This movie looks great! I'm excited for it, and it's great to see a female director succeeding!

Okay, I've probably typed this half a dozen times now, but I'm not letting it go. First, IT IS RAPE. According to the law it is rape. According to morality it is rape. Please see my previous posts on this, because I've laid this all out before, but the gist is this: according to the law and to the morals of any decent person, Brandi was too drunk to give consent. The fact that she muttered something drunkenly to imply that she was consenting (halfway through, not at the beginning, though that wouldn't matter anyway, given her state of inebriation) does not absolve Ronnie. She was WAY too wasted for that to have meant anything. She could have said, "I want some f'ing French toast" and it would have meant the same thing, which is nothing. As I have also said before, anyone who knows or studies the law, or who has empathy for raped women, or who has been raped, has no question that that is rape. It is rape. If Brandi hauled Ronnie to court with that scene on video, the judge would decide in her favor, anywhere in the US or Canada.

Second, of course it's wrong to murder people. I'm not going to get into whether rape or murder is worse, because that's pointless, and those who have never been raped have a hard time, sometimes, understanding the ramifications of it. I'm NOT arguing that rape is worse than murder, but I will say that we all see murder as wrong. What he does in murdering people in that movie is heinous and awful. BUT, and here is the reason we keep talking about the rape scene: it is clear to EVERYONE that the murder is wrong. There is no need to discuss it in detail. People have accepted for centuries that murder is wrong. People have not come to this level of acceptance with rape. Rape is still legal in many places in the world (Karzai just legalized it in marriages in Afghanistan, for instance). One in four women in this country are raped in their lifetimes, and that is not because they are all attacked on the street. Most of them are date-raped (or raped by someone they know), and that's because there are people out there who don't see, or don't care, that what they're doing is raping someone. So, it doesn't matter whether murder or rape is the worse crime, because one is a crime we can all agree, universally, is wrong. The other is still up in the air for a lot of people. Clearly. That's why I'm not letting this go, and why I'm becoming grateful to this movie for getting this conversation going. The rape rate needs to go down, and talking about it like this is the only way that will happen.

And if you need further evidence, listen to the Creative Screenwriting podcast interview with Hill, who also calls it rape.

I would agree with you that it's a waste of time to argue about the rape issue, except that Seth Rogen says, in an interview, that they thought it would be "okay" if they had her mumble drunkenly, "Did I tell you to stop, motherfucker?" That, Rogen said, would make it clear that this isn't rape. Except it IS rape. And furthermore, a lot of people out there DON'T think it was rape, because of that drunken mumble, so they're all on board with this idea that it's okay to have sex with someone who is wasted beyond reason if she happens to mutter something they'll take as consent at any point in the process. One in four women are raped in this country every year, and those aren't all street attacks. Date rape is extremely common, because people think things like this aren't rape.

Of course, you're right that we shouldn't be using Rogen's character as a moral compass - the man is a lunatic. And of course I think people who think that what he did to Brandi is okay because they've done that themselves should be incarcerated. I also agree with you that Hill is ballsy. The only thing I disagree with is that the "whole rape argument is insane." I think it's incredibly necessary, because if it opens a few peoples' eyes about what rape means, hopefully they'll think about it. You know?

Oh, it definitely counts as rape. Legally, she was too intoxicated to give consent. The law would decide in her favor. Further, he didn't get consent beforehand, so some drunken muttering wouldn't matter anyway. When someone is that drunk, she could say anything, that could be interpreted in any way. In this case, Rogen's character - and a lot of the audience - interpreted that as consent. Most people who understand how rape charges work, or have empathy for a raped woman, or who have been raped themselves, would see this as clear-cut rape. As would the law, as I said above.

Right. There are movies about rapists out there, and making more of them makes sense. This movie isn't "about a rapist." It's trying to make rape funny, and it isn't funny. It's giving a justification for something that can't be justified. People will think, "oh, she's drunk haha she did it to herself," when in fact, 100% of the blame falls on the rapist's shoulders, every time. I'm entirely disgusted by this movie, and by the review in Time that further proves that people are seeing this scene as hilarious, and not an indictment.

Good point. I'm thinking that it doesn't make it better. It's another way in which Rogen and company are spitting at peoples' problems in a way that isn't satirizing; they're just using them for comedic effect, like the date rape scene.

Yeah, love how all the negative stereotypes he used were about women.

I hear you. That line grossed me out too.

Agreed. If you can't walk, and you're puking everywhere, you can't give meaningful consent. Mutterings from a drugged-out girl don't count. I'm with y'all - the date-rape scene ruins the movie (not that I was a fan overall). It's telling guys that kind of thing is okay, and it isn't.

Also, right: she's not a slut for getting raped. But she's a slut because she's had sex before, and women who have sex are sluts, which means you can date rape them and note feel bad about it because once she's had sex with a man, she'll have sex with any man, and unconscious mutterings are good enough!

Gross.

LOVE!