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The Appropriate Tune - "I'd Rather Go Blind", by Etta James
As history has moved on, certain types of film have waxed and waned in popularity. Around the 1950s you couldn’t take a piss without a drop hitting a some type of cowboy movie, but now westerns are as rare as the buffalo our forefathers slaughtered en masse as we carved out the wild West. So it has been for what we refer to as ‘sex comedies’; Comedy movies involving sex are still around of course, they still get press, but they’re not nearly the hot-ticket item that they were back in the frat bro craze of the 00s, much less the late 60’s and 70s. Of course I am talking out of my ass, so take that with a grain of salt.
As for what changed, I’d say it’s because the concept of sex isn’t novel anymore. Back when society was emerging out of the stuffy 50s and undergoing a bit of liberalization, the idea of acknowledging that people had sex still had the scent of taboo, and the act of showing erotic imagery was risque, bohemian even. Because of that trend people have become more comfortable with the idea of sex, and with easier and easier access to lewd and lascivious materials as technology has advanced, talking about dicks or seeing tits isn’t the same artistic statement that it used to be. I mean Family Guy talks about sex all the time, it ain’t cool anymore.
If You Don’t Stop It…You’ll Go Blind!!! then is a relic from that distant past, a collection of cheeky jokes played out by our lovely cast in order to determine who wins the World Sex Award. You’ll see women glued to toilets, ditzy nurses, and other folks of indiscriminate virtue. You want skits, you’ll get skits. You want one-liners, you’ll get one-liners. You want rape jokes? I’m not sure sure why you would, that’s gross dude, but you’ll get some of that too. Tits, bush, dicks, it’s all fair game in this movie.
That’s all she wrote, almost 90 minutes of the kinds of jokes that would be accompanied by someone staring at the camera while a trombone plays that ‘wah-wah-wah-wahhh’ bit that we can all hear in our heads. I won’t say that there’s nothing funny in here, but I think that’s mainly due to the quantity of material they crammed into this picture. Rapid fire, joke joke joke joke, just enough time to give you a punchline before jumping to the next thing. At that pace, you’re bound to get some zingers just from timing and attrition. But you already get that through tiktok and youtube shorts, so what’s really the appeal beyond seeing folks that are now your grandparent’s age talking about fucking?
So that’s a thumb’s down from me. As I said there is some funny material in here, but most of the time it feels like you’re watching one of those ‘Best Of’ compilations of the Benny Hill Show, but with all those bits of them running around really fast cut out. It doesn’t do anything for me, but maybe it’ll be different for you.
STATUS: NOT RECOMMENDED
