Are Chad and Howard indicative of all men, or just a certain white-collar, frat-boy type?
I think they’re not only indicative of all men, but of all people. Everyone has a little bit of Howard and Chad in them. I think there’s Christine in all men as well. There’s maybe a particularly male streak in the gamesmanship that Chad and Howard display, how everything becomes a contest to them. But all of us have been hurt, and have hurt people, hopefully not as maliciously or intentionally as Chad and Howard do. I think Christine and Chad are on the opposite extremes of the spectrum. Christine is a model victim, and Chad is a model perpetrator, and Howard is closer to the middle. In a way the viewer detests Howard more because they identify with him more, and he continues this perpetual cycle of having really bad dealings with women. What people tend to overlook is that the film opens with Howard being hit by a woman, and we never find out why. He says he just asked her for the time, but I’ve asked plenty of women the time and never been hit — what’s going on there? Howard seems
