Well. The crudeness of 40 Year-Old Virgin—and be prepared for some extreme crudeness, some of which, two decades later, would for good reason no longer be tolerable—has a purpose. The film explores male fragility, especially with respect to sex, by amplifying it. And, truth be told, as offensive as some of these jokes are, they are pretty standard fare for all-male gatherings. Not that women aren’t aware of the depth of our shallowness. For reasons I can’t remember, I made the wildly imprudent decision to watch this movie with my 25-year-old goddaughter and her mom, a close friend. I squirmed in my seat far more than they did, and they enjoyed watching me squirm. In the end, that’s the value of 40 Year-Old Virgin. The laughs—and it does contain some please-stop-it-hurts laughs—facilitate the subversiveness of the message: men wound themselves by unquestioningly accepting toxic cultural norms around sexuality. But if it’s a hard watch now, imagine how it will feel in a generation or two. We roll our eyes at jokes about sex (and race, and…) in old movies for a reason.
The 40 Year-Old Virgin, directed by Judd Apatow, performances by Steve Carrell, Catherine Keener, and Paul Rudd, 2005. Reviewed May 26, 2025.
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