Yesterday, New York Post film critic Kyle Smith published a piece explaining why women are not capable of understanding Goodfellas. Meanwhile, earlier this week, a critic at the Guardian published a review of Jurassic World, noting that it passes the Bechdel test on account of its female dinosaurs. Interestingly, within Flavorwire’s extensive paleontological archives, we found a female dinosaur’s response to the latter film, and noted that this relic bore similarities to both of these other exemplary writing specimens. Prehistory, it seems, repeats itself.
By a certain Sarah Tops III:
The first time I — just another sassy, no-nonsense cis-female Triceratops with a penchant for supporting the gals in my herd when they describe their problems, usually involving the men in their lives (a behavioral pattern that can only be chalked up our cavernous cloacas) — saw Jurassic World, my own Jurassic life was flipped upside down. I turned to my boo (which, given the combination of reclining cineplex seat, bloated thorax, and stubby hoofed limbs, was no easy task) and said, “What did you think?”
“Chick flick,” he snorted in his dudebro first-wave Bay Ridge accent. (Mom warned me about guys like that, and look where I am now.) I knew, right at that moment, that it would never work between us, and that soon I’d be back on the literal and figurative prowl. Lo and behold, I’d reactivate my Diner® account — “No Masiaksaurases, plz. Presbyterian on Sundays, Sexy-terian on Saturnights! No face pic no cloaca!” — days later. I’d also go to the actual diner with my gal pals to have a good cry over an even better eggs florentine (herbivores 4eva).
It turns out I haven’t been able to find a mate since, because male dinosaurs just don’t get Jurassic World. I mean, I was awestruck at how it passes Bechdel test — and with flying colors! (I use that expression literally — the stunningly hued, winged Pteranodons in the film may look like they’re just flapping around and antagonizing theme-park goers, but what these hawt ladies are actually doing is discussing quantum physics and queer theory.) And, at my weekly brunch with my girlfriends — to whom I just gush supportive mantras until we all become paralyzed when a man in an adjacent booth says “Goodfellas” — we joked that the film also passed the “béchamel test.” Tee hee!
Because what male dinos don’t see is that Jurassic World isn’t just another sci-fi action movie. With its park populated entirely by lady-dinos, it’s a “Gaia-ist conception of how dinosaurs might solve their own crises”… that passes the goddamn béchamel test, OK? Case closed. It’s like Little Women, but Goliath, Beaked, Horned, Scaly Women, or like Mad Magyarosaurus: Fury Road (though, admittedly, the human roles in Jurassic World just don’t cut it like they did in the latter film).
Men can’t handle the fact that the whole aim of the film is to upend the desires of the Indominus Rex — herself an emblem of heteronormativity and old-fashioned ideas of feminine longing. Audiences think she’s just some kind sociopathic terror, but the reason she’s gone so batshit is because she’s caught up in all these projections of what women are supposed to want. “Way down deep in the reptile brain,” she’s just going through something all us modern gals go through: yes, she wants a career, yes, she wants success, but really, society keeps telling her she needs a man, yet here she is on this Lesbos-like island! She wants some D (ugh, fine, penis-ish cloaca), but there’s no penis-ish cloaca to be found! So she begins to pillage, to destroy — and ultimately, it’s other, more enlightened female dinosaurs (the Velociraptors and the T-Rex) who fight against the normative sociosexual quagmire she’s gotten herself in. Male dinosaurs sense that they are irrelevant to this fantasy, and it’s like: please. Go watch Goodfellas (because all that ball-busting has been scientifically proven to make female viewers literally explode. They’ve been laying down tarps before screenings at the Film Forum). Us ladies can ovary-punch on our own, thanks!
Ovary-punching, btw, means backhandedly complimenting each other, preferably in the presence of tampons, feminine condoms, pregnancy tests, placentas, cover-up, and chocolate. (And it’s just the way it is that Jurassic World gals always congregate around the mauled carcass, just like the Golden Girls.) Men cannot be present for ovary-punching because their icky cigars (aka PHALLIC SYMBOLS, amirite?) and card games (ladies: what’s a card?) and drinks (um, I don’t understand what these things are) and retractable penises and large caudal chevrons and distinct cranial crests make everything they do inexplicable, and it’s like, no thanks, pour me another glass of period blood. To a man, the Indominus Rex is a vicious killer, but to women, she’s just someone who’s been fed one too many societal norms. I can imagine what Jurassic World be like if it were told by a man, and it isn’t pretty:
Chris Pratt plays Owen, the rugged hero on a motorcycle who’s so in touch with the most important core values of life as to also be able to communicate with other, prehistoric life-forms: he’s a Velociraptor trainer. Meanwhile, Bryce Dallas Howard plays Claire, an off-putting careerist whose professional aims have turned her into a callous, heartless wretch in expensive capes, who forgets the ages of her nephews. When the hyper-ambition of Claire and the CEO of their dinosaur theme park leads to mass destruction, it’s up to Owen to save the day (with Claire at his side, even shooting something, once!) and help Claire realize a thing or two about caring, family, and maybe — someday even — motherhood.
Hah! Good thing that’s not exactly the plot of the film!
So, dinoEs. Sip from thy DivaCups, shake those booties (and egg-laying-facilitating medullary bones!), and at all costs, cover those ears (do we even have those?) the next time you hear some man mention Jimmy the Gent or Billy Batts, because you will literally just fall down dead.