What Can ‘The 40-Year-Old Virgin’ Teach Us About Insecurity and Manhood 15 Years Later?
Apatow’s first feature is still a credible depiction of manhood and friendship
Judd Apatow’s first feature was written for men by men. It isn’t about wonderful love or good sex. It’s about the male insecurity many of us try to hide through crude talk that degrades women; language between men. An internationally accepted code we have embedded in our chromosome that can rarely be tolerated, let alone understood by women.
It isn’t misogyny in the slightest, it’s guy talk. It’s what The Mind of the Married Man (the opposite version of Sex & the City) tried to portray with moderate success. It is what Rescue Me nailed as the best show ever written about the dirtiness and secrecy of men’s souls.
Because it’s true: men are animals.
“There’s an insight and understanding under the surface of ‘The 40-Year-Old Virgin’ that is subtle, but sincere.”— Roger Ebert
