THE THINKING WOMAN’S GUIDE TO STUPID ROMANTIC COMEDIES
words: Cass Bugge
Spring is here; good-bye to winter coats and telling ourselves mashed potatoes count as vegetables, hello to sucking in our stomach fat and watching movies that can make both men and the monkeys they evolved from laugh. The new season reminds me that I don't need snow shoes to ride the subway and every movie made doesn't have to be about a stuffy English king who mumbles or about some broke boxer with an accent who's trying to do right by his family but keeps accidentally smoking crack. As I hide my winter scarves and hats in some place I'm sure never to find them again, I feel like saying "Hey Harvey Weinstein! Sometimes I wanna see a movie with a Natasha Bedingfield song in it and yell 'Life is awesome and so is that horrible Natasha Bedingfield song!"
Then I get to theater and tragedy strikes.
My options are movies like "Just Go With It,"
or "Something Borrowed,"
and they are just so horrible.
I want to scream at the movie screen, "I don't want to go with the idea that Adam Sandler is hot enough to nab Jennifer Aniston and some other girl who's so hot she makes Jennifer Aniston look butt. I already went with Jack Black being hot enough to date Kate Winslet in 'The Holiday! I went with it when Heather Graham got with Ed Helms in "The Hangover," and I go with it every single time Kate Hudson has any girlfriends in a movie, when we all know the only girl who would ever want to be friends with any character Kate Hudson plays in a movie is a life size card board paper cut out of Kate Hudson advertising that same movie!"
It seems like for the last decade at least, Rom-com’s and other comedic subgenres for the thinking woman who doesn't feel like thinking have just sucked. Sorry, was that not the most thoughtful sentence in the world? I learned to be thoughtless and ineloquent from you, Rom-coms of the new millennium. I learned it from watching you!
Only a few years ago we had Goldie Hawn in “Private Benjamin,” Diane Keaton in “Baby Boom,” Julia Roberts in “Pretty Woman” and Meg Ryan in ”When Harry Met Sally.” Those women were badass, and those movies kicked ass. Now I’m expected to enjoy “The Bounty Hunter” and “Valentines Day?” Thanks for taking my 24 karat diamond and replacing it with a Ring Pop, Hollywood. I know these movies are supposed to be junk food fluff, but you can consume 1,200 calories by speed eating six ramekins of crème bruelee or by sitting still with your mouth open while someone throws lard at your face. I'm looking for the former, not the latter, s'il vous plais.
And then holy hello. . . This year, my prayers that I have put into the universe using the powers of "The Secret" seem to have been answered.
When I watch the trailers for these films, I feel a certain sense of
Because in addition to "Bridesmaids" and "What's Your Number?" having badass female leads, they also have those same actresses in roles behind that camera. Kristen Wiig wrote "Bridesmaids" (along with her friend Annie Mumolo), and Anna Faris is executive producing "What's Your Number?" So is that what it takes?
These chicks get it. I don't want to go to a movie and see girls hotter than me getting rejected by Jonah Hill, I want to go to a movie and see someone as awesome as Kristen Wiig go to a really fancy engagement party in a really crappy car, dressed in her fanciest outfit that some actually fancy person thinks is her business suit, 'cause that's exactly what would happen to me
"Bridesmaids" is appealing to those of us that have had good friends get married, in the same way "European Vacation," is appealing to anyone who's had to go on vacation with their family. Your last trip with your parents may not have entered Griswold Territory but the laughter doesn't pour out from a place that says "this is so real;" it comes from a place of surprise and admission that it really isn't so fake." That's the difference between a movie like "Something Borrowed" and "Bridesmaids." One has you sitting in your seat for 90 minutes repeating the question "why would anyone have a friend like that?"(As well as "Get a spine, Ginnifer Goodwin! Did you not learn anything in "He's Just Not That Into You?!?"), while the other has you nodding in agreement that weddings are weird, and friends from childhood often go on such different life paths, and being a bridesmaid can so often be a very financially, socially and emotionally compromising position to be in! And then to button it all up and make things fun there's vomiting, burping, car chases and pill popping, because yes America, the ladies do those things too (you just never see it in the movies).
Same goes for "What's Your Number?" The trope is a little formulaic, yes, but we don't go to see romantic comedies hoping for M. Night Shyamalan trick endings,
It feels like the first time this century where we're seeing a female in a lead comedy who's falling all over the place, and speaking in accents and throwing all of the punches, set up by all her supporting men. Praise the Secret and Hallelujah! Anna Faris can’t seem to keep a man in this movie not because she’s desperate or because she’s ugly like Katherine Heigl (everything I learned about looks, I learned from “27 Dresses”) or because she’s a nerd like Natalie Portman (everything I learned about how nerds look, I learned from “No Strings Attached“), but because she’s totally weird and kind of a liar. Oh, and she dates idiots. Isn’t that fun? I’ve dated idiots, I can relate.
Finally, a movie that shows that women don’t always lose boyfriends because their hotter best friends stole them; they don’t always run into the arms of a pint of Chunky Monkey because their ugly, a-hole boss doesn’t want to date them; and they’re not always crying with their head in the corner because nobody wants to marry them.
So hooray for Kristen Wiig and Anna Faris! Hopefully the numbers at the box office this season show the Mr. & Mrs. Moneybags that gals have the same ability to make milk come out of your nose as the men.
