Jennifer Lawrence's new movie does something completely unexpected
msn.comNo Hard Feelings spoilers follow. As soon as the first trailer for No Hard Feelings came out, there was one big recurring complaint across the internet: this is a total double standard, right? "Imagine a film where a 34 year old man is hired to take the v-card of a 19 year old girl," reads one post in the Movies subreddit, and it's hardly the only one. "That film would never, ever, be made in 2023. " It's not an unreasonable complaint: it's pretty widely accepted that female-on-male sexual harassment isn't taken as seriously as the other way around, due to a variety of social expectations and beliefs.
The particular belief the trailer seemed to be operating under was that there's nothing more embarrassing than being a male virgin; the 32-year-old Maddie (Jennifer Lawrence) would be doing Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman) a favour by "making a man" out of him, if only he could just toughen up and stop resisting it.
It's clear early into No Hard Feelings, however, that the writers aren't going to follow that harmful narrative uncritically.
From the moment Percy's parents explain their reasoning to Maddie – claiming their son's going to be "eaten alive" in college if he doesn't get laid beforehand – it's obvious the movie's making fun of this whole mindset.
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