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Bridesmaids (2011) has been billed as an important feminist step forward in Hollywood comedies, as more of the same, as definitely having something of import for feminists to discuss. Naturally, I went to see it. It’s about Annie, (Kristen Wiig) a single lady in Wisconsin, who lost her bakery during the recession – and her savings and boyfriend with it. When her best friend, Lillian, (Maya Rudolph) gets engaged, Annie is appointed maid of honour. Everything goes horribly wrong, not least through the attempts by Lillian’s new friend Helen (Rose Byrne) to sabotage Annie at every turn. It all works out in the end, of course, and Annie ends up with a bloke of her own to boot.
What’s good about the movie? Well, it has ladies. I like ladies. Bridesmaids, in fact, centres on the ladies! Allows the ladies, in fact, to be funny, and not even always in a sexy way! There’s physical comedy – I found the food poisoning scene especially hilarious, but then I have a bizarre sense of humour. I don’t think that’s enough for a film to be a ginormous feminist leap, but okay. This is a low bar to be happy with, but I was also really pleased to see an actress of colour as the bride, the object of affection, the centre of attention. She’s coded as mixed race without any awkward exposition or bad jokes. How often does that happen?
At the same time, it was more of the same. It is, after all, a film about a white wedding between a woman and a rather rich man. And the main character’s main talent is baking. Don’t get me wrong, I am hardcore about baking, but that is a pretty routine passion for a lady to be represented as having. Kjerstin Johnson at Bitch Magazine had this to say:
“While this film is garnering comparisons to The Hangover and not, say, The Brothers Karamazov, it’s like the six leading (mostly white) women were given a bucket of character and when they had to divvy it up, each had barely enough personality to fill a single high-heeled shoe.
“That’s why we’re left with unoriginal, re-hashed characters from these bridesmaids: the naïve prude, the lustful lush, the unrefined fat woman, the beautiful rich bitch.”
I am not quite sure what is going on with the film’s representation of queerness, such as it is, which tells me that maybe the writers, Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig, aren’t sure, either. There’s an awkward moment at the bridal shower when Annie, in crisis mode, wildly accuses Lillian and Helen of being lesbians and a couple, but it’s not meant to be funny or harbour a hint of truth. I was wincing waiting for the bad lesbian jokes to hit us when the groom’s sister, Megan, (Melissa McCarthy) appeared. She’s fat, not much one for make-up, dresses in a masculine style with the occasional incongruous pearl necklace, and adopts a lot of dogs in the course of the film. Yet there are no such jokes, and instead we have ones about Megan’s aggressive heterosexuality. Well, okay. The one moment in which same sex desire might have actually been allowed to be a thing takes place between bridesmaids Rita (Wendi McLendon-Covey) and Becca (Ellie Kemper). The ‘naïve prude’ and ‘lustful lush’ kiss after a discussion about their terrible sex lives with their husbands. That’s it; we hear no more of them, and their characters go back to the cardboard from whence they emerged. Queerness is present, but it’s never allowed to flourish; it’s acknowledged, but never more than nascent. It’s a slightly more palatable space than, I suppose, the gay best friend occupies in your usual het wedding fare. That’s as far as I’m concerned, at any rate, but then I am one for the flexibility of the present and undefined, and I’m sure this semi-presence frustrated other viewers in different ways.
So, it was pretty much what I expected. And now I can say that I sat through a Judd Apatow film.
Excellent review.
I admit, I liked the movie a lot, largely because it was refreshing to see a film where romance and marriage were the background and the afterthought, but female friendship was the focus. Plus, as you point out, it had all the hilarious gross-out gags of any other Apatow comedy, but none of the really offensive, unfunny sexist, racist and homophobic jokes that are so standard in most of those films.
One of my favorite aspects of the film was the way it handled class issues. I liked Annie as a protagonist because she represented the reality that a lot of people in the US are facing right now – she lost her start-up job, she can’t afford to live on her own, she forgoes standard car repairs to save money, she feels incredibly uncomfortable with the wealth of the other women in her circle, etc. These factors make her view herself as a failure, but the film as a whole doesn’t see her that way, and neither does the audience – after all, she is the only character who’s able to comment on/recognize the ridiculous materialism and wealth associated with the Wedding Industrial Complex. Images of wealth are everywhere in film and television right now, in ways that are completely unrealistic. I was glad to see a film that showed the reality of the recession and the way it’s been impacting lives over the last few years.
I’m glad you pointed out the film’s representation of queerness, since that’s one aspect that really bothered me. It wasn’t that it was offensive in any way, it was just…confusing. I LOVED the moment between Rita and Becca, because it felt so honest, but then it just vanished. Ultimately, the queerness was invisible, and for a film that handled so many other issues so well, that invisibility was really disappointing.
I feel that the film succeeded in what it wanted to accomplish, but as you point out, it was a low bar to begin with. It would be far better if we didn’t have to be excited about women making fart jokes and existing as biracial without any awkward comments being made. The film’s successes shouldn’t need to be successes – they should be givens. But since they are, and since “female comedy” is still an oxymoron for a lot of people, I’m glad this film was made and that feminists are talking about it.
That comment is an excellent review in itself!!
This is the second movie I’ve ever walked out of. My best friend and I went to see it because we heard it was great. She’s African American, I’m Asian American. After many, many previews featuring White men as the protagonists and characters of color as Humorous Plot Devices/thugs, we had to sit through a feature that didn’t end up being much better.
Do you remember the opening scene, where Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig are in the park, trying to mooch off the personal training session going on? The personal trainer character was a slap in the face. A large Black man has to play a hyper-aggressive (he’s shouting, rather than encouraging, his clients), inappropriate (he curses at them), menacing (he chases after the women) person? F*&^ that.
And then Kristen Wiig’s character is selling rings to the Asian American couple at the store, and says to the woman, “He might not even be Asian.” WTF? What does that even mean? It was so ridiculous and inappropriate, such a backhanded way to hit at a person of color.
A while after that, we left. Just couldn’t take it anymore. That and various other dynamics at play were too damn much.
“He might not even be Asian.”
Oh, is *that* what was said?! I didn’t quite catch that line. Wow.
Fair enough for leaving! :)