The 40-Year-Old Virgin

I was part of a group presentation on the film The 40-Year-Old Virgin which analyzed the film in terms of a sex comedy, disciplining the body, the ritual of dating and the reversal of gender roles as related to our course theme of the radical romance. My contribution to the presentation of the film was the discussion of the reversal of tradition gender roles. This reversal of gender roles helped the audience to identify with Andy at moments in the film as well as made Andy a more vulnerable character. Generally, the women in the film are self-sufficient and are actually more socially successful than the men. I also helped to develop the discussion on The 40-Year-Old Virgin as a sex comedy where the film fit the criteria of having disguise and masquerade, a “hierarchy of knowledge” and reversions and inversions of the “natural order” as described by Tamar McDonald in her book Romantic Comedy: Boy Meets Girl Meets Genre. Overall this was a good experience and our group worked extremely well together as we have very good feedback and discussion from the rest of the class.