Sunday, January 09, 2011

"My boyfriend looks just like a movie star!"

One of the staples of romcom is mistaken identity. Comedy comes from the confusion of someone either posing as someone else or someone believing somebody is somebody else. When you watch and hopefully enjoy these farces do you ever think to yourself, “Oh, this could never happen in real life”?

Well here’s one that really did happen -- a few years ago in that always crazy kooky town of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
A guy and his girlfriend were watching a porno movie at 10:30 in the morning in their house. (A far better alternative than THE VIEW). The girl, 20 year old Amanda Moya (pictured above) suddenly thought a certain porn actor who had just entered the scene was in fact her boyfriend. (Wouldn’t he have to resemble the actor in two ways? But I digress.)

She went bat-shit. This is the kind of "previous experience" she must have felt he was obliged to reveal before they moved in together...and had a kid.

Amanda grabbed a large kitchen knife and started chasing him around the house. The terrified look-alike called 911 on his cell as he dodged his knife-wielding beloved.

Wearing only shorts he bolted out of the house and ran down the street for his life, still on line with 911. Meanwhile Amanda followed, hell bent to go all Benihana on him.

He breathlessly told the dispatcher that Amanda had already stabbed him and bitten him on his chest. And then he offered, “She already has battery charges against her. She’s not even supposed to be around me.” (Quick reminder: they live together. And have a child.)

The 911 operator told him to get to a store while she called authorities. (How come you never see this high-speed chase on COPS?) Amanda, with thoughts I'm sure of becoming the next Lorena Bobbitt, remained in hot pursuit.

The victim tells the dispatcher that he sees the arriving cops. But he’s worried they'll just keep heading to his house. The dispatcher says, “Do they see your girlfriend?” He says, “Yes!” She says be sure to point her out. (A crazed woman waving the O.J.-weapon-of-choice isn’t enough to catch a policeman’s attention?)

Amanda was arrested and charged with aggravated assault & battery. Sometimes a happier ending than guy-gets-the-girl is cops-get-the girl.

Watch your local listings. Scheduled for next summer release: SLICE OF LOVE starring Lindsay Lohan, and introducing Rock Hard.

10 comments :

Rod said...

Don't forget the obvious sequel:

"SLICE OF LOVE II: DODGEBALLS"

te said...

I thought this was leading to "my girlfriend looks like a movie star -- Broderick Crawford!"

Grubber said...

I think this is one RomCom Jennifer Aniston could pull off.....

L.B. said...

No offense to anyone here, but I doubt this situation would seem the least bit funny if the genders were reversed. (Man with a history of abuse believes his girlfriend has been sexually promiscuous; he bites her, stabs her and chases her with the knife as she runs away terrified trying to reach the police Har.)

By Ken Levine said...

Yes... but it's not a man chasing a terrified woman. There is a specific absurdity to it and that's what makes it funny. At least to me.

selection7 said...

The "specific absurdity" is L.B.'s point though. It would be just as funny with the genders reversed...but only if the public were also predisposed to think of women as the bullies and men as physically weak/needing protection. Beyond mistaken identity, the comedy comes from the role reversal, right? And the situation becomes less funny when it's the true story of a "bully" brutally attacking someone "helpless". The point is that neither stereotype is necessarily true or fair to each gender. I agree with L.B. that it's at least worth being self-aware about, though not militant.

Phillip Stamp said...

I thought it was funny.

carol said...

I think that Ken was finding the absurdity in the fact she thought he looked like a porn star.

That said, I do think that this post does fall into the catagory of 'women are weak and men are strong and therefore a woman trying to hurt a man is funny' even if that wasn't Ken's intent. It's just so ingrained in our society. Look at that stupid movie Wedding Crashers. A man gets raped by a woman, and it's played for laughs, because men can't ever be violated because they are sex-crazed, one-dimentinonal idiots, apparently. It's not doing either gender any favours.

(But Ken, it was still an amusingly written post, and I'm sure that's all you were going for.)

jbryant said...

te said: "I thought this was leading to 'my girlfriend looks like a movie star -- Broderick Crawford!'"

If anyone needs a visual:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BroderickBurns.jpg

L.B. said...

I feel a little bit like a male version of the old "How many feminists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?" joke. (Answer: "That's not funny!") But I do think there's a double standard about this sort of thing that's starting to change.