“Is this what goes on in men’s psyches?”
“What?” I walk into the room to see a naked man wrestling with a suit of armor in a forest. “You’re watching Excalibur?”
“Yeah. Is this the sort of thing that goes on inside men’s psyches? Is this the inner struggle of Man?”
Onscreen, the blade of a sword pierces the naked man’s thigh and his face contorts in a howl of what might be pain or passion. Perhaps both.
“Um . . . not really. I think what’s going on in most men’s psyches is something closer to one of those female prison movies.”
Now the naked man has defeated the armor and wrenches open the faceplate of the helmet to reveal that it is empty. He cries out: “Guenevere, I wrestle with myself for you…”
“Well, that’s subtle.” I realize that it’s just a renaissance fair version of the Vader-with-Luke’s-Face scene in The Empire Strikes Back. I wonder who was ripping off who.
(Update: Turns out Empire came first. Mallory is such a hack.)