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5. Cal says Andy's first time will be bad, so he shouldn't spend it with someone he loves, but with a complete stranger instead. How do you react to that advice?
   
   
6. Do you think people make a big deal of virginity, or the losing of it? Which is more important, virginity or chastity? Is it possible to be chaste even if you are not a virgin? If so, how? Is it possible to be a virgin and not chaste? (For example, a counselor in the film describes several forms of "outercourse"—are these practices compatible with chastity?)

The Family Corner

The 40-Year-Old Virgin is rated R for pervasive sexual content, language and some drug use. That "pervasive sexual content" includes scenes throughout the film that are especially degrading to women, who are often treated as mere sex objects. The movie also may have more f-words than any other movie produced outside the crime genre, and it has some nudity, too—including a woman whose breast pops out of her dress, a man who videotapes his own rear end, and a scene in which Andy's co-workers lock him in a room full of video screens showing a porn movie. Some of the jokes involve vomit and urination, and there is an obligatory scene of two dogs in heat at the park.

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© Peter T. Chattaway 2005, subject to licensing agreement with Christianity Today International. All rights reserved. Click for reprint information.

Judd Apatow's comedy The 40-Year-Old Virgin is about … well … just that. Steve Carrell proved himself as Hollywood's funniest secret weapon while playing a small part as a weatherman in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. Now he has his first lead role in film as a socially inept geek (he collects action figures and works at a tech shop) who tries to cover up his virginity by boasting about sexual shenanigans until someone calls his bluff. When his peers begin to apply the proverbial peer pressure, coaching him toward fornication, he suddenly finds himself in love with a wonderful woman (the always impressive Catherine Keener) and decides to put off "the big event" a little longer.

Thus, in spite of the film's incessant locker-room humor and profanity, the film's plot ultimately shines a surprising, complimentary light on abstinence and restraint. But that's not enough to save it from the wrath of Christian film critics, who, needless to say, aren't recommending it.

Harry Forbes (Catholic News Service) laments, "We've seen it before. The buddies of a painfully shy, awkward guy—who has never had a girlfriend—help him find true love. But this latest incarnation … is relentlessly vulgar and frequently offensive, even beyond the false premise that there's something intrinsically wrong with an unmarried man being sexually inexperienced."

Marcus Yoars (Plugged In) says the film is "overloaded to the breaking point with vile material—both visual and verbal. Period. Do I now live in a world in which an oxymoron such as 'innocently raunchy' can actually exist? Sure, Andy is a sensitive nice-guy who finds occasional contentment in his celibacy in a culture that typically defines happiness by the number of sexual conquests one has. That's great. But are we to studiously ignore the onslaught of over-the-top foul content that surrounds him?"

Meanwhile, mainstream critics are celebrating the arrival of comedy's hottest new leading man.

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