The LC's Pop-Culture Corner: Some Violence for the Guys and Some Vampires For the Ladies (Also: A Rousing Game of "Is It Sexy, Or Isn't It?")

Readers, the American male has spoken at the box-office this past weekend, launching Sly's ultra-macho The Expendables to the top while stomping all over sensitive indie geeks (Scott Pilgrim) and even overpowering Julia Roberts' female empowerment flick about eating and falling in love in Italy (but mostly eating). The boys are finally taking the day off to catch up with Sly, and we predict that the very act of seeing such manliness and extreme violence on display will cause us to emit a powerful musk that will attract nubile young women for weeks afterward.

But how are the fanboys feeling about the long-awaited film? Let's turn to the AICN talkbacks.

First off, they LOVE the violence:

"When a certain baddy gets shot, and then has a bowie knife shoved through his chest, some guy in the audience yelled "Man-gasm!" as alot of other patrons clapped and laughed."

Chip: "I'm totally going to steal that line during today's screening, because I find it supremely witty."


But the fanboys also miss the good old days of 80's action cinema, when the films almost always contained gratuitous nudity to go along with their impalings and machine-gunnings:

gooseud explains:

"No tits policy is a plague on modern cinema. We have the interwebz to thank for this, as actresses live in fear of their tits being accessible forever on some spank off website. Now, instead, we get completely jarring and unrealistic sex scenes, the tipping point of which was the scene in Knocked Up. Now, I've banged a metric fuckton of chicks in my day, and NEVER, ever ever have they ever said "Ok, we can have sex and all, but I'm keeping my bra on. Doggy style over the couch: perfectly acceptable. Taking bra off: WHOA, calm down there, crazy man!!!" When people have sex, the bra comes off, usually within 30 seconds. Period, end of discussion, anything else is retarded."

This discussion arose, of course, from the fact that Charisma Carpenter does not bare her breasts in The Expendables.

Bouncy X argues: "Carpenter did playboy already...she didnt need to show them here although it be nice to see them in motion, despite the fakeness."

But PULL_SMASH retorts: "And yes Bouncy X...She DID need to show them. Or they shouldve hired an actress who would. Because without titties, as it stands, the whole Statham/Carpenter angle was pointless, despite an awesome fight that results bc of her. I really thought that was the only reason they were even setting up that subplot, as an excuse for nudity."

Richard: "This PULL_SMASH sounds like he's got a real command of cinema and the "rule" he points to is certainly one that's often forgotten: if a subplot doesn't result in nudity, it's almost always irrelevant."


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HBO's True Blood is riding the culture's love of all things vampiric to new ratings-heights this season and continuing to push the envelope when it comes to TV sex and violence. The show is wildly popular among the ladies, the gays, and even a few straight guys (Chip: "Did you see Russell rip that guy's spine out last week? Holy shit!"). The Twilight lexicon has begun to be applied to the show as well, with fans increasingly falling into "Team Bill" and "Team Eric" (and even "Team Alcide") regarding Sookie Stackhouse's numerous co-stars. What we like about the True Blood vampires is that they aren't sparkly pussies like the Twilight creatures: these vampires WILL fuck and bite you.

Rolling Stone's controversial new True Blood cover was a hot topic in the blogosphere (and Twitter-sphere) yesterday, with the main question being: Is it sexy, or isn't it?

Personally, a blood-soaked Sookie doesn't do much for our boners. But apparently a lot of women are turned on by the show's bloody, bitey sex scenes. Thoughts?