Bridesmaids

A lot has been said about Bridesmaids, the Judd Apatow produced  breakout female-fronted comedy of 2011. While the seas of praise flooded in for the film upon it's release from a range of feminist publications, marking it the comedy of last year, it was hard to avoid the impact of Kristen Wiig and co. Somehow, I seemed to distance myself from the hype and didn't get round to watching it. I told myself I would do so eventually, but eventually wasn't to come any time soon.

It wasn't until I was staying at a friend's uni did I actually bite the bullet and witness what the hype was all about.

Annie (Wiig) is having a hard time of it. She's sleeping with some guy that she hopes will make their relationship 'more official' (Jon Hamm), she's working a shitty job her mother managed to blag for her while living in a crappy apartment with a pair of controlling siblings (Matt Lucas and Rebel Wilson), and now, her best friend, Lillian (Maya Rudolph), is getting married.

Things brighten up when Annie is selected to be the maid of honour for Lillian's wedding, but little does she realise she's got competition in the form of Lillian's new friend Helen (Rose Byrne). Though Annie has been best friends with Lillian all her life, Helen is willing to destroy that and come out on top.

As the wedding nears, Annie, with Lillian's bridesmaids, Megan (Mellisa McCarthy), Rita (Wendi McLendon -Covey), and Becca (Ellie Kemper) start to get the wedding rolling, but things don't go to plan, and before she knows it, Annie's life is heading for the scrap heap.

The worst kind of films to watch with people are comedies, because, when you know you should laugh - i.e when someone else is laughing - you have the inclination to just go along with it, join in the crowd, and hope that no one notices that cackle you have just put on is completely fake.

Luckily, my friend wouldn't give a fuck even if I was laughing or not, so it wasn't too bad that I only snorted a semi-laugh once, and was left smirking slightly at some other jokes.

By now you probably would have guessed it - I didn't find Bridesmaids funny.

Shoot me now if you'd like, but toilet humour - and it quite literally is toilet humour - isn't my kind of thing. It may be for some, that's cool, but not for me. Some of us find certain things funny, others don't. Can't please everyone, and all that.

Admittedly, though, I did have expectations of Bridesmaids, and they weren't lived up to. The expectations weren't ones that were out of reach, and they didn't damage my viewing of the film entirely - I'd have viewed it in the same way even without the cloak of hype covering it  -, but the lack of humour, was, naturally, a massive turn off.  A comedy, rightly so, should be funny, and, for me, it never got there in terms of what I find funny. Maybe a lot of the cinema-going public find Bridesmaids type humour hilarious, so I can't trash it for that, only in the respects of how I perceived it and what has we wiping tears through cried-filled laughter.

Looking past the is-it-funny-is-it-not side of the film, there were plenty of other things to get under my skin, and one of them is definitely the theme that surrounded Bridesmaids.

Weddings.

That's right, those annoying-declarations of love with all the pretty dresses, best-man and maid of honour debauchery and drunken/drugged embarrassing uncles. We all love 'em don't we?

Well, it seems like someone does because the output of wedding themed comedies (particular romantic comedies), is slightly ridiculous.

Like you probably all are, I am sick and tired of seeing weddings being the only thing that women are fucking capable of organising, arranging, or taking part in. Bar Wedding Crashers, the American wedding-related films that have been released over the past 10 years or so have female leads, with supporting males. It's great that there are female fronted films, but at what cost? For women to speak about getting married as if that is their only aspiration in life?

I am sure there are plenty of women out there who do aspire to have the picket-fence life style, and hey, that's their choice. However, there are people like me, too, those who don't really give a flying fuck about weddings, getting married, or any of that shit for the time being. Please, can we have something that doesn't have to do with weddings and women? You know, men are a massive part of weddings too, especially if it is a man/woman or a man/man getting married. Or hey, why don't we at least have a film that does deal with those themes but not in such an outlandish way where it has to be all glitzy and glamours and the My Sweet Sixteen version of getting married?

Before watching Bridesmaids, I heard it was very different from all the wedding-themed comedies that have been pumped out of Hollywood studios. So, after seeing it, I asked myself the question: What makes it different from the likes of 27 Dresses and The Wedding Planner?

And in answer to that, very little.

Apart from the fact that, yes, all the main characters minus Ted and Nathan are female, there was fuck all that had me thinking that, "Yes, this is definitely a turn in the right direction for films circling around weddings!"

Running a feminist blog (badly, and I am truly sorry for that guys), I was bound to watch Bridesmaids at some point because, as said, the word feminism has been thrown at it quite a lot, and the coverage on feminist blogs, websites, magazines, etc. has been pretty insane, perhaps even bigger than when Sucker Punch came out.

Oh, how I'd love to side with fellow feminist-thinkers and join the Bridesmaids bandwagon (if very late), but I really can't do that. Why? Because, getting down to the crunch, I don't think Bridesmaids is a feminist film at all.

The lack of men in the film, I guess, could be seen as refreshing to some, but does it really have to take an all-female poster cast to get people to associate the word feminism to recent, modern films? Taking something that is generally seen as an issue for women (weddings), and throwing in gag humour automatically makes something feminist? Man, I'm not really sure about you, but in my eyes, that's not what I see feminism as being. Because of the very few men in the film, suddenly, this is feminist film-making at it's best and we should all rejoice in how PRO-WOMEN it is?

In the defense of the story to Bridesmaids, it was about the traditional wedding routine that concerned women, I get that. The thing is, I fail to understand why weddings always have to be about women, or women fighting women, or women hating on other women and then finding their ideal man at the end. It's great that there are female lead films out there like Bridesmaids now, but it doesn't excuse how lame and straight-laced the film is. And even if you have a script that has been written by women, it isn't an immediate tick off the old feminist list, either.

Comedies tend to thrive on the old caricatures we've seen a million times because, again, someone out there believes we're all happy to laugh along to the same joke (or character) repeatedly for the rest of our film-watching days.

Sorry to be a downer on the party, but I really can't do that. It's not too hard to ask for fresh (yet funny) characters in comedies that don't have to stick into archetypes, is it?

To demonstrate what I mean, here is a list of the key players in Bridesmaids and what character type they fall under:

THE HERO/HEROINE (Annie)

We can't start off a film without having our hapless protagonist try to gather their feet in life. They're the person the audience is rooting for, the one that we all want to get their deserved happy ending come the closing credits. (And it's probable that that happy ending does happen.)

THE LEVEL-HEADED ONE (Lillian)

This is usually the person the Hero/Heroine is closest too, the one that has been there with  through thick and thin, and all of the in-between. Their level-headed attitude is threatened when the Hero/Heroine starts to question their friendship, but they make up at the end because that's what good friends totally do, right?

THE ENEMY (Helen)

The one that we all love to hate, hate to hate, or hate to love, The Enemy is the constant barricade that stops the Hero/Heroine from getting what he/she wants, or needs, because they have their own issues. Everyone else loves them, but the protagonist certainly doesn't.

In most cases, particularly in comedy, the Enemy and the Hero/Heroine call it truces at the end, and we can see a beautiful friendship forming on the horizon.

THE LOVE INTEREST (Nathan)

The one you least - or, 99% of the time - most expect to woo the heart of the Hero/Heroine.

The Heroine (usually, again something that is dismissed to be a male issue) tends to drive away the Love Interest at first, thinking that they are undeserving, it's hate-at-first-sight, or don't see what is right in front of them, causing a rift between the pair. Eventually, all is forgiven, and love blossoms. (Resulting in marriage, most of the time.)

Bonus points for them not being American. Everyone likes an Irish bloke.

THE DOUCE BAG EX (Ted)

The Douche Bag Ex  is only there to annoy and aggravate the Hero/Heroine. Sometimes they may have some kind of characterisation, but mostly, it is them being a frustrating it's-in-the-name kinda person. They are a blank, irritating canvas of a human.

Technically, yes, Annie and Ted aren't going out, but cross out the Ex part, and you still have the blueprint of The Douche Bag.

THE FUNNY ONE (Megan)

Whether they're gay, overweight, or black (never all three, sometimes two), The Funny One will take the piss out of themselves for the sake of the audience, because ISN'T IT SO FUNNY THAT SOMEONE IS, LIKE, GAY AND THEY MAKE GAY JOKES?

This results in a character not really being that funny, and Melissa McCarthy's 'I like sex, but it's funny because I am, like, you know, overweight' version of Megan in Bridesmaids hits that typical note for the supposedly hilarious caricature we're all meant to eat up and spit out through choked laughter.

Note: This isn't funny.

THE DITSY/INNOCENT ONE (Becca)

He/she obviously doesn't have a brain of their own, but their innocence to life and the outside world is noted as being endearing and slightly adorable until one of the other key players in the group takes them outside their comfort zone, and shows them the wild side of living. (In Becca's case, it is making out with Rita.)

THE 'I DON'T GIVE A FUCK' ONE (Rita)

You can't have a group of friends that doesn't include the one that is so uncaring to what others think of them, and this is Rita.

They usually have responsibilities in their life, and their 'don't give a fuck' attitude is a release for all the other stuff they're dealing with.

With the disturbingly massive catalogue of romantic comedies I have watched, these are characters I have seen before, ones that aren't giving anything different to the world of comedy.While it is certainly done in a different way - trying to be something that it isn't, but unfortunately is - the film is a blueprint for every fucking other romcom I have suffered over the years as I mentioned before. And, out of everything, this is the thing that infuriates me the most.

Marketed as the female Hangover, this, sadly, is the only reason why Bridesmaids gained media attention in the first place. Because of it being a female-fronted film about women who discuss SEX and MAKE SHITTING JOKES with the trashy humour that has become the norm in the post-American Pie film-watching bracket . So, it's not about the quality of the output anymore? Well, let's been honest, American Pie was never quality, but, I won't go there (for the time being anyway).

It's a shame, really, because, even with people whose opinions I value on film telling me that Bridesmaids was a waste of time,  I wanted to give it a chance as all films deserve.

Unfortunately, yet again, I was driven towards the pack of 'haters', and like my reaction to mostly every Oscar nominee last year, Bridesmaids is going to sit in with the absurdly overrated certified  'Rotten Tomato' fresh films that everyone else loved and I was, as they put it, 'meh' about.


What is The Bechdel test? Find out right here


1) There are two or more women in the film - 1/3


2) Who talk to each other - 2/3


3) About something other than a man - 3/3