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Breaking Bad Habits? 'Appropriate Behavior' Trailer

By Emily Cutler | Videos | January 13, 2015 |

By Emily Cutler | Videos | January 13, 2015 |


Do you guys all have that friend who is constantly telling you about some new movie that you’ve just got to see? I think they’re perpetually talking about this movie.

I’m not saying that this looks bad. It could be really interesting, but the trailer makes it’s look like what has become the stereotypical indie flick. Youngish woman having romantic difficulties, date faux pas, scenes on a subway. Doesn’t it seem like we’ve seen this before?

Well on the one hand, I’m into the demystification of bisexual and Middle Eastern women’s lives. The scene with Scott Adsit? Yes, more of that please. As difficult as life might be for women in repressive, sexist cultures, it’s a bad idea to imagine they have zero agency. It’s also a bad idea to imagine that women in same- sex romantic relationships spend all of their time at farmers markets processing their feelings. Lesbians have actually been spotted at night clubs in the wild. It’s shocking, but true.

And on the other hand if I never hear the phrase “young, hip Brooklynite”, it’ll be too soon. Attention twenty- somethings living in New York’s coolest borough: we get it. I’m not even opposed to Brooklyn itself. I’m opposed to the idea that where you live is a sufficient amount of personality to have.

I’m hoping the “young, hip Brooklynite” tag is ironic. The “I think it all happens outside of New York” line has to be sarcastic, right? But then we get into the sarcastic New Yorker stereotype. But maybe that itself is a commentary on how New York has become a caricature of itself in film and tv? Or a meta-commentary on how the public expects a specific type of New York to the point that even independent movies have to conform themselves to an image which is in no way an independent vision or voice?

See, and this is why I don’t watch more indie movies.