I’m totally hating on Superbad – a movie I haven’t seen.
Hate thesis: WTF, aren’t girls funny?
Everyone, I mean EVERYONE who’s article I’ve read or who’s moviegoing experience I’ve heard—men and women, boys and girls—said that Superbad was super good.
Fuck off. I don’t care.
Seriously, I’m not the audience. You know what else was good? Some “chick flick” that no one ever saw because people called it a chick flick.
Does anyone notice that a movie can have an all-male leading cast and still be considered topical for general audiences? While any film with a predominately-female cast gets the female-audience marketing and press treatment, gender is almost never even mentioned when it comes to man-centric stories. Why is it that women can relate and grasp and laugh and empathize with the stories of men while men get to say “chick flick” and dismiss our stories?
Some stories are genuinely gender-inclusive. But the vast majority of major Hollywood films are about the lives of cool men to which women contribute smaller parts—usually their private parts. Even when the guys are geeks they’re cool enough to be the lead that you'll end up falling in love with. You tend not to fall in love with a girl geek in a movie unless and until she gets a makeover.
I love movies. I fucking love movies. So I definitely love men—directors, writers, and actors—and their stories. But here’s a few fact-ish items:
1) I’m a woman.
2) I’m not lame.
3) I’m pretty sure I’m not the only woman who’s not lame.
4) I don’t actually make movies myself, so I’m no expert, yet somehow I can conceive of the possibility that a general audience could find a story about women entertaining—possibly even humorous and engaging. I know, I know, if I actually worked in the movie business I would understand why that’s simply impossible. I’d have the facts. The lay-people always wanna tell the experts how it’s done.
I’m not saying that boy movies shouldn’t exist, I’m just saying, “dick flick” is just as much of a specialization as “chick flick” and we should all--the critics and the fans--take notice. The culture seems to say “who doesn’t want to spend a couple of hours with a bunch of guys? Isn’t that the spice of everyone's life?” Let’s pull our heads out of our asses. This isn’t 100 years ago or something.
Ok, fair enough, I'll admit, this never crossed my mind. But I'd like to know what comedies featuring two or more leading women you think are on the same level and as funny or funnier than this. And I'd like to know because I'd like to watch them and see if I find them as funny. I have some doubt as to whether similar movies with four female leads even get made, which is obviously a problem in and of itself. Of course hollywood makes these movies because they are trying to appeal to that young (white) male demographic, and whoever else they get along with it is fine with them. at heart they are a bunch of copycats though, so all you need is for one movie like this with female leads to blow and then I'm sure the rest will rain down from the california heavens like manna.
ReplyDeleteuhhh, that shit was funny.
ReplyDeletelazer is right.
okay. time for a real response but let me first mention this-female movie with four leads (okay-three) that was supposed to be funny- Sweetest Thing. it sucked.
ReplyDeleteI think the problem is that movies written about women are generally about the pursuit of an idealized concepts of relationships that is perpetrated by not only hollywood but by magazines and the female gender itself.
dick flicks work because although they are looking for a cool relationship the main initial objective is to get some booty and most of the time the male characters are inept screwups so we aren't scared when they behave in a manner that is socially inept bordering on behavior that would lead to prison time in the real world.
maybe we have too many tales of males. can definitely see that point but I'm not sure anyone would enjoy a movie about socially inept girls looking for penis who happen to stumble into a relationship.
just my two cents.