Member-only story
Incels and the Search for Posthuman Heroes
“The 40-Year-Old Virgin” and the shift to nerdy posthuman heroism
As postindustrial economies replace strong, competent men with machines, emasculating our traditional heroes, can story-tellers cope by refashioning losers as the heroes we’ve needed all along? This question gets at the subtextual burden of movies like The 40-Year-Old Virgin.
The Irony of the Boyish Saint
The movie’s a comedy featuring Andy, a salesman at an electronics store, and his coworkers who discover he’s a virgin at 40 and who try to rectify his sexual situation. But the movie’s a curious one because instead of heaping ridicule on the titular character, it turns the tables on the coworkers.
To be sure, the film ridicules Andy, comparing him to the many unopened toys and comic books he still collects. Taking them out of their package ruins their value, says Andy, the double meaning being that Andy prizes his virginity or at least doesn’t want to have cheap sex. The film suggests that Andy’s virginity is the result of his arrested development. Although he’s emotionally stable and indeed in some ways mentally healthier than his sexually-active coworkers, Andy’s hobbies are depicted as being those of a teenager. His house is a man cave, complete with video games…
