For one of my Adventure in Women's Studies events, I attended the "Q is for Queer" event on campus. While at the event, the movie The Hangover 2 was brought up during discussion. A girl at the event discussed the controversy of one of the scenes in the movie that really opened my eyes.
The scene she brought up was when the guys in the movie are trying to figure out what happened to them the previous night and Alan remembers they were at a strip club. The guys go to the strip club that they were at the night before to see if they can find anymore clues about what happened to them. While they are at the strip club, the guys find out that Stu engaged in sexual intercourse with one of the strippers. Stu, who is engaged and has his wedding in a couple of days, is obviously upset to hear that he cheated on his fiance with a stripper. The guys reassure him that everything is okay and try to play it off as no big deal. Phil even tells Stu that he technically isn't even married yet and the guys laugh about what happened.
The scene becomes controversial when Stu and his friends find out that the stripper is transexual. Based off of a heteronormative viewpoint, the guys all assumed the stripper was straight. This takes things to a whole new level. Stu quickly turns from being disappointed in himself to being embarrassed and disgusted that he participated in a sexual affair with a transexual person. His friends are all in shock and now all of a sudden him cheating is a huge deal.
The girl who brought up this scene at the "Q is for Queer" discussion opened my eyes to how controversial this scene is. Why is it not a big deal if Stu would have had sex with a straight stripper, but since the stripper was a transexual it is all of a sudden not okay? The men in The Hangover demonstrate a homophobia and a strong sense of compulsory heterosexuality.
I did not include the link to this scene because it is highly inappropriate but it can be easily found on Youtube.
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