Director of the film, Olivia Wilde said in an interview
Terrifying. We based that character on this insane man, Jordan Peterson, who is this pseudo-intellectual hero to the incel community. You know the incels?
They’re basically disenfranchised, mostly white men, who believe they are entitled to sex from women.
And they believe that society has now robbed them—that the idea of feminism is working against nature, and that we must be put back into the correct place.
This guy Jordan Peterson is someone that legitimizes certain aspects of their movement because he’s a former professor, he’s an author, he wears a suit, so they feel like this is a real philosophy that should be taken seriously.
I’m getting less starship trooper vibes from this and more “The Master” (a movie “about” L Ron Hubbard the same way this will be “about” Jordan Peterson) i.e. it will be too subtle and boring to sell a lot of chud tickets because it will lack that mainstream appeal.
Judging by how chuds interpreted Verhoven’s intentional and declared satire of Heinlein’s space fascism book in his Starship Troopers movie, I expect chuds to take this film and say “based” to each and every line said by Chris Pine’s version of Dr. Professor Lobster that gets screen time anyway.
only as long as the film either does a southparky both sides thing or pulls its punches in portraying peterson as the total and complete loser dork that he is. chuds need either the “they hate everyone equally” cope or need to be able to glorify the reactionaries. if neither is possible, their usual fragility kicks in and they have a meltdown where they yell into the camera for seven hours.
edited for clarity
While them reducing lobsterboy to an incel demagogue makes me :michael-laugh:, I expect their depiction of incels to be one-dimensional and cold-hearted. It’s hard for me to imagine they bring anything new, interesting or nuanced to the conversation
Olivia Wilde’s family has some decent journalists in it. Her father is Andrew Cockburn and her uncle is Alexander Cockburn.
I hope the next film she directs is about how the CIA traffics drugs.
Pronounced coh-burn. Silly spelling, but they’ve written some great books about the American military and intelligence services.
