So Chris Jay and his Army of Freshmen bandmate Aaron Goldberg made a movie. Chris, if you recall, is the alpha dog behind Fresh Talk, the Ventura-based "podcast about everything." We have some history.
Prominent local music promoter Brian Parra once called Army of Freshmen the hardest-working band he knows, and The Bet is a testament to that. While the rags-to-iTunes story GoldyJay (which is a well-chosen name for the duo's production company but an even better portmanteau for your slash fiction) has been peddling seems slightly exaggerated—the initial loan of a few thousand dollars that got the project off the ground came from Jay's parents—it's true that the guys were complete filmmaking outsiders that made a movie largely through sheer moxie and shameless favor-pleading. For chrissakes, pro wrestling legends Diamond Dallas Page, Jake "The Snake" Roberts and "Rowdy" Roddy Piper are in this thing.
I wish I had some of GoldyJay's do-it-yourself spirit. As my own artistic endeavors languish and I continue to struggle with some digital-age equivalent of stage fright, I can't help looking at The Bet's existence with a bit of envy and admiration even as I hate the final product.
Oh, did I bury the lede? Sorry! This film is fucking terrible.
The Bet follows Denton Baker (Alex Klein), a down-on-his-luck video store clerk that stumbles semi-reluctantly into the titular bet: if he can have sex with all of the women (and one dude) he had crushes on while in school (12 people in all, one for each grade), he gets to take over Lucas Gourmet Condoms, the company that bought out the building which houses his video store. If Denton fails, movie antagonist and heir to the condom business Brandon (Michael Consiglio) gets Denton's house. It's a ridiculous only-in-the-movies-type premise where the assets at stake are wildly out-of-sync with the juvenile score being settled. While not every movie has to be Citizen Kane, GoldyJay does little to disguise the sense that The Bet is simply an excuse to ogle attractive actresses while simultaneously belittling them.
But let's back up a bit; there's plenty wrong with the film before we even get to its deeply embedded misogyny. It's unclear, for instance, how a video store employee with presumably shitty pay can be his own landlord capable of placing his house on the line for a bet. Another problem here is the movie has to cycle through a lot of characters in a runtime of a mere hour and 29 minutes, which forces some disorienting editing. There's a stripper character (Erin Marie Hogan) and a Satanist character (Erin Rose Morse) that are clearly different women, but the former's scene morphs into the latter's so suddenly that I had to rewind and double-check anyways.
Too many characters on Denton's list have conveniently remained in his orbit of adulthood: 11th grade crush Denise Davids (Stacey Kaney) is the condom company's receptionist; 9th grade crush Kirsten Kelly (Mindy Robinson) is the trophy wife of Mr. Lucas (Jake "The Snake" Roberts). And so on. The Bet also cheats on its premise by playing loose with that pesky "consent" nonsense. The guiding principle here is less "seduce these women" and more "force a sexual act on these women by any means necessary," which paves the way for blatant deceit. Denton is clearly meant to be a "lovable loser" type but the considerable charms of actor Alex Klein are constantly undermined by this kind of ignorant misogyny. Our protagonist begins the movie so hapless in the romance department that a blind date abandons him after spotting a former hook-up partner; he ends it with 12 new notches in his bedpost (more or less; again, the movie cheats often). It's an improbable feat achieved not through character development but through the film’s assumption of the inherent stupidity and sluttiness of womenkind.
Early in the film, Denton picks up Hailey Matthews (Katie Hilliard) for a night out and discovers that his 7th grade crush is now a nun. At a bowling alley he relays tall tales that demonstrate cliché bad-boy desirability: He cagefights! He gets tattoos! He rides a motorcycle! Hailey becomes so hot and bothered that she renounces her sisterhood on the spot in order to do the horizontal mambo with her suddenly irresistible date. Later in the film Denton attempts to seduce 5th grade crush Kendra McNulty (Nikki Leigh). He visits her wearing a long white overcoat, the standard uniform of doctors everywhere, and again bullshits his way into some action before the two are interrupted by Kendra's fiancé (Chris Jay).
GoldyJay apparently never stopped to think about the real-world consequences such actions would have. Hailey and Kendra are throwing away entire lives because some random former classmate they probably forgot existed suddenly decides he wants to get laid. It's a cynical and dehumanizing view of women that suggests heterosexual male desire always trumps female agency.
Two years ago Vice published an article that explored whether sex earned through lies and deception should count as sexual assault. Neil McArthur wrote:
In 2013, Tom Dougherty, a philosophy professor at Cambridge University, published a paper arguing that if you lie or withhold information about anything that would be considered a deal-breaker by your partner—anything that, had they known it, would have changed their mind about sleeping with you—you have sexually assaulted them. The logic is simple: If your partner had known the truth beforehand, they wouldn't have consented, and the sex wouldn't have happened. Therefore, there was no consent. And sex without consent is assault. Fiona Elvines, of the UK national charity Rape Crisis, put this view bluntly to the Telegraph in 2014: "If you need to trick someone into having sex with you, you're a perpetrator."
These are excellent points that paint a damning picture of a film like this. But if you somehow aren't horrified yet, don't worry! GoldyJay also finds more traditional forms of sexual assault utterly hilarious. 6th grade crush Sarah Dawn Samuels (Ali Rose) once had a cosmetic surgical operation to "fix" a "moose kunckle," and Denton's wingman Jackson (Brian Allen) possesses her "embarrassing" pre-op photos. Blackmail ensues.
It's a fucking shame when such scenarios are played for laughs, especially because The Bet can be pretty funny when it isn't so busy belittling women. GoldyJay somehow managed to score legitimate actors for the project, and the more clever bits of screenwriting are often further elevated by the cast's line deliveries and Improvisational skills. But despite valiant efforts from Klein and his cohorts, GoldyJay created a group of ruthless sexual predators that no decent person should be rooting for.
In the lead-up to The Bet's release, GoldyJay hopped on any podcast that would have them to get the word out. Vaguely aware of the kind of film they made, the guys offered some feeble logic in an attempt to mitigate the inevitable criticisms. The Bet is a throwback movie, see. GoldyJay is trying to evoke the spirit of the raunchy classics of yesteryear. Like American Pie! You know, the film where a group of boys broadcast a classmate's sexual encounter without her consent to a significant chunk of their school's student body? Ah, the good old days.
There's a total double standard, see. A women-led film like Bridesmaids can get away with so much! That's why the duo's next masterpiece, tentatively titled Wedding or Not, is going to be another raunchcom, but this time it will star women! Take that, haters!
GoldyJay clearly lacks an understanding of the uneven playing field oppression creates. The guys treat raunch (a vulgar brand of comedy that depicts sexuality frankly and/or explicitly) and misogyny (views and actions that are actively detrimental for women) as interchangeable, but those are very different concepts! Pursuing sex with attractive people is not necessarily bad! Deception and sexual assault, on the other hand: not cool!
It's possible to create a raunchy film that also respects women. The Bet is no such film.
