Fin: No, there’s nothing wrong with showing your girlfriend 'Miami Vice'

Plus: Biden’s fate is all about Hollywood, Purple Rain at Target Center, revisiting Little Big League, and more in this week’s notes column.

For those in New York City, the IFC Center is showing Michael Mann’s 2006 film Miami Vice this Friday and Saturday. 

If you spent any time this week on Film Twitter, you probably know why that is.

 On the evening of July 4, the very good film writer Brandon Streussnig fired off a seemingly innocuous message about sharing his favorite movie with his girlfriend. The movie? Miami Vice. Streussnig is a longtime fan of the film, having written about it for The Playlist in 2021. 

So far, so good, right? But before long, this month had drawn angry denunciations from the sort of person who would use “No Quarter Will Be Given” as their X username. 

If Elon Musk’s metrics are to be trusted by Sunday night, Streussnig’s message had 4.5 million views. Why is that? 

Well, some people argued with him about whether or not Miami Vice is, in fact, good. But later, the discussion curdled into what appeared to be an attempt to find a case of toxic masculinity where none exists. After days and days of this, it may be time for some quarter, in fact, to be given.

One critique said, “Straight men live on a completely different planet than the rest of us.” The critique made many assumptions about the author, his motives, and his relationship with his girlfriend. Yes, she liked the film. Numerous other people of all genders and sexual orientations said they loved it too. 

And yes, I’m sure many men have shown movies to their girlfriends that were not for them and had it not go over well. But that doesn’t appear to have been the case here. 

There’s a more significant point: I think we could all use a bit less gender essentialism in our reactions to films and our ideas of who is and isn’t supposed to like them. 

Some movies and genres are more geared towards men or women — which, again, is one of those things that the marketing departments of movie studios should care about, but it doesn’t mean the rest of us need to. Nowhere is it written that the target audience is the only people allowed to enjoy things? Plenty of women love action movies. Plenty of men love romantic comedies and musicals. 

I agreed with this especially:

I admit it: I spent a good part of my life believing — buoyed by the attitudes of my friends, wider popular culture, and dozens of Page 2-era Bill Simmons columns — that “chick flicks” were not only not for me but were inherently silly, unserious and mockable. I was wrong to believe this and missed some things I probably would have enjoyed. Next month, I’m planning to attend a three-hour seminar about Dirty Dancing.

But I’m getting the sense that that is becoming a passe attitude, as it should be. 

The story of that movie and the reaction to it is fascinating on its own. An adaptation of the popular TV series that Mann himself created in the early ‘80s, Miami Vice had something of a troubled production, drew mixed reviews, and did moderately decently at the box office, coming in as the 39th-highest-grossest domestic release of 2006. But like most of Mann’s films, it’s gained in esteem over time, to the point where the second season of The Bear had a “gofastboatsmojito” joke.

I place Miami Vice in the middle of the pack regarding Michael Mann's films; The Insider, Heat, and Ali head my list. But there’s nothing wrong with liking Miami Vice, and I would never dream of bashing a stranger for showing it to his girlfriend.