On "romcom rage".
Feb. 23rd, 2009 08:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
megwritesJustine Larbalestier has a thought provoking post about romantic comedy movies that, as you can tell by me calling it "thought provoking", provoked me to think.
I can't say I disagree with the things that annoy her about the movies. I, too, am more than a little tired of the parade of self-absorbed, materialistic, shallow, clumsy, cloying heroines that flounce across the screen like a copy of a copy of a copy of Julia Roberts, strangely helpless and childish.
I mute the advertisements for Confessions of a Shopaholic because the idea of it, especially in this economy and climate, sickens me. I'm out of a job and counting pennies, and the idea of a job going to a woman who has to Google what finance is and then buys things at the counter just because they're pretty without knowing what they are just makes the urge to destroy furniture rise.
Nor can I say I enjoy romantic comedies as a genre of movie, not because I don't enjoy romances, but because I think most mainstream American comedies are mean spirited, ham handed, and half witted.
Actually, I think most mainstream American films of any genre are idiotic. Let's face it, mainstream Hollywood just isn't very smart. Even our Oscar winning films are disappointing, intellectually. If romance comedies aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer, well, neither is anything else.
But when Larbalestier wrote this:
It really set me back. Yes, those were great on-screen women who were strong, fiesty, and a pleasure to watch. They were also rare exceptions in a world that actively repressed women and told them that they had one place and one place only, and that was in the home being wives and mothers, because in that world, the wife and the mother were subservient in ways that boggle us to today.
It makes me wonder if the reason that those actresses and their movies were so dazzling was because they were so contrary to the reality that most people lived with. Perhaps their popularity stemmed from them doing something that people knew to be impossible in an ordinary setting.
Perhaps the latest craze of ditzy heroines comes not from Hollywood's desire to express contempt for women, but from Hollywood tapping into the desires of some women to see things in screen that they know are not possible in real life.
Let's face it, women in America, of all classes, races, and sexualities are being put to the wall. There is enormous pressure to be everything, and not just pressure from men. We pressure each other, our sisters and best friends and daughters, whether we realize it or not. In our society, you have to be sexy and smart. You have to look sexy in Prada heels while you drive the kids to soccer practice and then go off to work to rise to the top of your profession. You have to be the supermodel, the mom, the boss, the whore, the virgin, the MILF.
If you genuinely do want to stay home with your kids, you're a lazy, dumb cow who's backwards and doesn't want to work and you're an insult to feminism. If you just want to have a career and not even have kids, you're an overreaching, selfish bitch. You have to do it all, whether or not you really even want it all.
Remember that rant in Fight Club about men going to jobs to buy things they don't need? Well, women have been marrying, working, and dressing to impress people they don't need.
So is it any wonder that some women are exhausted? That maybe they want to fantasize about not having to be so strong all the time?
Women today are very cognizant of how careful they have to be if they want to succeed in life. A lot of women feel they have to put everyone else first. Their kids, their career, their families, their spouses. They feel they have to dole out energy, time, and effort for everyone else first and if they're not exhausted at the end of the day, they can have whatever meager bit is left over for themselves.
Perhaps the reason these heroines sell is because women want to fantasize about a world where they can be selfish, demanding, whiny and put themselves before anyone. They want to imagine a world where they can flounce and pout instead of grinning and bearing it, where they can say what they want and demand that they get it and not have to calculate for everyone else's desires and needs.
Does this particular fantasy appeal to me? Not at all. I imagine there are a lot of women that it appalls, but I have a feeling that the women who are most horrified are the ones who least feel the pressure, either because they learned balance long ago or they're just that good at letting things roll off their backs.
Yet, nobody says that it's misandry (hate of men) to go into a theatre and see movies where men are highly sexed, equally shallow and self-absorbed, reckless heroes who blow things up and keep walking. If you say that you feel that the action movies of today are more nuanced in their portrayals of male heroes (and you'd be right, to an extent), I think I'd have to say that it's also not a sign of misogyny, either.
If anything, I think it's a sign that Hollywood recognizes that there are going to be plenty of women in the seats of those movies and that they need to appeal to them, too. I think the reason romcoms come off as so ill conceived is because they're still coming straight from the Id of Hollywood. The well polished comic book movies and action flicks which are made to be sleek and smart and good story telling are just the opposite. In a way, they're antithetical to the very comics they portray (but that's another entry).
Romcoms are the movies where Hollywood still feels that they've got a single demographic sitting in the seats, apparently. I can assure that if Hollywood felt there was big money in men going to romantic comedies, you'd see a radical shift.
One suspects, as well, that a lot of the disgust at romantic comedies also comes from women who, in a broader sense, aren't really fond of any work (movie, books, TV show) that comes from the id, that comes unfiltered and raw and unpolished from people's more twisted, back brained imaginations without being subjected to the common sense rationality of the fore brain.
While we're on the topic, can I make a request? Can we be really careful before we break out the m-word (misogyny). Yes, it exists in our society. Yes, we need to call it out where we find it and make sure attention is paid and steps are taken to correct examples of misogyny. I think there are plenty of examples of it in movies and television (see also: the pilot of Dollhouse)
But the overuse of the term is going to lead to it's cheapening, it's going to lead to a hollowing out of a word that we, as women, need. We need to be able to point to something and have a word for "this is a way in which you're hating us and hurting us".
There are plenty examples of it, but I just don't know if frustrating mainstream movies count, especially when these movies are, in large part, produced, directed, performed, written, edited, and made by women themselves. Can women be misogynystic? Certainly. Self-hatred is always a possibility. I just don't think this is it.
I also don't know if we need to break out that accusation when we're talking about a genre of movies within the context of a mainstream system that produces just as many insultingly dumb films for men and children. Yes Confessions of a Shopaholic ain't an intellectual, feminist masterwork, but it ain't like Paul Blart: Mall Cop is a deep, philosophical piece of cinema, either.
American film in general is sadly dumbed down, not just romantic comedies.
I can't say I disagree with the things that annoy her about the movies. I, too, am more than a little tired of the parade of self-absorbed, materialistic, shallow, clumsy, cloying heroines that flounce across the screen like a copy of a copy of a copy of Julia Roberts, strangely helpless and childish.
I mute the advertisements for Confessions of a Shopaholic because the idea of it, especially in this economy and climate, sickens me. I'm out of a job and counting pennies, and the idea of a job going to a woman who has to Google what finance is and then buys things at the counter just because they're pretty without knowing what they are just makes the urge to destroy furniture rise.
Nor can I say I enjoy romantic comedies as a genre of movie, not because I don't enjoy romances, but because I think most mainstream American comedies are mean spirited, ham handed, and half witted.
Actually, I think most mainstream American films of any genre are idiotic. Let's face it, mainstream Hollywood just isn't very smart. Even our Oscar winning films are disappointing, intellectually. If romance comedies aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer, well, neither is anything else.
But when Larbalestier wrote this:
Claudette Colbert, Rosalind Russell and Katherine Hepburn never ever played stupid women.
It really set me back. Yes, those were great on-screen women who were strong, fiesty, and a pleasure to watch. They were also rare exceptions in a world that actively repressed women and told them that they had one place and one place only, and that was in the home being wives and mothers, because in that world, the wife and the mother were subservient in ways that boggle us to today.
It makes me wonder if the reason that those actresses and their movies were so dazzling was because they were so contrary to the reality that most people lived with. Perhaps their popularity stemmed from them doing something that people knew to be impossible in an ordinary setting.
Perhaps the latest craze of ditzy heroines comes not from Hollywood's desire to express contempt for women, but from Hollywood tapping into the desires of some women to see things in screen that they know are not possible in real life.
Let's face it, women in America, of all classes, races, and sexualities are being put to the wall. There is enormous pressure to be everything, and not just pressure from men. We pressure each other, our sisters and best friends and daughters, whether we realize it or not. In our society, you have to be sexy and smart. You have to look sexy in Prada heels while you drive the kids to soccer practice and then go off to work to rise to the top of your profession. You have to be the supermodel, the mom, the boss, the whore, the virgin, the MILF.
If you genuinely do want to stay home with your kids, you're a lazy, dumb cow who's backwards and doesn't want to work and you're an insult to feminism. If you just want to have a career and not even have kids, you're an overreaching, selfish bitch. You have to do it all, whether or not you really even want it all.
Remember that rant in Fight Club about men going to jobs to buy things they don't need? Well, women have been marrying, working, and dressing to impress people they don't need.
So is it any wonder that some women are exhausted? That maybe they want to fantasize about not having to be so strong all the time?
Women today are very cognizant of how careful they have to be if they want to succeed in life. A lot of women feel they have to put everyone else first. Their kids, their career, their families, their spouses. They feel they have to dole out energy, time, and effort for everyone else first and if they're not exhausted at the end of the day, they can have whatever meager bit is left over for themselves.
Perhaps the reason these heroines sell is because women want to fantasize about a world where they can be selfish, demanding, whiny and put themselves before anyone. They want to imagine a world where they can flounce and pout instead of grinning and bearing it, where they can say what they want and demand that they get it and not have to calculate for everyone else's desires and needs.
Does this particular fantasy appeal to me? Not at all. I imagine there are a lot of women that it appalls, but I have a feeling that the women who are most horrified are the ones who least feel the pressure, either because they learned balance long ago or they're just that good at letting things roll off their backs.
Yet, nobody says that it's misandry (hate of men) to go into a theatre and see movies where men are highly sexed, equally shallow and self-absorbed, reckless heroes who blow things up and keep walking. If you say that you feel that the action movies of today are more nuanced in their portrayals of male heroes (and you'd be right, to an extent), I think I'd have to say that it's also not a sign of misogyny, either.
If anything, I think it's a sign that Hollywood recognizes that there are going to be plenty of women in the seats of those movies and that they need to appeal to them, too. I think the reason romcoms come off as so ill conceived is because they're still coming straight from the Id of Hollywood. The well polished comic book movies and action flicks which are made to be sleek and smart and good story telling are just the opposite. In a way, they're antithetical to the very comics they portray (but that's another entry).
Romcoms are the movies where Hollywood still feels that they've got a single demographic sitting in the seats, apparently. I can assure that if Hollywood felt there was big money in men going to romantic comedies, you'd see a radical shift.
One suspects, as well, that a lot of the disgust at romantic comedies also comes from women who, in a broader sense, aren't really fond of any work (movie, books, TV show) that comes from the id, that comes unfiltered and raw and unpolished from people's more twisted, back brained imaginations without being subjected to the common sense rationality of the fore brain.
While we're on the topic, can I make a request? Can we be really careful before we break out the m-word (misogyny). Yes, it exists in our society. Yes, we need to call it out where we find it and make sure attention is paid and steps are taken to correct examples of misogyny. I think there are plenty of examples of it in movies and television (see also: the pilot of Dollhouse)
But the overuse of the term is going to lead to it's cheapening, it's going to lead to a hollowing out of a word that we, as women, need. We need to be able to point to something and have a word for "this is a way in which you're hating us and hurting us".
There are plenty examples of it, but I just don't know if frustrating mainstream movies count, especially when these movies are, in large part, produced, directed, performed, written, edited, and made by women themselves. Can women be misogynystic? Certainly. Self-hatred is always a possibility. I just don't think this is it.
I also don't know if we need to break out that accusation when we're talking about a genre of movies within the context of a mainstream system that produces just as many insultingly dumb films for men and children. Yes Confessions of a Shopaholic ain't an intellectual, feminist masterwork, but it ain't like Paul Blart: Mall Cop is a deep, philosophical piece of cinema, either.
American film in general is sadly dumbed down, not just romantic comedies.
