Hustlers? More Like Lying, Stealing, Tramps

A little thought experiment if you will. Imagine a movie based on the following premise:

A group of single dads, working as bartenders at a high class New York bar frequented by wealthy women, decide that their generous tips aren’t quite keeping them in Rolexes and Tom Ford suits.  They start putting roofies into the drinks of their rich lonely clientele and when the ladies are out of it, abscond with their credit cards and charge up a storm, relying on social embarrassment to keep the women quiet. 

Do you think these lads would be hailed by critics as heroes or condemned as villains?

I’m sure it took you the duration of a humming bird’s fart to decide on the latter. Then why is the opposite scenario in the movie Hustlers, with strippers scamming men, being called ‘Pulse racing empowerment’ or (by our own Flicks.co.nz) a ‘Perfect movie’?

I disrespectfully dissent from this critical consensus: Hustlers is nothing but immoral garbage being pimped by woke wankerdom for a nefarious political agenda.

Constance Wu is young ‘exotic dancer’ Destiny who follows ‘the green-brick road’ to New York, where she learns the ropes from seasoned Ramona (Lopez) on how to exploit men for cash. Everything is Champagne and Louis Vuitton until the 2008 financial crisis hits and the expense account boys rein it in. Ramona and her ‘sisters’ come up with a scheme to up their take home by seeking out solo men in bars, slipping them a mickey and hauling them back to the club for fleecing. The ladies bond over their criminal enterprise, shitty boyfriends, motherhood, and a love of mammoth shopping sprees on other people’s coin. When they inevitably get sprung (in a Goodfellas inspired montage of arrests set to Kiwi Lorde’s ‘Royals’) there is betrayal, of the save-your-ass-by-talking-to-the-feds variety before it all ends in hugs and kisses and five years’ probation.

Lopez is already getting Oscar ‘buzz’. She’s a decent enough actress (any doubts, watch her in Out of Sight), but praising an ex-dancer (she was a ‘fly girl’ on In Living Colour) from the Bronx for playing a stripper from the Bronx is a little like praising Tom Cruise for pulling off a role as a vain Scientologist.

The plot follows the beats of the heist flick and there is some entertainment to be had from the ladies’ chutzpah in separating men from their hard-earned (or as the film has it, from their ‘stolen money’ although I’m not as sure as the movie is that every Wall Street guy is Bernie Madoff).

Hustlers is really a platonic love story between two women, Destiny and Ramona. As such it succeeds. But what chafes the ball sack of this male reviewer is why a sweet tale of sisterly support has to be told at the expense of men. Every single male character in this film is either a complete A-hole or pathetic or both. Not one decent father, husband or boyfriend – even the children of both Destiny and Ramona are girls, perhaps to avoid scenes of them being affectionate to a male. Destiny calls one victim of their scam ‘a nice guy’ but only after robbing him so badly he cries like a little girl who’s lost her dolly. I’m sure saints are thin on the ground in strip clubs but as someone who has darkened the door of a few such establishments, we ain’t all irredeemable sinners either.

Worse, ripping off men is shown as a positive good. This is where the ‘empowerment’ bit comes in. These women you see, are victims. The patriarchy is responsible for their bad choices, lack of education and inability to get a job at McDonalds. Ergo, the bastards must pay and any bastard will do. This isn’t just insulting to men; it’s a slur against all those single mums in strained circumstances who struggle on without using men as walking ATMs.

 If there is any doubt as to the message of this movie it comes at the Christmas party when Destiny’s grandmother, who one would think would hold more conservative views, is asked if she’d have left her husband on her wedding night if the singer Frankie Valli had turned up at her door. Her reply? ‘What car is he driving?’ That’s right folks, a man’s worth is entirely economic.

Nice.

The almost uniform praise from critics of both sexes that Hustlers has received seems to me further evidence that gender politics is driving the world insane.

• The Guardian
• Flicks.co.nz
• Independent.co.uk

I guess it’s no huge revelation that young women (who now on average earn more than men) in the current political climate are not only to be automatically ‘believed’ but are beyond moral critique altogether.

A much bigger (ahem) revelation is that the only ‘mature’ dancer here, 50 year old J.Lo, still has an arse you could crack an egg on.

Take that, you woke wankers.