventura while also discussing the logistics of meows idea to ship nuclear waste into outer space. I feel like we can do better than this

[Troy Loney]

I thought it was spoofing the crying game

[eddy]

I thought it was spoofing the crying game

[CBear3]

Bingo, and yes they even play the song.
It's just you kissed another dude; not eww that she is trans, eww that they kissed him/her which I feel is still a fine reaction in 2024.

[nocera]

Okay then. Nobody wants this but the Lion King remake is the 9th highest grossing movie of all time, so here you go dummies.

[nocera]

Bingo, and yes they even play the song.
It's just you kissed another dude; not eww that she is trans, eww that they kissed him/her which I feel is still a fine reaction in 2024.

I'm not really interested in debating whether it's anti-trans or not but I laughed at this. "No, no, it's fine. It's not transphobic. It's just homophobic."

[Troy Loney]

Bingo, and yes they even play the song.
It's just you kissed another dude; not eww that she is trans, eww that they kissed him/her which I feel is still a fine reaction in 2024.

I'm not really interested in debating whether it's anti-trans or not but I laughed at this. "No, no, it's fine. It's not transphobic. It's just homophobic."

Feels like standard 90’s homophobia to me.

[Dickie Dunn]

Who the **** is Barry Jenkins?

[blackjack68]

Wait, that's definitely the joke... It's because she's trans. I'm not saying we should judge it on today's standards but in retrospect, the reaction to Finkle is Einhorn is pretty transphobic, which was definitely more acceptable at the time.

Disagree.

The joke is that they were deceived. And that she was a slut. The idea of it being transphobic is retroactive cultural relativism.

You are correct.

[nocera]

That is absolutely not the joke. They’re disgusted because they feel as though they were with a man. Take away the transphobia argument because that doesn’t matter in this discussion. The reaction is because she used to be a man. Not because she got around. The film outright tells you this.

[blackjack68]

Yes, that they ALL including the dolphin were with her/him.

[nocera]

… because she used to be a man. That’s what set them off. Not that they all were with her.

[dodint]

Right. So we're in agreement then. Straight men being tricked into sexual relations with a man will invoke a disgusted reaction. Thank you.

What does that have to do with transexualism?

[Pavel Bure]

Dune 2 was awesome.

[nocera]

[Shyster]

if I was a Shystery lawyer, I’d argue that Ace was sexually assaulted because Finkle “forced” a kiss, which is bad enough, but also did so under false pretenses and Ace never consented

There are some states (I don't think PA is one) that have laws against "rape by deception" or "rape by fraud" or similar concepts. The criminal act would be getting someone to consent to sex through fraud or deception. For example, take the scene in Revenge of the Nerds where Lewis has sex with the star quarterback's girlfriend Betty while wearing a mask, and Betty believed that it was her boyfriend Stan, who was wearing a nearly identical costume and mask. There was a real-life event at Purdue University in 2017 where a woman fell asleep in bed with her boyfriend, and and several of the boyfriend's buddies crashed on the floor. In the middle of the night, she awoke to being fondled, and she thought she was in bed with her boyfriend, so they had sex. Turns out her boyfriend had gotten out of bed, and it was one of the buddies that got in and had sex with her. Although that man admitted his actions in court, charges were dismissed because his actions didn’t meet Indiana’s definition of rape, and the vast majority of rape statutes require the sex to be through force or threat of force, not fraud or deception. California is an exception; one of the definitions of rape is, "If a person submits under the belief that the person committing the act is someone known to the victim other than the accused, and this belief is induced by artifice, pretense, or concealment practiced by the accused, with intent to induce the belief," so California recognizes rape by impersonation. If Revenge of the Nerds took place in California, Lewis would be looking at jail time.

I've seen law-review articles discussing how "rape by fraud" statutes would or might apply to precisely the sort of "she didn't tell me she was trans" situations that are being discussed here. Pro-trans people are worried that the statutes would be applied to trans people who don't disclose their trans status. I'm not aware of any actual criminal case anywhere that involves that sort of fact pattern, however. It is an interesting topic of debate.

[Gaucho]