The Sperminator
Unlike past summer films featuring Spiderman, Iron Man, or X-Man, this summer’s leading movie man is the XY-Man, the sperm donor. In The Kids Are Alright Mark Ruffalo plays the sperm donor tracked down by the children of two lesbians played by Annette Bening and Julianne Moore. The lesbians finally reject the sperm donor from the tight egg of their family. In The Switch originally called The Baster, Jason Bateman plays an accidental sperm donor who meets himself seven years later in the son of a single mom, played by Jennifer Aniston.
According to my purely vanilla extracted film survey, sperm have of course already been featured in film.
In the 1972 Woody Allen film Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Too Afraid to Ask, the answer to the question, “What happens during ejaculation?” features an ensemble cast of sperm. Allen plays a nervous, nerdy sperm fearful of ending up on the ceiling. The hilariously mechanistic explanation of ejaculation should be extra credit viewing in abstinence-only sex education programs.
In the 1983 Monty Python film The Meaning of Life, sperm merit a catchy musical treatment. The father of sixty-three children sings “Every Sperm is Sacred” as his kids are being marched off to an orphanage. He belts out a rousing West End rendition: “Every sperm is sacred. Every sperm is great. And when a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate.” I recovered from the song just in time for the one-tiny-dinner-mint scene.
And of course men have always been essentialist sperm-donors, but as we’ve seen this summer, the purpose and centrality of that function has shifted with the increased agency of women. Call it choice. It is a profound shift. Why now? Certainly technological advances in artificial insemination, improved in vitro imaging and other sciency things are important. But feminism, Title IX, changing employment patterns, increase in single mothers, and gay activism with its redefinition of marriage and family are all cultural forces in this shift. When the sperm donor is not the central focus of movies about women the shift will truly be a seismic.
We’ll save for another time the discussion of Salt. The leading role of murderous, macho man was written for Tom Cruise. The role was eventually played by the incredibly fertile Angelina Jolie. In my experience it beats male porn.
August 6, 2010 @ 10:54 am
Have finally come to the conclusion that TKAA was “Reefer Madness” for sperm donors.
“Oh sure, Mr. Man, you have a great life now. Great business. Great sex life. Hot motorcycle. But be warned! If 18 or so years ago, you spilled your seed for silver, your life will be ruined! Your very fecund existence will be reduced to spending your nights staring pathetically through a window at the family you could have had if you just hadn’t been so frickin’ selfish and shallow. Mwahahaha.”
January 11, 2012 @ 1:25 am
We have different movie preference and feedback. Of course I do respect your movie review. However, it does not mean I agree. I have watched those movies that you have mention and I don’t see any wrong on those movies. They even help us viewers regarding the process of reproduction. All we have to do is to be open minded and be matured enough on watching the film. Anyway, they are Rated so, we know if they are appropriate to be watched by our youngsters or not.
Anna Marie
Blog: aspirateur sans fil