Scott Pilgrim vs. the Lumber Camp

You know how, whenever you’re trying to make a difficult decision and you ask your friends, someone invariably starts talking about “to thine own self be true” and Robert Frost’s Road Less Traveled because they think it’s wise, but also how this approach has never helped anyone decide whether he should consolidate his student loans? I’ve had that road-less-traveled, but-for-a-nail feeling for weeks, ever since I saw Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. I loved the SNES aesthetic – like nearly all men and most women born in 1984, that’s how I see the world, to the extent that whenever I get a check from our publisher the little Super Mario “1UP” sound plays in my head. I didn’t like the adorable cutesiness of some of the battles: I wanted to see hipsters fight, not trick each other into drinking half-and-half and expose secret back-of-the-knee self-destruct buttons, and when someone as childish and judgmental as I am gets bored when a movie makes fun of vegans and LUGs you know there’s a plot hole somewhere. Also, full disclosure: Michael Cera grates on me like a nagging cough. I know sweetly ineffectual men like this. I’ve taken classes with them, had them as roommates, peer-reviewed their essays, gone on bad dates with them, and briefly was one until I found out how much I liked to say “motherfucker.” The “gee-whiz-you’re-pretty-come-listen-to-Decemberists-B-sides-ironically-but-not-really-ironically-with-me” character he always plays grows into the kind of man who is one day, completely to his surprise, stabbed seventeen times by his wife because he would NEVER JUST GO AHEAD AND PICK A RESTAURANT WHEN SHE SAID SHE DIDN’T CARE WHERE THEY HAD DINNER. He’s the kind of lover no one likes to admit is no good. Selfish men give you the opportunity to be selfish too; arrogant men do a good job so you’ll tell your friends and help shore up their personal legends; timid men do a good job because they’re grateful; witty men do a good job because they understand playfulness and can appreciate the absurd. Sweetly ineffectual men do a bad job because they’re sweet and ineffectual. Their sexual skills are like a child’s macaroni art: primitive and unformed, but endearing enough in a sad way that you can’t quite throw it out. Another reason Michael Cera makes me uncomfortable: I do not trust an adult male of Italian descent with no discernable leg hair. Yes, I know he’s probably from the fair belt in the north that the Goths invaded but that the Arabs and Greeks didn’t. I don’t care. It unsettles me.

All this said, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World made me pensive because I have never, ever in my life seen a mainstream film more exquisitely suited to have a gay porn parody made of it, and if I only knew the first thing about filmmaking, local law, or how to hold a camera steady I could make it. Alas, I don’t, so I’ll tell you Dear Readers where I’m going with this and you can steal the idea and make a fortune.

As the film opens, Scoot Pelgrim (see what I did there?) is hopelessly in love with some hipster idiot. Quickly, because this is a porno and not an indie cult dramedy, we learn that Hipster Idiot is cursed, and to win the sardonic pseudo-affection that passes for love among hipsters from him Scoot Pelgrim must bed Hipster Idiot’s seven evil exes:

1. Guy in high school he wasn’t really attracted to but made out with anyway because it was a small town and options were limited

2. Guy he hooked up with early in college, ostensibly because he was “free” and “experimenting” but actually because nineteen-year-olds will have sex with anything that lets them

3. Girl he slept with during a brief period of “not believing in labels”

4. The stoner college boyfriend everyone had. Even straight guys and lesbians have a stoner pseudo-boyfriend in college. They don’t have sex, but he latches onto them – or, more accurately, their sofas – carrying a little hemp bag containing an eighth, Doritos, and Aqua Teen Hunger Force DVDs.

5. “Look, I’ll just put up a craigslist ad to see, and if everyone is sketchy I don’t have to answer.”

6. Foreign guy with whom the language barrier is irrelevant for two weeks

7. “Older… no, not old, just older… no, he wasn’t keeping me, I just needed help making rent that one time… no, I don’t think that’s the same thing at all.”

At the end of the movie, Scoot, stickier but wiser after his voyage of discovery, realizes that what he needs isn’t love, but staggering amounts of casual sex. This sets us up for some sequels, which can be based on the Ernest movies: Scoot Pelgrim Goes to Camp, Scoot Pelgrim Goes to Jail, Scoot Pelgrim Goes to Africa… I think it’s brilliant.

Just in case your workplace firewall hasn’t called the HR Appropriate Internet Usage Conflict Resolution Team yet: despite the fact that my job is “writing jokes about poop and incest,” I believe in professionalism, which is why I was shocked – shocked! – by something I saw in some porn yesterday. Man A and Man B were… making friends, shall we say, when a fully audible conversation began among the crew.

Director: Larry.

Cameraman: Yeah?

Director: What do you call those ice cream things? Not popsicles. Those ice cream things on a stick.

Cameraman: Drumsticks?

Director: Not, not a cone, a stick. We used to get them from the corner.

Cameraman: I don’t remember. Ask Ted.

Director (shouting): TED! WHAT DO YOU CALL THOSE ICE CREAM THINGS WE USED TO GET? ON THE STICK?

Ted (shouting from another room): PUSH-UPS. THEY HAD FRED FLINTSTONE ON THEM.

Director: NO, NOT THOSE, THOSE ARE GOOD THOUGH. I guess we’ll just go to 7-11 later. Oh, sorry. You boys are doing fine. Keep up the good work.

It’s just not professional.