Myths And Other Idiot Ideas That The Movies Promulgate

This topic’s title contains the phrase “The Movies” and not “Movies” because I believe The Movies are a sort of Olympus of cultural reference, a gathering of authority and respect. Among the myths etc. that they promulgate:

You can out-run an explosion.

You can out-run a car.

You’re driving a Porsche GT, but cops driving Chryslers can keep right up with you.

Adam Sandler is sexually attractive—or any other kind of attractive.

Star Wars is still good.

We can’t have too many comic book movies.

We can’t have too many video game-derived movies.

You think that you can handle meeting an angel.

Highly intelligent people are pretty much like you, only MORE, and they care about resolving a Rubik’s cube. Chess is a different matter; also, Go; also, card games, especially for serious stakes. Rubik’s cube? Really? Start at the corners.

We can’t have too many dystopian fantasy film series based on novels written by Jewish girls with female protagonists ardently pursued by a gaggle of hot, but, face it, not very interesting or bright, guys. I could get more descriptive than than, but I won’t.

A trained fighter wearing cowboy boots can spin-kick you in the temple or larynx and you can shake it off and not, you know, die. There’s a wonderful scene in Demolition Man, where Sylvester Stallone clocks Wesley Snipes with a death blow while Snipes is spread over the hood of an Oldsmobile 4-4-2, and Snipes just shakes his head rapidly from
side to side, purses his lips and “says” “brrrrrrr,” and leaps back into unimpaired action. It was something out of a Road Runner cartoon.

Most women can beat up most men, or at least hold their own with them, all without an equalizing weapon, like a handgun, a katana or an attorney.

The cops always show up after the crisis has been resolved.

Race doesn’t matter. We are all receptive to each other.

Gay people are really more than 4.7 percent of the population.

Most white people are privileged.

When a man and woman are in bed together, the bedclothes on the woman’s side will always be cut differently from the bedclothes on the man’s, allowing full view of her breasts.

Just about everybody knows some kind of martial art.

The bomb can’t be defused until the last second of its countdown.

There needs to be a countdown for almost everything, instead of just pushing the button, flicking the switch or kicking the door in.