hi rickyapologist today i'm thinking about the egregious "matt is so molested" moment that is the ntbts operation avalanche cut. thinking about how matt came up with that dirties au with him and mr bird. thinking about how ntb matt made a rape revenge movie and cast jay, mr bird, as his rapist. to make jay a movie star. do you have any thoughts. what does it all mean. why did he do that. because he didn't have to do that
hiiii max kingofallgirls! this is a great question, one that I am basically always rolling around in my own head at any given time and now I have an excuse to write about it outright! yay! Okay first of all the ntbts opav cut is one of the most insane things that has ever come out of that universe, which is saying a lot considering....everything lol but it is just genuinely bonkers that this weird thing exists and that real life Matt also made something like this and slapped the name of his ACTUAL feature length film on it seemingly without flinching. I never see people talk about that but I always think about it liiike Matt Johnson director was like 'yeah it's fine if this weird sexual assault revenge short starring my best friend as my rapist is called the same thing as my THESIS FILM AT SUNDANCE' HELLO?? And that's far from being even the craziest thing about it!!
Anyway. I've talked about this a little bit before but I think Matt (director) thinks a lot about displacement. He often casts himself as someone who is younger than he really is, he's sort of perpetually existing in a state of surpassing youth while also still being subject to its pain. I think this is a theme that ends up manifesting in his dynamic with Jay as sort of casting himself as the "younger" one not only because he literally is a few years younger than Jay but also because Jay is usually the one who comes off as more serious, I think Jay kind of fancies himself as more sophisticated in a way lol. But it's like what Matt was saying in that recent interview that came out yesterday, I think he's very into this notion of life progressing from the sort of forced socialization of young adulthood back into something stranger and less inhibited as you get further into your 30s and beyond, rediscovering yourself. I think from a comedic level there's something very absurd and appealing to Matt about playing with that and making it taboo. Even though there's hardly ever overtly anything sexual in anything Matt makes, there is always this underlying element of like the Forbidden™ being teased in one way or another. I think Matt thinks it's funny to imagine revisiting that sort of raw vulnerability of youth while creating a situation with Jay where he can really showcase the contrasts between their archetypes in a way that doesn't necessarily make Jay look any better for being in the older, more rational, more responsible position. Matt likes that power struggle, he likes themes where characters are working within a clear power structure, he likes putting himself in the most vulnerable position thematically possible and saying "wouldn't it be funny if the worst thing happened?" whatever. he's crazy, everyone knows this.
However if we wanna talk about that opav cut IN UNIVERSE, I also have plenty of thoughts about THAT. First of all let's not forget the first scene in the Big Time is Jay basically insisting that there's no way he can go into a high school to film because it'll make him automatically look like a predator, which I think is so interesting because Matt doesn't really worry about that at all. He feels like he can just breeze into a high school as an early 30 something year old guy and no one will even question it. I genuinely think despite being an annoying edgelord, there are some ways in which ntb Matt is actually very naive. He would never want sex with a high schooler! That's ridiculous! It doesn't even cross his mind that someone could accuse him of something like that just because he's trying to film something in there. Contrasted next to Jay who immediately worries about it, I think it's an interesting moment of characterization for both of them honestly. Matt who will literally be in the school openly cracking jokes about how his teacher is going to molest him but doesn't worry at all about coming off as creepy himself (almost to a fault bc let's be real, it is completely inappropriate what they're doing in that setting lol) vs Jay who is thinking about the possibility of misconduct accusations before ever even stepping foot into the school. interesting.
I think Matt secretly hates it whenever Jay thinks about anything sexual at all. I think for ntb Matt sexuality is kind of this big unknowable ugly thing that everyone else seems to be able to make sense of but he just goes through the motions of pretending to understand it because he knows that's what he's supposed to do. But I think sex and sexuality scare him, any direct reference to it makes him clearly uncomfortable and oftentimes his ONLY direct references to sex in the show quickly devolve into inappropriate jokes and bits about pedophilia. I think by now everyone knows that I think there's a decent argument to be made about Matt's character through the lens of childhood sexual abuse and I think this is just another piece in that puzzle. Here's his best friend, nervous about the project in the first place because he doesn't want anyone to get any unsavory ideas about his intentions and here's Matt who literally tells him he's going to make him a star before screening a short film in which he's a child predator who molests Matt until Matt finally snaps and kills him. at Sundance, like he screened this in front of people at Sundance LOL, it's completely bonkers. just typing out the actual canon events from the show makes me sound delusional but this is all literally there in that episode!!!
But yeah I think one of the only ways ntb Matt is able to conceptualize any kind of sex is as something to be afraid of and angry about because that's how he has always felt about it. I don't want to suggest that Matt ntb put Jay in that role in the film as a punishment for the way he immediately tries to color their trip to the high school in a creepy, inappropriate light but I see how an argument could be made that that's exactly what happened lol. But overall I really think ntb Matt sees Jay as his only real window into anything at all in that realm. He's like yeah sex is terrifying and uncomfortable but also it can still be Jay, Jay fulfilling his expectations that sex is Wrong and Bad and sort of reinforcing Matt's feelings about it being that way. By putting Jay in that role he simultaneously has someone to blame for his lack of desire to engage with sex in any conventional way, but he also gets to sort of experience that horror narratively with the only person he trusts to even really be near him. whewwww what the hell!!!
Anyways, typing this all out is making me sound and feel insane but I am so glad you asked bc I really wanted to talk about all of this at some point and this is the perfect excuse lol. feel free to sound off with alternate theories or whatever else in the replies
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