MovieChat Forums > Can't Buy Me Love (1987) Discussion > Nice message, doesn't work in reality

Nice message, doesn't work in reality

posted 2 years ago by avortac4 (3477)
4 replies | jump to latest

This is a fun and funny movie. I loved it a lot a long time ago, because it gives the hopeful message; maybe human beings CAN be equal, if we just stop being so superficial and 'clicky' about things.

Why should jocks get all the girls, why should nerds be laughed at? It doesn't make sense, because as kids, we were all the 'same'.

We should just forget our differences and treat each other equally, and share all the loot.. I mean, poon.. I mean, resources - well, we should just give each other freely to each other, or something.

This doesn't really work in real life, though. It's a fantasy, a pipe dream, something nerds can't understand, and alphas will never change.

There is a reason why things develop into what they did; there's a reason why jocks get the girls and nerds are laughed at. Humanity is worthless in mating, sadly.

The cards are stacked against men, so men have to work really hard, or be 'natural aphas' to get enough status to earn 'mating privileges'.

Women are the gatekeepers of sex, men are the gatekeepers of relationships. Therefore, it's basically women that get to choose which males get to mate, which creates competition amidst men.

Yes, it's women that created this whole chaos. If women only cared about how 'nice' or 'human' some man is, this movie and its message would be truthful. However, the world isn't changed by one little unrealistic speech in a fantasy movie.

These things are PRIMAL, and thus very strong and rooted deeply into the psyche of males and females. When it come down to it, mating, mate selection and mates are basically animal kingdom. It happens the same amidst two-legged animality as it happens with four-legged or winged ones.

The psychology of an animal and human is very different, but when it comes to mating, it's so 'bodily' thing, based so much on hormones and reproduction, that evolutionary psychology comes strongly into play.

Males want more sex, with more partners, and more often. This is one reason why women hold the cards, as they don't have as pressing an urge to 'do it' as men. Women lust for reproduction (babies) as much as men lust for mating (the start of reproduction). Women's eyes glaze over and turn to shiny stars whenever they talk about 'wanting to have a baby'.

They 'baby' everything in sight, from dogs, cats and other pets to teddybears and friggin' furniture, if nothing else is available. 'Baby' is extremely strong instinct for a woman, 'sex' is just as strong for men.

[–] avortac4 (3477) 2 years ago

It's morally wrong, but basically this 'let's beat up and bully nerds because we're jocks'-phenomenon isn't just some superficial modern invention where people just FOR NO REASON decide to start doing it.

It's very strongly rooted in the most primal, instinctual mating rituals that people don't even consciously think about, they just act upon those instincts. Call it hormonal if you want, call it romance if you want, but in the end, it's animal lust; besides sexual lust, there's also emotional lust, and they get mixed up.

Sometimes you dream of mating with someone, other times you dream of having someone else as a 'mate', and other times, you dream of both. Human psychology is very complex, and Maslov's need hierarchy, although faulty, only begins to open the door to undrstanding just how many needs and associates a human being is capable of projecting to another individual or entity of some kind.

Basically the whole 'nerds vs. jocks'-phenomenon comes purely from the 'alpha vs. beta' phenomenon that you can easily see in animals; one alpha mates with all the women, betas are left without, and just serve the 'herd/pack/tribe/flock/school'.

What I am trying to get at, that these 'hidden rules you are not supposed to talk about because we're pretending to be sophisticated beings that are beyond animal lust' govern all mating, and thus ALWAYS create this divide and hierarchy between men. Alphas are at the top, and they get to mate with most females, there can be a few levels of them, and the top alpha mates the most.

Then at the bottom are the betas, and in the middle are some kind of weird fluctuations that are not clearly either type, that sometimes might get some, and other times have no chance.

For animals, it's easy to know who the alpha is, because animals are instinctual, and as such, feel things like 'energy' and 'dominance'.

In the two-legged category, it's harder, because people have forgotten their instincts.

[–] strntz (10843) 2 years ago

I honestly think you've generalized the whole breeding thing based on your personal experiences. I don't think your example is representative of the sexual dynamics you've laid out (so to speak).

[–] avortac4 (3477) 2 years ago

This means, it's harder for a woman to figure out which man is 'spongeworthy', men can pretend so many things so easily, and people have more 'attractors' than animals. In animal kingdom, 'alpha' is the only attractor, and every female can instantly feel it, so there's never any confusion.

In human kingdom, alpha is one attractor among many. A good resource-gatherer is another (wealth, rich, etc.), respect of others (celebrity), leader among men (CEO), 'excitingly different from the norm' (outlaw biker), a confident man playing you like a fiddle (PUA), and so on.

It's sometimes hard to know if someone is really a doctor or if they're just saying that, so a woman can be hesitant, and not really know if she's attracted to a man or not, that's why women probe so much.

They also project a lot. They can kiss a man all night just because the man's friends praise him, only to realize in the morning, it was just a trick; the man was actually a shy loser, only loosened up by booze the previous evening.

This is why 'preselection' is a shortcut to instantly know the man is 'arousing'; if another woman has ALREADY done the hard work and selected the man, other women want that man, too, because they know for sure (without trying to probe and figure it out) that he's worthy of opening the gates of their hairy, slimy gut.

These and a few other factors are why Roland's 'equality speech' just doesn't work and will not manifest in reality even amidst a crowd that would give teary-eyed standing ovation to this speech while watching this movie together.

Women would still say to the Rolands of the world, "You're a GREAT catch! Just.. for someone else"

When every woman says that, there's obviously no truth to it, they just don't want to 'hurt his feelings' (so they rather ruin his life with lies by keeping him in false hope that only creates frustration and desperation).

Nice speech, just not realistic.

[–] avortac4 (3477) 2 years ago

Now, in a good world, where bodily, animalistic instincts are either suppressed, changed or people have spiritually been able to grow beyond them, that speech might turn into reality (although in such a world, a speech like that is not necessary), but in THIS particular world, you have to wait for millennia for it to happen, and likely it still won't.