A Comparison Of Sex In American Pie And The Virgin Suicides

Improved Essays
Just from seeing the first ten minutes of each of the movies, American Pie and The Virgin Suicides, the audience can see how they are on complete opposite ends of the spectrum of when it comes to the topic of sex. American Pie portrays sex as the thing that everyone is doing and the parents support it to the extent of as long as they are practicing safe sex. Then we have The Virgin Suicides where sex is heavily frowned upon in the main family and the parents are so controlling of the girls’ lives that it drives them to take their own lives. I believe our world portrays sex in the way American Pie depicts it and The Virgin Suicides shows how some parents react to the worldview, in my opinion, to the extreme. American Pie is definitely a …show more content…
The Lisbon family, the main family, was raised in a very traditional sense; religion played a huge role in the parents’ way of thinking, the five girls were sheltered from the outside world for the most part, the girls were also under strict rules of dating and friends. The movie begins with the youngest girl attempting to commit suicide and because of this she goes to therapy where the therapist suggests she needs to have more interaction with people her age and the opposite sex, not just her family. Because of the therapist’s suggestion, the Lisbon’s throw a party which in my opinion was completely awkward! Just from this party the audience can see the effects on the girls from their parents’ strict rules. Throughout the movie I believe the girls were having an internal battle of which world they should believe and follow; at school, with their peers, and through the media they were exposed to the iWorld, but then they listen to their parents who are pushing the ideals of the tWorld on them. I believe this internal battle of who they should believe, their parents or the outside world, plays a huge part in their decision of taking their own …show more content…
The mom pulled the girls out of school and made the oldest daughter burn her record collection (something she cherished). In American Pie, I do not remember there being a lot of law, if any. There is, I feel, a lot of gospel, especially from Jim’s dad. Jim’s parents catch him watching porn and masturbating, his dad brings him “dirty” magazines, his dad sees all his condoms and chooses to ignore it, and the part I found really disgusting was when his dad caught him having “sex” with a pie, in which case the dad said that they would just tell the mom they ate it all. Like I said before, these movies are on complete opposite sides of the topic of sex. They are also on opposite sides when it comes to law and gospel; The Virgin Suicides is heavy law and American Pie is heavy gospel. These movies go to the extreme of law and gospel, but I feel for real life there needs to be a middle point; too much law leads to people feeling suffocated and unable to do anything right, while too much gospel leads people to feel they can get away with anything, no matter

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