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 They were headed to the Sephora outlet store to do some serious damage to a poor, unsuspecting credit card when they noticed that the area of the mall leading to the shop was roped off. The couple asked a security guard what was going on. Terrorist threat? Robbery? Random Vegas thuggery?  Nope. Turns out übercelebs Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck decided to take in some midday shopping, and since they are such important people, that area of the mall had to be cordoned off lest someone should recognize them and ruin their precious lives. Yup, she's just "Jenny From the Block," alright.Now, I know a lot of people (mostly girls) who can't stand J-Lo. And while that world-renowned ass prevents me from such an adverse reaction, the Vegas thing was particularly repulsive. And nobody laughed harder than I did at the recent South Park episode "Fat Butt and Pancake Head," where not one, but two unflattering likenesses of Ms. Lopez (although one was really more of a hand puppet that sang of "Taco-Flavored Kisses") were displayed and pilloried ruthlessly. Well, if you don't already hate her, here’s a reason for you to. And if you do, here's a reason to hate her more. Last week, after countless delays and studio re-shoots, Gigli, the movie in which the Puerto Rican hottie met and "hooked up" (as they say in the lower-rent neighborhoods) with fiancée (and lantern-jawed lummox) Ben Affleck, was released to tepid box office receipts and abysmal reviews. "Among its biggest problems," cites Reuters' Mark Egan, "is a love scene in which Lopez spreads her legs and tells a smoldering Affleck, 'It's turkey time. Gobble, gobble.' The movie is crap and there’s no denying it. It lay on Sony Pictures’ roster like an albatross for months, until it finally had to be released regardless of quality (or lack thereof, in this case).  But this isn't a review of Gigli, at least not on a critical assessment level. My problem with the film, for the purposes of this column, lie with its agenda—a basic, and yet profoundly insulting, assumption about the sexuality of women.In the film Lopez plays a lesbian who is "cured" of her "affliction" by Affleck (which I guess could be called an Afflection… heh… ). The very idea inherent in the script, that Lopez' character (and possibly by inference, all lesbians), simply needs the right man to put her back on the hetero track. This is, of course, a total affront to not just lesbians, but any woman not engaged in a typical heterosexual relationship. And while this was a widely held concept a decade or so ago, given the recent ubiquity of lesbian and bi references (even in the pre-fab context of mainstream adult entertainment) in mainstream culture, it’s almost shocking to hear it espoused in 2003. Then there’s the Affleck factor. I’m sure there’s a whole slew of girls out there who think he’s the shit, but I certainly don’t know ‘em. Even the straight girls I know who like Matt Damon aren’t impressed with Affleck. Let alone dykes, who, when greeted with the notion of being stolen over to the other team at a San Francisco bar, offered up peals of laughter. "Affleck?!" one guffawed incredulously. "Not if he was the last man/woman/other on the planet, and Good Vibes had burned to the ground!"  Affleck must be starting to believe it himself at this point, since Gigli is not the first film in which he has "converted" a lesbian. Although, in the first, Kevin Smith’s Chasing Amy, at least Smith had the sense to show the relationship ending in disaster (which, take it from my personal experience, it always does).In light of such a blatant insult to the LGBT community, I should be invoking all of you to boycott Gigli. The funny thing is, if the numbers are any indication, it looks like you already have, whether you know it or not. Instead, I’ll just say that if you ever plan on going to the fancy shopping center in Vegas, make sure to paint your thumb and forefinger into a J-Lo hand puppet and, if you see her, offer her a taco-flavored kiss. Trust me, she’ll love that.
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