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Furious 7

Life often presents us with tough choices, but we’re here to help work them out. Each week, we discuss two attractive men, weigh the pros and cons, and decide, once and for all, which one we’d rather have sex with. In what is our final Would You Rather, we look at two hulking hunks that serve as the ultimate match-up — a veritable Would You Rather Heavyweight Championship: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Vin Diesel.

Joel: Happy Last WYR day, Tyler! Nine months ago, if you would have asked me why we were engaging in this little weekly exercise of ours, I would have told you confidently that it was just an excuse to sexualize fictional teens. But we quickly moved on to science fiction bros, real life human bros, and even two inanimate objects. We got weird. But no matter how far beyond the boundaries of common decency and taste, I always found our exchanges oddly cathartic. Whether we were discussing Harry and Ron or Tim Taylor and Al Borland (Jesus, we did Tim Taylor and Al Borland?), there was always the tiniest bit of truth to my feelings. Each time I was forced to justify my particular lust for a fictional man, I would land on some new level of understanding of my own wants and needs, things that — nutty as it sounds — I’ve taken with me into the terrifying landscape of IRL human interaction. But before I bum you or our readers out too much, let’s just get on with today’s pairing. A real doozy, and the final representation of our dwindling pop culture overlap: The Rock and Vin Diesel. This may seem like a sort of cop out, but if you think about it, it’s the only pairing that’s ever made any sense at all. Two charismatic (literal) giants who occupy the same space in today’s action/thriller tentpole landscape. Any initial thoughts before we begin?

Tyler: Well, because I’m always half-assedly invested in the actual pairing here (unless it’s, say, Troy Dyer and Michael Grates from Reality Bites, because what a true conundrum!) and am usually just trying to serve as some Google Docs therapist (and also to entertain myself with your near-emotional catharsis), I might as well admit this now: I didn’t even see Furious 7. They’re both in that one, right? I mean, I saw The Fast and the Furious, and I know Vin Diesel is in that one. I’m honestly racking my brain for memories of seeing any other movie he’s in. I don’t feel like looking it up. And I know Guardians of the Galaxy doesn’t count, because his character was GCI and his entire dialogue was him repeating his own name! As for the Rock… I saw The Mummy. Was he in the first Mummy movie? But I think it speaks more to the power of their personas and physical prowess that I don’t really need to have seen anything they’ve been in to make a decision here.

Joel: Well first off, I don’t even really think that being familiar with their vast and expansive resumé’s is super integral to today’s exercise. After all, we’re not basing our decisions on any one specific character they’ve played, but instead on the tangible physical attributes we can see with our eyes and the vague personal attributes we’ve concocted in the dead of night, our bodies resting in bed and our hands nestled safely down our pants. Which brings me to my second point: Groot absolutely counts, and counts for a lot in my book. For, as anyone who knows me could anticipate, I choose Vin Diesel. Diesel, whose work as Groot in particular I find so endearing, so comforting, that I often nestle my hand down my pants and imagine a giant tree/human hybrid whispering softly in my ear at the end of a long day. Do you think The Rock could infuse one syllable with so much pathos? So much raw human emotion?

Tyler: But The Rock has that eyebrow, Joel. Are you insane? How could you possible pick the one without the ability to raise one eyebrow with such force it feels like the San Andreas fault is actually doing whatever scientific thing it does to create an earthquake (again, not Googling this) — only IN YOUR LOWER PARTS. I can smell what The Rock is cooking, Joel. He is cooking up a giant pot of sex stew and he’s tossing everything in it right now.

Joel: The Rock should be more interesting to me, but he’s not. There’s no danger there. I would task The Rock with raising my children, but would never really want to make any with him, if that makes sense. He’s easy, he’s domestic, he’s boring. Vin Diesel got his start as an actor for breaking into a theatre and getting caught. He was a street urchin who accidentally stumbled onto his art, like a character played by Channing Tatum in a movie, probably. He’s wild and rough around the edges and is just daring you to fix him, but he knows you never will.

Tyler: See, I think this is the perfect pairing for us, because it’s indicative of what we’ve fought about over the last several months. You are young and eager to experience new things, I am old(er) and ready to settle down. Vin Diesel — even just his name — represents chaos and excitement. He’s unpredictable. One day he’s Riddick, the next day he’s Groot. One day he’s got dadbod, the next he’s showing off his abs. He’s gruff and sometimes mean-looking. He’s a loose canon! Whereas The Rock, on the other hand… Well, he’s a rock — not just in the physical nature (he is a giant, hulking, strong presence) but also in spirit. He’s no rolling stone; he’s there for you, dependable, able to save your life should you get stranded after a massive earthquake. At this point in my life, I need a man to extend his giant paw-like hand out from a hovering helicopter to save me from dying in a building collapse — not some rough stallion who will insist I accompany him on a dangerous, high-speed chase on the open road.

Joel: I understand that, and goodness knows I appreciate a lot of things about The Rock. His massive forearms, his painted on hair, his love of French culture. But I also feel like you’re giving Vin a bit of a bad rap. Sure he seems unpredictable, but there’s a real innocence about him that contrasts with his rough exterior that I find truly endearing. I love that he records really earnest dance videos to Beyoncé songs. I love his insistence that Furious 7 will win an Oscar. I love that his strong ties to his chosen family. All his weirdness suggest a depth to me that the Rock simply does not posses. As kind as he is, I think what you see is pretty much what you get with dear old Dwayne, whereas Vin is like a puzzle you pick up at a Cracker Barrel gift shop: simple and wooden, but impossible to solve!

Tyler: He’s a veritable Rubik’s Cube of a man, whereas The Rock is Connect Four. You can engineer it so you’ll always win as long as you figure out the tricks! And he’s more fun.

Joel: The Rock is a mass produced plastic toy, while Vin Diesel is a game your grandfather whittled for you on his porch, and it may not seem very conventionally “fun” but it’s beautiful and all of its flaws only make it that much more special to you.

Tyler: Sorry, I have expensive tastes. Also I have no heart. I want everything to be store-bought. I WILL FINALLY ADMIT ALL OF THIS.

Joel: I think this has been pretty implicit in almost all of your shitty choices for the last nine months. You always go for the soulless pretty boys (see: Christopher, Kirk, Woody, et al.) over their more complicated and sometimes less obvious counterparts. You and your legion of followers have been, and always will be wrong. Wrong at dinner parties, wrong on message boards, wrong in this column. Equivocado, erroné, falsch. And while you’re escaping from this column after today, you will have to live with your wrongness for the rest of your life. In that way, I feel content.

Tyler: Whereas you have a lifetime full of complicated relationships with idiot men to last you. You won’t even know how much you’ll miss this Google Doc because you’ll be too busy having to consider the feelings of an emotional wreck of human like Ross Gellar or an annoying nerd like Ian Malcolm. And while this column did make me realize how absolutely insane you are (you once wrote, “I would love like a really porny orgy with all of the Army Men” from Toy Story!), it also made me realize that you have a hot nut for Tim Allen, and I just have to accept that we all have our flaws and we act out on them in curious ways.

Joel: I forgot all about my army men fetish, and I admit it looks bad. I’ll also admit that these weekly chats will be sorely missed. There was so much we never got to cover! So many pop culture duos that went uninterrogated. My greatest regret is that we never covered a few very important match-ups like Aiden or Daniel from Revenge (Aiden, duh), 10 or 11 from Doctor Who (11, duh), and Fitz or Jake from Scandal (Jake, duh). But I’m thankful I never forced you to watch Scandal, a fate I wouldn’t wish on even my worst enemy (which is also you). What stupid movie or old-timey television show was I too young to watch that you wished we could’ve discussed?

Tyler: Well, Broadcast News is my favorite movie of all time (and possibly one of the most perfect love triangles ever). I don’t think I could even pick between William Hurt or Albert Brooks! (Just kidding: I pick William Hurt.)

Joel: I just googled “William Hurt” and your choice is as confusing as ever. Thank goodness we have such disparate tastes in men.

Tyler: Also, I’m sad we never picked a movie with Zac Efron. Because duh, I pick Zac Efron. OH, and we never picked famous brothers, like Mark and Donnie Wahlberg (MARK!), Chris and Liam Hemsworth (CHRIS!), and Ron and Clint Howard (CLINT!).

Joel: It looks like a lot of people really dodged some bullets here. Because I don’t think anyone really needed to read 5000 words of both of us sexualizing Clint Howard.

Tyler: We truly did the Internet a favor.

Joel: We are humanitarians. Any last words, Coates?

Tyler: I will never forgive you for forcing me to imagine cuddling with Al Borland from Home Improvement. But I stand my ground when it comes to a deep and powerful love for Dean from Gilmore Girls. What a early ‘00s hunk!

Joel: Goodbye forever.

PREVIOUSLY:
Freddy Krueger vs. Jason Voorhees
Han Solo vs. Luke Skywalker from Star Wars
Bill Paxton vs. Bill Pullman
Jimmy Fallon vs. Stephen Colbert
Troy Dyer vs. Michael Grates from Reality Bites
Wolverine vs. Cyclops from X-Men