A Treatise on the Anti-“Chick” Flick

Sorry for the absence. Summer has brought me employment and reruns of The New Adventures of Old Christine (This isn’t a TV blog, but I could write a rave review of every episode of that show.  If you haven’t watched it, try to catch it on TV tonight.) and I haven’t had a lot of time to watch movies. Shame on me, I know.

Anyway, I’m here with a few of my ideas about a topic that interests me: the “chick” flick. I surround “chick” with quotation marks because I’m not a huge fan of the label, but it’s recognizable to most people. I actually want to use this post to talk less about the genre in general and more about some movies that I think resist the chick flick stereotype while still being characterized by a lot of the classic chick flick qualities — female protagonists, romantic plot or subplot, lack of violence and explosions, lighthearted humor, female friendships. I’ll call them the anti-chick flicks. They’re movies that, even though they deal with a lot of the typical chick flick themes, focus more on the female relationships and the journey of the female protagonist aside from her search for love. They’re certainly no Nicholas Sparks adaptations (although, just between you and me, A Walk to Remember consistently makes me cry, and I even used to own it on DVD.  Shhh.), and their screenplays are likely wittier than the latest Katherine Heigl fare.  I say “likely” because I resist such Katherine Heigl fare, and can only speculate.  But I’d say that speculation is fair, wouldn’t you?  After all, I’ve mentioned the power of trailers…

I have four magical movies that I will stop and watch whenever they’re on television, no matter how many times I’ve seen them.  And these four films tend to be on television quite often, so I’ve seen them A LOT.  These movies were, in three cases, written by women, and they all star women in hilarious yet remarkably complex roles.  And one of the most special things about these movies is that their humor and themes appeal to both sexes without being ridden with stereotypically “male” comedy (Cough, Bridesmaids, Cough).  I’ve mentioned three of these films in my review of Bridesmaids, which I less-than-subtly alluded (and linked) to in my previous sentence.  I want to look at each of these films and elaborate on why I think they deserve much higher ratings on IMDb.

Let me preface this by saying how annoyed I was to read an Entertainment Weekly article a few weeks ago which suggested a few of these films (in addition to a few other gems of female comedy) to those who enjoyed Bridesmaids.  I’m here to talk about the same films in order to send the opposite message.  Yes, like Bridesmaids, these films resist the chick flick stereotype.  But unlike Bridesmaids, their humor doesn’t flip-flop aimlessly between male and female comedy.  It’s a happy medium.

Anti-Chick Flick #1: Clueless

There aren’t enough words to describe how funny and heartfelt Clueless is.  Alicia Silverstone owns the character of Cher.  The movie’s sarcastic, biting look at rich ’90s high schoolers through the plot of Jane Austen’s Emma cannot be rivaled.  Sure, there’s some romance.  But it doesn’t take itself too seriously.  Everyone can laugh at Cher and her friends, and everyone can love her, no matter what your gender, because she’s written and acted so well.  This movie, like Mean Girls, depicts teenagers in a light that recognizes their frequent stupidity and shallowness, but also convincingly lends a sense of intelligence and maturity to its characters which makes them relatable to people of all ages and genders.  When Cher reads aloud the love poem she has written in the card she’s planted in her teacher’s mailbox to set her match-making scheme in motion, she explains to her friend Dionne that it’s “like a famous quote.”  When Dionne asks from where, Cher confidently replies, “Cliffsnotes.”  You don’t have to be a particular gender or age to recognize that such dialogue is funny.

Anti-Chick Flick #2: Legally Blonde

Legally Blonde is such a girl power movie.  The scene in which Elle Woods decides to prove her ex-boyfriend wrong and become the perfect law student gives me such inspiration when I have to study for an exam.  The movie provides really valuable lessons for young women, while also being flat-out hilarious.  Reese Witherspoon brought such likability to Elle’s character, and she’s someone that both genders can appreciate.

Anti-Chick Flick #3: Mean Girls

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.  Tina Fey is awesome.  Her script for this movie is so quotable.  People my age — male and female — quote this movie and love it.  The film’s hilarious look at high school cliques is unmatched by other high school movies of this millennium.  The characters are vivid and the actors who play them are pitch-perfect.  I never remember that I’m watching Lindsay Lohan when I watch this movie — something I can’t say about her other roles.  It’s certainly her best role that I’ve seen.

Anti- Chick Flick #4: Baby Mama

I’ll admit.  I might just like this movie because of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.  But even if that’s the case, I still like it, and I know a lot of other people do as well.  This movie takes a very stereotypically female subject — getting pregnant — and tells a story about female friendship and self-discovery without taking itself too seriously.  And it doesn’t go too far in the gross-out direction, either.  It’s a happy medium.  And I think it’s underrated.  I love watching it when it’s on TV.  Just last week I thought about wanting to watch it, and that night it was on television.  I like to think I’m magical.

Review: Bridesmaids is NOT a chick flick — in all the worst ways

“Bridesmaids proves that chick flicks don’t have to suck.” – Jen Yamato, Movieline.

There are so many things wrong with the above statement. 

1.) Who says “chick flicks” universally suck?

2.) Bridesmaids is not a chick flick — just because it happens to have a mostly female cast doesn’t mean it’s a chick flick.  By that logic, The Lord of the Rings films are guy flicks because their cast is mostly male.  Oh, and that Dead Poets Society is such a guy flick!

3.) Even if Bridesmaids were a chick flick, the only thing that supposedly would make it not suck — what sets it apart from other “chick flicks” — would be the fact that it’s full of stereotypical “guy” humor.  That’s how a chick flick breaks the glass ceiling nowadays?

Bridesmaids is not a chick flick.  The only thing that could possibly make it a chick flick is the fact that most of the cast is female and the plot revolves around a stereotypically feminine event — a wedding.  Bridesmaids is a gross-out comedy with foul language strewn throughout and a crude sex joke in practically every scene. 

The movie’s about a woman named Annie (Kristen Wiig) who’s feeling down about her love life and career.  Her friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph) gets engaged and asks her to be her maid of honor.  Annie then meets the bridesmaids and discovers that Lillian’s newfound friend Helen (Rose Byrne) is eager to sabotage the wedding plans — and Annie’s lifelong friendship.  A battle ensues between them while they plan the event with Lillian’s other bridesmaids, an eccentric cast of characters.

I have to admit that my expectations were high going into an early screening of the film.  I’d watched the trailer, which displayed some clever dialogue and quirky characters.  Please watch below for an idea of what I’m talking about.

In fact, half the funny lines/moments in that trailer didn’t actually make it into the film.  Usually I’m annoyed when the trailer gives away all the funniest moments.  I’m especially annoyed when those moments aren’t even in the movie.

I was also pretty excited about this movie because Paul Feig is associated with it.  Feig created the unbelievably awesome but sadly short-lived series Freaks and Geeks, which served as an honest and funny portrayal of teenage life and gave a bunch of famous actors their big break.  That show’s charm and wit is barely discernable in this film.  It peeks through every once in a while, mostly in the scenes between Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph, whose friendship is goofy and believable.  Their interactions often reminded me of the ways my friends and I interact — acting silly for no reason at all, saying and doing things other people wouldn’t understand.  They had great chemistry.  Too bad they were barely in the movie together.

One of the worst things about Bridesmaids is that not only are most of the jokes flat-out gross, but the gags never seem to end.  The scene in the dress shop is absolutely disgusting and full of over-used toilet humor.  And it lasts FOREVER.  Same with Kristen Wiig’s various fits of rage, in which she screams and acts like an idiot.  It took her initially funny and likable character and turned her into a petty, short-tempered little girl.

The cast is so promising, but they’re not given strong enough characters to work with.  Wiig and Rudolph are two of the funniest women to be featured on Saturday Night Live in recent years.  Sadly, their characters aren’t allowed to interact enough.  Ellie Kemper is adorable and hilarious on The Office.  She’s barely featured.  Melissa McCarthy has been lovable and witty on shows like Gilmore Girls and Samantha Who?, but in this she’s simplified down to a stereotype.

I must say that Rose Byrne was an unexpected addition to the cast.  I know her from mostly dramatic work, so it was surprising to see her assoiciated with a comedy.  She was one of the highlights of the movie.  She played the snobby friend well, but she wasn’t so bitchy that she couldn’t be sympathetic.

Another majorly disappointing aspect of the film is that is was that it was co-written by Wiig herself, but that weird humor that she’s known for on SNL doesn’t really translate well as a writer.  It was unusual to me that  a screenplay written by two women about women could be so stereotypically “guy.”  What I mean by that is that the humor is so far on one end of the spectrum — not to say that only guys enjoy it.  But it’s on the complete opposite end of the spectrum from, say, a sappy romantic comedy, which stereotypically would attract mostly women.  Is the only way for female comedies to break through the so-called glass ceiling to travel completely to one extreme and utilize stereotypically male humor?  Can there be no happy medium, no films written by women that depict women truthfully through humor that all genders can relate to and appreciate?

Oh, yeah.  There can.  They’re called Mean Girls.  And Clueless.  And even Legally Blonde.  All three written by women and featuring women and women’s issues.  And all funny in a way that doesn’t exclude either gender.  I’m pretty much obsessed with Tina Fey.  I think she’s one of the funniest, smartest, coolest women people in show business.  And her screenplay for Mean Girls is quoted constantly by people my age — male and female.

Bow down to this woman.

So, yeah. Bridesmaids disappointed me.  If you like the kind of humor in the above trailer, it might not be the movie for you.  If you like toilet jokes and pervasive references to sex, then go ahead — you might like it.