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Shithouse (Cooper Raiff, 2020)
🕑 Added 2021-01-04 19:43:30 +0000 UTC
Sometimes films try something bold and it doesn't quite work. You can admire the ambition while still reckoning with the fact that the object in question misses the mark. In Shithouse, first-time director Cooper Raiff, who also stars, appears to be trying to look at the complications of sex and dating among contemporary young adults. This is well-trod ground, but Raiff employs a kind of gender reversal that disrupts a lot of cliches -- both cinematic and cultural.
Freshman Alex (Raiff) is having trouble adjusting to college life. He can't seem to make friends, and he frequently phones his mom back home (Amy Landecker) in tears because he misses her so much. On a particular night, Alex has a lengthy walk-and-talk with Maggie (Dylan Gelula), his dorm's RA. After they climb a hill to bury Maggie's beloved pet turtle Pete, they repair to Maggie's room and have sex. But Alex thinks they are now in a relationship, whereas Maggie saw it as a one-shot hookup. This makes Alex increasingly desperate, trying to get her to pay attention to him. A bit later, at a party at a dorm referred to as Shithouse, he crashes a party and discovers Maggie getting together with another guy.
At this point, Alex self-righteously excoriates Maggie for her moral transgression of not liking him back and (shudder) having more sex. The argument they have displays Alex as being a childlike prude, shaming Maggie for giving herself to whomever she wants. He even blames her parents for her behavior, stating that if she'd been raised with love and self-respect, like he was, she wouldn't be so quick to open her legs to random guys.
What we see in Shithouse is that the thought experiment of switching the genders in terms of sex and attachment is actually pretty hard. That's not just because we tend to expect different things from women and men in a heterosxual relationship. It's because sex cannot really be examined in isolation. There are so many other cultural messages regarding appropriate male and female behavior that trying to do critical work on one only exposes all the work you have to do on other fronts.
In the simplest possible terms, this is because the dominant society has very different perceptions when it comes to casual sex. Men, assumed to always be DTF, can have as many partners as they like, especially in college. There's obviously a double standard when it comes to women. Alex may be reacting to some genuine feelings for Maggie, but this doesn't change the fact that he's slut-shaming her.
What's more, there is a (fair) double standard when it comes to obsessive fixation on another person, particularly someone who has made it clear they want nothing to do with you. When women do this to men, it can be annoying and embarrassing, but it seldom represents any kind of danger. Alex, by contrast, allows his ardent romanticism to turn him into a proto-stalker. Since men carry the threat of rape, we must be careful not to make certain kinds of demands of women. And when they want to be left alone, we better fucking listen.
Even as it fails to consider these mitigating circumstances, Shithouse might have been a noble failure were it not for its concluding coda. Alex needs to grow up, and not just because he sleeps with a stuffed animal. He thinks that other people have a responsibility to live up to his naive, high-minded moral code. Raiff should have smacked Alex down and forced him to learn some things about proper social engagement.
Instead, [SPOILER] the director tells us that if you keep on stalking the girl, or even just dawdle for years in the friend-zone, she'll eventually fall for you. What sexist rubbish.
