Bridesmaids

So after the article I wrote on Beyonce, I was scared I turned into somewhat of a cynical misogynist. When I would talk to female friends about the issues I had with her songs they either shrugged and looked at me as if I was an idiot or they reacted furiously, claiming I  was not getting the vision of 'Bey' as they called her. Male friends reacted disinterested, saying something about Beyonce being really hot, and that was about it. A few people I spoke with did agree with me, but they thought that maybe I overthought this one. All in all, I was scared of turning into a bit of chauvinist of a person.


Thank god I saw Bridesmaids this week. See, I was expecting to hate Bridesmaids. I am not a great fan of the 'chickflick' genre, being more of a geek myself, and thus liking movies that are usually somewhat catered towards a male audience, I did not expect to completely fall in love with a movie that seemed to made for women.

The reason is very simple. Bridesmaids does not try to be a movie catered towards women. or men, for that matter. Never does the movie try to uncomfortably shoehorn in a shopping montage, where the girls go shopping for bridal shoes, the soundtrack is not littered with tearjerkers, and our female main character is not like Katherine Heigl or something, whose clumsiness is apparently her single character trait and charm.

Instead, Bridesmaids is a comedy very much in the style of Judd Apatow movies (Knocked Up, Superbad, The 40-year-old Virgin), and happens to have a group of women in the main lead. Bridesmaids is not afraid to get raunchy, and does not shy away from being a bit vulgar, something that surprised me. It also helps that the movie is the funniest movie I have seen this year. It's hard to explain comedy, so I won't, but let it be said that I laughed so hard that I was on the floor.

And what surprised me was that the movie helped me understand women a bit better. Where usually in chickflicks (this is not really a chickflick, but bear with me) I get annoyed by the 'problems that are presented in these movies (poor Mila Kunis, you get to bang Justin Timberlake but have commitment issues? what an emotional dilemma that sure works as a romantic comedy!), Bridesmaids weirdly made me 'get' reactions that I would have found irrational before.

 When a female friend would have made a claim such as 'why are men such assholes?' before, I probably would have ignored the claim and asked her why she keeps dating assholes. But I think I've come to a better understanding of that claim now. See, as the movie starts out, we learn that Kristen Wiig's  character is having a very casual relationship with someone played by the fantastic actor Jon Hamm. He is handsome, succesfull, incredibly arrogant, and therefore incredibly attractive. He is also an enormous prick. And even though he makes our female protagonist feel like shit every time they meet up. Yet she keeps approaching him. And who wouldn't? It's Don Draper! Look at that chiseled jaw, look at it! I'm a straight man and I would fuck him.

A few scenes later she meets and befriends agent and nice guy Chris O'Dowd (the Irish guy from the IT crowd). He is friendly, gives compliments, and is attentive to her. Yet she still gravitates towards Jon Hamm. And I got why. For years I was always baffled by women who want to abuse themselves by dating assholes like the Jon Hamm character in Bridesmaids, and never understood why they would not just look fo a nice guy. Also, the way she treats Chis O'Dowd towards the end sort of gave a 'we're not so different after all' vibe, wich was nice.

This is because these are real, 3-dimensional characters who were not cooked up by cynical producers who want to exploit a female audience by creating schmaltzy fantasies. Not just Kristen Wiig, but all of the Bridesmaids are fleshed out real people, that are incredibly funny, all in their own way. Especially Melissa McCarthy, who has one of the funniest supporting roles I have seen in years. The movie is a laugh riot from start to finish, and all I can say is go see it, it is absolutely wonderful.