Anyone who enjoys cinema and female companionship will be disappointed to learn that the column Girls on Film is merely a bunch of essays by women on the topic of movies. False advertising on the internet, who knew that occurred? Well, you won't find any of that on Bewildered Heart, where we're true to our original goal, posting photographs of Hugh Jackman in embarrassing poses. No one is tricked onto this blog, no one is invited either, it seems. The point is, please click on the adverts.
Girls on Film is one of the more vocal exponents on the decline of romantic comedies, a subject Bewildered Heart is also dedicated to uncovering. From the AFI list of the hundred greatest romantic films, only a handful are comedies, and the finest of those include The Princess Bride, The Goodbye Girl, Harold and Maude, The Lady Eve and Casablanca. Of those there aren't many traditional romcoms, as we've grown to expect them. Possibly the reason for this is that the AFI is solely interested in great movies, and The Way We Were, whereas we have grown to expect romantic comedies to be as terrible as The Way We Were. After all, when Ernst Lubitsch died William Wyler sensed the end was near, and Hollywood never replaced the likes of he or Preston Sturges. Girls on Film have decided that this issue is worth filling their essay quota on, and so over at their Moviefone website you can read what's wrong with Hollywood and more importantly what's wrong with you, the audience, who lap this toilet water up. Monika Bartyzel makes numerous mentions to The Bechdel Rule, an idea taken from a twenty-something year old comic strip where a character asserts she will only see a film if it adheres to three strict rules. 'One, there are two women who Two, talk to each other about Three, something other than men.'
Because of this rule, the strip argues, the only film that woman has seen is Alien, where two lady characters speak of the phallic metaphor chasing them down narrow corridors. Now, perhaps it is misguided to blame Hollywood for seeing females as a niche audience with limited interests, as critics contend. Women make up the majority of the population, but not the cinema-going public. Is this because there are no films that specifically appeal to women? After all, Sex and the City and its sequel made hundreds of millions of dollars. Sex and the City has become a hugely successful franchise, with a television series, two films, a line of cocktails and it is likely they have a cut of the shoe market, to boot. What's curious about its success, however, is that the films are horrible, insensitive, awful and sexist. Female audiences forgive this, mind, either because they're so starved for representation they'll take what they can get, or women are stupid and have no self-respect or taste, something they probably learned from Sex and the City.
Now, it is perhaps worth bearing in mind that while women are stupid, the wider point is that people are stupid and women are people. Furthermore, many of these same women are aware that Sex and the City 2 is an abysmal, xenophobic and oddly misogynistic movie, but they enjoyed it anyhow. So Girls on Film, what the hell? 'While I can't fathom forgiving all of the flaws of SatC on the big screen, forgiveness is an essential part of the experience for any moviegoer eager to see real-life women. There are, quite simply, too few films that are interested in reaching beyond the typical stereotypes.' Huh. Women call it SatC. Interesting. 'Studios don't see this success as an example of moviegoers wanting more diverse and awesome women on the big screen, or more women in general. They see it as a simple equation: Romance + sexy women + comedy = Goldmine. Female friends + fashion + money = Goldmine. Women obsessed with men = Goldmine.' She misused the word awesome, but for discerning film-goers desperate for the beauty to be put back into romcoms it makes for a worrying trend. Unless the studios are onto something, which they are, because that equation makes a lot of sense. If we continue down this decline then eventually romantic comedies will be in as bad shape as most other Hollywood genres. Skyline was a rubbish sci-fi alien invasion film and made no money. If the next rubbish alien invasion film also makes no money will Hollywood listen and go back to the safe-haven of remaking classic alien invasion films?
Moviefone points its angry finger at SatC, SatC2, Mamma Mia and Valentine's Day as a sign of this threat to quality. These films are critically-ravaged, yet each made a lot of money. Is this because women lack representation on screen but forgive the movie's faults because it has been made with them in mind? Do they blindly support 'female' films even when they're insulting to women? This is a flawed argument, of course, because Sex and the City had a loyal built-in fanbase, Mamma Mia had previously been a huge success on stage and Valentine's Day had a lucrative history as a day long before it cashed in as a film. It is akin to arguing that just because Spiderman 3 made a fortune at the box office teenage boys will pay for abysmal superhero films just to see Spiderman at the cinema. Well, everyone rightly hated Spiderman 3 and despite its profits Hollywood listened, going to great lengths to trick the audience into watching another one. Surely nobody wants to make atrocious films. None of the people involved in Valentine's Day intended it to be that bad. Yes, the female characters are made up of, 'the sweet-as-pie grade school teacher, the airhead blonde high schooler, the perpetually single girl who wallows in candy and panic attacks, the rich wife who tries to ignore her husband's infidelity,' but the men didn't come off any better. There was a professional football player who turns out to be gay, a smarmy doctor cheating on his wife and an Ashton Kutcher. It isn't a matter of Hollywood folk lazily trading on stereotypes, but just a bunch of hacks doing the best they could.
The New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis says different. Asked why romantic comedies are in such straits, she helpfully pointed out that, 'One, the people making them have no fucking taste, two, they're morons, three, they're insulting panderers who think they're making movies for the great unwashed and that's what they want.' Clearly this can't be correct because that would mean a Hollywood producer would have to be an insultingly pandering moron with no taste and an arrogant, superior attitude to the public. Maybe Dargis means filmmakers can be one of the three options. Choose carefully, Hollywood.
'So where's the line between fighting for diverse representations, feeling anger over stereotypical crap, rebelling against bubbleheaded fluffdom, and being a supporter of female achievement?' asks Monika Bartyzel. 'That's not something I can quite figure out yet.' Well, Monika, you're lucky there's a big strong man around to help you answer that. After this Bewildered Heart will take care of that spider. Dargis makes an obvious point when she refuses to judge female-directed films differently from male-directed ones, even though it begs the question as to what difference it makes to have a female director. A female writer and director with a female cast telling stories about women for female audiences seems to compartmentalise women as not only niche audiences, but niche filmmakers too. Why would you celebrate a film being made, or being seen by a lot of people just because it was made by women? It's a shallow victory that limits the threshold of potential achievement. Don't check the credits to see who wrote and directed the film, just rebel against stereotypes and bubbleheaded fluffdom as much as others will rebel against journalists making up words.
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