Rent a Girlfriend #01 — Screaming Makes Comedy

July 11th, 2020

 

Boy, am I tired of this flavor of protagonist.

Sorry this is a bit slow/late. I hadn't noticed it was a Friday show, and my internet connection at my current location is… far from great. I think I've got things figured out, but they're slow.

Impressions:

Yeeeah, this expectedly turns out even worse than every time a bad sitcom uses some form of "pretend to date me" thing, and the comedy is entirely based around someone making a stupid face while overreacting to things. And yet, still manages to find time to cram in tawdry fanservice objectification of every single female in the show that isn't a hospital stricken grandmother. The premise may actually make it worse, because the protagonist here is a profoundly horrible person overall. He throws a tantrum that the girl he hired to pretend to be his girlfriend is just doing it for the money. Dude, are you familiar with the service industry at all? Do you pitch a fit when waiters leave after bringing you food instead of staying and eating with you? Probably. And then fantasize about them eating with other people.

But for no reason whatsoever, she just smiles, lets him, and any little half gesture that he's not as big a dick as he really is, she forgives him and falls a little more in love with him. And we repeat that cycle, through lying to other people, to groping her, to further lies. If you removed the silly faces and sound effects, this would be pretty damn close to a psychological abuse story about gaslighting someone. There's no epiphany for him at the end of the episode. He doesn't grow and realize that he was being a scumbag to her, and probably his ex as well. He's not being presented as the misogynstic, manipulative jackass that he is. She doesn't dress him down for his attitude towards anything. She just blushes and squirms about what a nice guy he is, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Next Episode:

Posted in Rent a Girlfriend | Comments Off on Rent a Girlfriend #01 — Screaming Makes Comedy

Comments are closed.