Since female Vice Presidents are so hot right now, remember The Contender? In case you don’t, President Jeff Bridges is all about making fictional political history by having Joan Allen become his VP. But there’s a scandal! Her character may have been involved in an orgy in college. There’s even an incriminating photo. But having a vag doesn’t mean her personal life is any business of the American people, and as a good feminist, Joan Allen won’t address the issue at all. Like all fantasy presidents, Jeff Bridges won’t be pushed around by Washington fat cats, and he nominates her anyway. Great—youthful threeways doesn’t preclude a woman from the second highest office in this country.
Except it does: even in fictional Washington, a female Vice President can’t be open to opening up multiple orifices. In the last scene of the movie, Joan Allen tells Jeff Bridges that she didn’t participate in the orgy and has a birthmark to prove it. So even if American voters don’t have a right to know that Joan Allen isn’t into multiples, American filmgoers do. And thank God, the truth is family values friendly.
Faux-feminism is worse than straight up misogyny.