This Bro-Favorite Movie Has a 97% Rotten Tomatoes Score, But I Think It’s Garbage

It's highly impossible to exist in the American cultural landscape and not have at least heard a passing reference to The Godfather. For me, that reference came while watching You've Got Mail, which is, funnily, the most antithetical you could get in terms of genre. For a year, all I could remember was Tom Hanks' character imploring Meg Ryan's to "Go to the mattresses!" and thinking, what?!

In the name of research, I forced my friend to watch The Godfather with me. Despite the fact that it has a glowing Rotten Tomatoes score of 97 percent, is Francis Ford Coppola's magnum opus and cemented the Coppola family as a Hollywood dynasty, I have to say...I didn't love it.

The TL;DR of The Godfather for anyone still living under a rock: The film follows the Corleone family, helmed by patriarch Vito (Brando), as they come under threat by a rival crime family after Vito, styled Don Corleone, refuses to invest in a narcotics business. At the center of the drama is Don Corelone's son, Michael, who at first rejects the "family business" but soon becomes more enmeshed than he'd ever planned.

As an admirer of the Golden Age of Hollywood, I'll readily admit that my main curiosity (aside from understanding the You've Got Mail reference) was Brando. I couldn't be a self-professed lover of 20th-century cinema if I'd never seen him in a movie, right? The Godfather was a good introduction to the legendary actor, who played Don Corleone with a bewildering dichotomy between the cold and senseless mob boss and doting father and patriarch. Oh, and discovering what Al Pacino looked like in the '70s? Priceless.

I'll admit that I'm often the first to roll my eyes and say, ugh, men. But, I do pity them—we live in a society where sometimes, it feels politically incorrect to be a dude. Despite their foibles, they do have many good qualities. Unfortunately, they're perpetually in the shadow of toxic masculinity. And for that alone, I'm risking my life to drag The Godfather through the mud.

My friend and I had high expectations for the nearly three-hour film. For something that was demanding the time that amounted to almost half a workday, I expected new revelations into the male psyche. Instead, my main takeaway was kill people who piss you off. Also, avenge the family honor at all costs! Sadly, these things were not new ideas.

Even if you think Coppola's film is the greatest movie of all time, I think we can agree that it employs senseless violence. Machine-gunning someone in front of the camera for almost 30 seconds feels gratuitous—ten seconds would have sufficed. Practically speaking, it's impossible to stay standing after being hit by bullets for even three seconds, I'd surmise. (Not speaking from experience.)

My main beef here is the way Michael dotes on his girlfriend, Kay Adams (Diane Keaton), only to remorselessly MARRY ANOTHER WOMAN when he flees New York to Italy.

This Italian wife's only credit is that she's beautiful. This girl manages to be captivating without uttering a single word...and she remains silent for the duration of their relationship until she is killed, brutally. And what does Michael do then? Finally return home to New York to hit up the girlfriend whom he ghosted.

I'm not saying that the problem was depicting these situations—among many others. As a writer myself, I do believe that the purpose of art is to allow us to explore all the touch points of the human condition—including the ugliness. My qualm here is that every single woman in this film lacks agency. They are literally extras in this film—even Kay Adams, who has more lines than most. You could argue that "this was just the time period and the culture," but please. Women have always wanted more, even if they weren't able to get it. (See the works of Jane Austen for many examples.) Depicting them all as meek and powerless is to write them off completely.

I think that art can be objectively good and that you can also still hate it. That's The Godfather for me. After 175 minutes, I can't say I was any more enlightened to the male brain than I had been previously. If anything, it only reinforced my perceptions. In one aspect, I supposed I did glean something. Tom Hanks was right. Ladies, if someone is giving you trouble, you have to go to the mattresses. Who's the Godfather now?