Mystery Science Theater En Masse

Four Riffers, Episode 5: Common Sense is Dead

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Note: This riffing contains two articles:

-The Problem With Married Couples Who Choose To Have No Kids by Buzz Bishop
-The Harsh Bigotry of Twilight Haters by Erika Christakis

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Married couples without kids don’t get it.

Dante: *points to Vergil* He doesn't get it, either.
Vergil: *grumbles*

My best friend is married, no kids. He moved in to his childhood neighborhood, across from his old school which is now closed. It sits empty because too many empty nesters sucked the demand dry.

Rory: Leeches, leeches everywhere! Leeches!
Amy: Okay, calm down, Rory.

Meanwhile, the edges of our city have kids being bused as schools are bursting at the seams.

Amy: Guess driving them to school or carpooling is too hard.

If you don’t want to have kids, get out of neighborhoods with schools.

Dante: Hey, guy... segregation is illegal. Did you pass out in History class or something?

Move downtown, or to a chic restaurant district where you need half the space and your “no curfew” lifestyle won’t be cramped by strollers on the streets.

Vergil: This message has been brought to you by the insane fools at the neighborhood police.

Another colleague moved to the burbs and lamented the lack of social scene. She and her husband live in a 4 bedroom 3000 sq ft home. It’s just the 2 of them, yet she was perplexed why she couldn’t meet anyone who didn’t have any kids complaining that she was “feeling especially isolated, out in these-here burbs“. That will happen when you moved into a subdivision sans kids.

Amy: What's with all the people being so lazy to drive... or walk? Heck, why can't she go outside and talk to the neighbors? Why are people so stupid?!
Rory: Good luck answering those questions, Amy.

When you’re a couple and you make the choice not to have kids, you don’t get it. You’re a DINK (pardon the double entendre).

Dante: And you're an ASS. I don't need a double entendre for that one.

You’ve got two incomes and half the expenses.

Rory: Cool! Saves me the money!

When you have kids, a weekend escape isn’t just a quick flight for 2, it’s a flight for 4, and you can’t get the king sized bed, you need the suite, and then the dinners are not for 2, they’re for 3, or 4, or 5. What might cost you $800 for a quick getaway will cost me $1500.

Vergil: And why should I feel sorry for you because you chose to have whiny, sniveling brats of your own?

These people are most likely the type of whiners that are now having children banned from a food court in Australia. These are the type of people who are complaining about kids on airplanes. Married couples who have no kids are the types of people who are trying to get kids kicked out of restaurants.

Amy: Or maybe it's because they don't want to deal with your screaming brats! Ever thought about that?
Dante: Thinking's overrated.

As many of us delay having kids until deep into our 30s, and then some find it’s too late and skip the process altogether, we’re finding ourselves with a Me generation of adults, not adolescents.

Dante: Really? *is now watching "My Super Sweet 16"* I don't know why a second car's so important for their 16th birthday.
Vergil: Honestly... who cares? All that whining is enough to give me a migraine for the next month.

Yes, a recent study shows that married couples without children are happier than those with, but selfishness will do that to you.

Rory: Dude, shut up. I don't know what else to say other than "shut up".
Amy: *sarcastically* Never mind that one or both members of said couple could be infertile and/or unable to adopt, but that's okay; they're just being selfish. *normal voice* Are you kidding me?!

Besides, I could just as easily point to a study done a year earlier that says breeders are happier than non-breeders.

Vergil: There are too many stupid people inhabiting this horrid planet. We do not need more.
Rory: Let's see... one study in comparison to a bunch of other studies about childless couples being happier than couples with children. *rolls his eyes* Yeah, that makes a heck of a lot of sense.

Happiness is a relative subject, it would appear.

Amy: Not to you. You're acting like you can only be happy when you have kids.
Rory: *puts an item called "Meyer Goggles" on, looks at Amy* Whoa!
Amy: What?
Rory: I can't see you, Amy. You're invisible.
Amy: Is it because I like to do things aside from liking Sonic so much?
Rory: Uh-huh. Don't forget the fact that you're not a wonderful vampire Sue.
Amy: I figured as much.

My childless friends are happy having a last minute golf weekend away, and I’m happy sitting in on a Wednesday night baking cookies and reading Dr Seuss.

Dante: He's probably doing that with his favorite son. Hey, other guy, go play in the corner in your little playpen or something.

Perhaps parenting is a case of ‘delayed happiness.’  It may be stressful and hectic now, but when I’m old I will have children and grandchildren to keep me company and I will be showered in family.

Amy: You wanted to breed so everything could come full circle to you in the end? I don't know, but that reeks of selfishness to me.
Dante: So... you don't want to have kids to pass down your wisdom? Anything?
Vergil: You have to have wisdom to pass it down. It's obvious that this peon has none.
Rory: Makes me wonder if his family will just dump him in a nursing home or something. That'll be incredibly ironic.
Amy: It's quite possible.

I wonder how happy a childless couple will be when they’re at the end of the line?

Amy: How about you worry about raising your kids instead of thinking about the childless couples' feelings all of the time? Thanks.

UPDATE: Thanks for clicking and commenting everyone. You’ll note this is a specific rant against a specific type of people. A Newsweek article was the jumping off point for this rant, you might find it interesting.

Dante: *reads the article* Okay, I summed up that Newsweek article. And I only have one thing to say... *clears his throat* Hey, where are the kids, ladies? You need to spread your legs wide open and pop those kids out! Do it now!
Vergil: I do not know you at all.

Hating Twilight is so 2009,

Vergil: And liking it was "so 2009". What is your point?
Amy: She must not have read "Breaking Dawn". That book turned a whole chunk of fans into people who loathed the series.

and with the newest installment, Breaking Dawn, ruling the box office, the juggernaut hardly needs defenders.

Rory: Let's see... *looks at a diagram* ...yeah, hormonal teenage girls and women heavily outweigh those with brains. Not surprising.

But the virulent seriousness of the haters is surprising.

Amy: I shall now subtract thirty points from this article due to the use of the word "haters".

Many of the reviews have heaped disproportionate and moralizing scorn on an Oscar-winning director’s fantasy enactment of a young girl’s dreams and fears. Kristen Stewart and her co-stars have been excoriated

Dante: Ooh, she used a school word!
Amy: *with a thesaurus* Oh, so they have been "criticized". *narrows her eyes* She uses the words "excoriated" and "haters" in the same article. This is utterly confusing.

for their “sullen” and “wooden” performances despite receiving respectable and sometimes highly favorable reviews in other movies in which they have starred.

Vergil: There's a difference between acting exceptionally in one film and having the emotions of a chalkboard in another. You are clearly missing the point.

The negative reactions fall in two camps: The dismissive camp simply mocks Twilight’s incorporation of silly, “moony” elements like undying love

Rory: What love?! She didn't love him! She just loved the fact that he was a vampire!

and the surprisingly authentic portrayal of wedding ritual, honeymoon jitters and the shock of unintended pregnancy;

Amy: I will give you that, but I don't think that they were mocking it. And she wasn't shocked about the pregnancy, either; she was just so happy that she could be the most wonderful mother ever.

the topics are apparently too boring and unrelatable for most reviewers.

Vergil: That translates to "humans with working brain cells". Also, those topics could've been interesting if that hack of a writer could actually write.
Amy: Is she implying that people will never get married or have children because they don't like the series?
Rory: Yep. Enjoy your cats because you hate a fad!

The deluded camp, conversely, takes Twilight far too seriously,

Dante: Excuse me while I laugh my butt off here.

faulting it for leading young girls to mistake fantasy for reality in dangerous, disempowering ways.

Amy: Girls wanted their boyfriends to be just like Edward. A girl wanted to be pregnant by a guy named Edward and got her wish. Stephenie Meyer said that she would leave her husband for Edward and/or Jacob if they showed up at her doorstep. A crazed male fan mimicked Bella's cliff diving scene in "New Moon" and had to be rescued. Do I need to go on here?
Vergil: I'm actually perplexed that that foolish person didn't off himself.
Amy: It's the power of stupidity, I guess.
Vergil: Indeed.

It makes you wonder if some people missed the memo that hundreds of millions of females, like their male counterparts, enjoy their fantasy life straight-up weird, sexy, and implausible.

Rory: Uh... I just have a problem with you shoving it down my throat.

Why is it that female fantasies are such a source of derision and fear?

Amy: Huh? Wait, hold on! You're going off course!

The male species is allowed all manner of violent, creepy, ludicrous and degrading movie tropes,

Dante: We are? I thought we got ripped to shreds for liking that stuff.

and while we may not embrace them as high art, no one questions them seriously as entertainment, even when sometimes we probably should.

Rory: That's because it is entertainment. It's pointless, mindless entertainment that won't net an Oscar anytime soon. Or maybe that's what you like, because movies with none of that stuff counts as "entertainment".
Dante: Look, I don't need bored people who vote on fluff tell me what movies I should or shouldn't watch.

(Violent imagery is, after all, associated with violent behavior.)

All: *facepalms*
Vergil: This woman is an imbecile.

You want to saw someone in half or put their head in a vise? Showcase naked strippers as a fake plot device? Pair a beautiful and successful career woman with a slovenly, unemployed man? Pretend you are Wolverine?

Dante: No, I just want some pizza. However, I could pretend to be Wolverine in my spare time.

Go right ahead. We know you can’t really be serious.

Amy: Wait. You're shoving your fantasies down our throats while deriding everyone else's. That's really not fair.

But watch a tender wedding night between a virginal, undead superhero

Rory: *laughs out loud*

and his teenage, human bride, and the scolds come out in force.

Vergil: Go right ahead. I'm sure that you would enjoy someone stalking you, preventing you from seeing your colleagues, and blackmailing you into marriage.
Dante: That and Bella has no motivation in life.
Vergil: I believe that you have stolen my line.
Dante: Yeah, you're welcome.

Are parents worried that their teenage daughter actually wants to be impregnated by a 100-year-old vampire who can crush a headboard with his hands (and perform an emergency C-section with his teeth)?

Rory: Uh... yes! Do you know how many girls took that seriously?!

Maybe part of the reason critics deplore these movies is not only because they are so unfamiliar with kooky heterosexual female fantasies

Dante: ...which were written by and for a kook and not for her "audience"...

but also because they don’t really like what these fantasies say about men.

Amy: But the books insult women! They tell us that we need men and we should have children with them! And if we don't, we're useless! It is not a fantasy! It is insulting!
Rory: That argument would've held some water, Amy... but... she's only talking about the movies. She never mentioned the books.
Amy: *snaps* Oh, Jesus H. Christ!

The discomfiting reality of the Twilight phenomenon is the way it strips off the veneer of détente between the sexes.

Dante: What the hell are you talking about?!
Amy: She's saying that the series is rife with strained relations between the sexes.
Dante: Oh. Wish she'd lose the fancy words, though. It's like I'm taking the SATs here.

For all the progress we promised our daughters, women’s bodily experiences mark them in ways not only unimaginable, but also uninteresting and even repulsive, to men. When was the last time (or only time) you saw a movie that featured menstruation? (The Runaways, directed by … a woman.)

Vergil: I don't even think women would want to talk about that bodily function in the open, anyway.

Most mothers know the sense of their body being taken over by aliens, and more than 500,000 women still die in childbirth every year worldwide.

Rory: Wait, what does this have to do with hating "Twilight"? I'm lost here.

Is it really so surprising that we would be drawn to Bella’s gruesome tribulations? For all its tremendous ick factor and craziness, the vampire-hybrid delivery captured with excruciating realism

Amy: *laughs, stops, stares at the screen* Shut up.

the desperation (on poor Edward’s bloodied face) that attends a birth when things go badly wrong. You could hear a pin drop at the screening my daughter and I attended.

Dante: I've seen crappy death scenes in B-movies that were gorier than that.

The gothic horror felt more palpable because it merely exaggerated, rather than imagined sui generis,

Rory: *with a dictionary* Sui generis... a Latin phrase meaning "of its own kind". *tosses the dictionary* Lady, those fancy words won't make your crappy article sound any better.

what many women go through every day. We sure know blood.

Vergil: That is not gothic horror. You need to expand your pitiful movie library.

The other thing women know all too well is the lurking danger of men.

Rory, Dante: Wait, what?
Amy: She says that men are dangerous, but she fantasizes about a guy who is a dangerous stalker.
Vergil: I've since given up on this tripe.

The idea of a wildly earnest romantic lead who isn’t demanding oral sex in the high school parking lot (and who happens to look like Robert Pattinson) is all very appealing, no? Yet our perfect vampire man, alas, also has the capacity to inflict serious harm — much like in the non-cinematic world, as even 5-year-old girls can intuit.

All: *confused*
Dante: I think she just banged her head on her keyboard to fill out her word requirement or something.

You don’t have to read Steven Pinker’s fine new book on violence, The Better Angels of our Nature, to grasp that women have always been its singular victims. The devastating power of rape,

Amy: Whoa! Stop! Stop! Why are we talking about rape? I thought that we were talking about how people who hate "Twilight" are hypocrites!
Rory: Looks like Mai can't call me stupid anymore! This article is pure proof!

which results in pregnancy 5% of the time, according to a 1996 study in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, is its ability to “change the progeny” of a woman forever. This threat often clouds our real lives and it certainly clouds our confused notions of entertainment.

All: *still confused*
Rory: Seriously... guys, I'm freakin' lost here. We went so far off left field that we ended up in a different ballpark's right field here!
Amy: This article was written in 2011. Why are we pulling information from 1996?
Dante: Just 'cause.

Is it any wonder that the young man whose heart Bella tosses aside for Edward is, you guessed it, a wolf? As one of my jaded neighbors once opined, “All men is half dog.”

Vergil: Then I believe that your jaded neighbor needs to go back to grammar school.
Amy: And let's ignore the fact that Bella used Jacob to get over Edward because she needed to cling to a man. You're a bitch, and your neighbor's a bitch. *speaks slowly* If you didn't know, author, that's the term for female dogs.

If this offends you, take a number.

Dante: How 'bout I just cut the line and deal with you directly?

Women have long endured men’s insulting and unhinged fantasies. Just lie back and enjoy the estrogen drip.

Rory: Eww! Oh! Oh, my god, I need a shower!
Amy: Wait, you tried to counter offensive fantasies... with more offensive fantasies? What is going on here?!

Dante: Whoa, no wonder education's going down the crapper.
Vergil: I just hope that she stays away from the children. She will dull their minds before they will have a chance to develop it.

The views expressed are solely her own.

Rory: Yeah, thank God for that. I don't think I need to rot my brain any further than I need to.
Amy: I need an aspirin. My head hurts... a lot.

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