Kristen Wiig – Bitch Flicks

‘Ghostbusters’: Yes, the Equations are Correct

As a woman in physics I have found that this experience encapsulates many of the issues of being a woman in a field dominated by men. I was very happy to see strong women on the screen and wanted to be a part of the effort… Ten years from now I hope to have an introductory physics course where I can’t count the women on one hand. I want the students to look at my framed thank you note from set dressing, ooh and ahh, and I will get to tell them that yes, those equations are right.

This guest post written by Dr. Lindley Winslow originally appeared at Science & Film. It is cross-posted with permission.

It all started with an email I almost deleted: “Feature Film FLAPJACK.” Before moving to MIT, I was a professor at UCLA for a few years and for fun had talked to a couple of screenwriters when they had emailed me. This time it was April and I had been at MIT for 4 months: I had two labs to setup, my first MIT course to finish, and to top it all off I was beginning to go from some-what pregnant to very pregnant with my second child. Thankfully, I kept reading the most recent email and learned that Flapjack was the codename for the Ghostbusters reboot. The movie was featuring women, specifically particle physicists, in the lead roles. The director Paul Feig wanted everything to be realistic, up until the ghosts showed up, and they needed some expert help.

The 1984 Ghostbusters is one of those movies that brought a generation to science and taught kids that you could dream of something, invent equipment to test it, and then may be even commercialize it. Therefore, it is not surprising that so many of us loved the original movie. I jumped on the opportunity to help them.

My email for help was from Carolyn Lassek from Props and Claudia Bonfe from Set Dressing. They were on a mission to discover what a real particle physics lab looks like. They had several more specific goals too: they needed to find an experiment to be the centerpiece of the lab, decorate an office, and fill a whiteboard with a physics lecture. They came for a visit at MIT and I showed them all of the smaller experiments that would be found at a university lab. They loved the polarized helium-3 source with its copper Helmholz coils and glass tube for the helium — it was postdoc James Maxwell’s project. He really ran with their interest, including the construction of a mock-up experiment and later a thesis on how the proton pack worked. They also loved my colleague Janet Conrad’s office. It is filled with physics toys, 19th century physics equipment, and some science-themed art including a large iron Richard Feynman diagram. That was to become the inspiration for the office in Ghostbusters; several things were borrowed directly from her office and put into the film.

As for me, they loved my junk. As mentioned above, I was setting up my labs and both were filled with junk or treasures depending on your point of view. I had two big wooden crates where we had sorted things we were fairly sure were junk — some of the things were quite large. Claudia, the set dresser, sent a truck to pick it all up so, instead of going in the dumpster, it went to the Ghostbusters set.

The level of detail needed for a movie is amazing. They needed material for lab notebooks and the black boards around the lab. They even wanted the awards on the scientists’ office wall to be authentic down to the citation for the award. I provided the text for all of this and then the most prominent work, an entire large lecture hall white board filled with equations. It would be the backdrop for one of the early scenes, which introduces Kristen Wig’s character as a theoretical physicist. I was only told that the relevant line was “unifying quantum mechanics and gravity.” The logical subject from the board then became grand unified theories or GUTs.

In particle physics, we believe that there must be a theory of everything. We have already observed that at high energies we see two of the four fundamental forces unifying. The Holy Grail is the unification of gravity, famously described by Einstein as the curvature of space-time, into a quantum field theory or particle description. The first step is the unification of the three better-understood forces: the electromagnetic, the weak (which describes nuclear decay), and the strong (which describes the binding of quarks). This first step is a grand unified theory or GUT. The simplest is described by the algebraic group SU(5): special unitary group of degree 5.

The derivation of the life-time of the proton in SU(5) and the measurements by the experiment Super Kamiokande which ruled out SU(5) are what are on the board. The main background to the proton decay measurements were neutrinos, my area of specialty. This is one of my favorite measurements because it is one of those times where we were able to make a definitive measurement by measuring nothing while also making a fundamental discovery about neutrino mass, which went on to win the Nobel Prize in 2016. At the right of the board are mentions of some theories that try to move on from GUTs to these theories of everything: namely a theory called SUGRA or super gravity. I have to admit I stopped the board there due to my lack in expertise and a general bias against string-type theories that are proving very hard to either prove or disprove experimentally.

I love the fact that this physics will make it to the big screen and I am in awe of the process that brings these stories to life. The many individuals, from the director Paul Feig and actresses (Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones, and Kate McKinnon) down to the people like Carolyn and Claudia who are making sure that there is a coat rack in the corner with cables on it, because that is how they are stored in Building 44 at MIT.

On another level, as a woman in physics I have found that this experience encapsulates many of the issues of being a woman in a field dominated by men. I was very happy to see strong women on the screen and wanted to be a part of the effort, but fundamentally it was a distraction from my main job, which is doing research. The day I was able to spend on set, I tried to wait around to meet the actresses and director, but I had to leave at 3:00pm to pick up my son. I was able to come another day for a few hours to see that big lecture hall and meet the director, but this grand achievement has been soured a bit since a written hyperlink was added in with the equations on the blackboard to a video of James Maxwell explaining the proton pack. This meant many of the first stories about the science in the movie only credited one less senior male MIT physicist.

In the bigger world, the Ghostbusters trailer has more dislikes on YouTube than any trailer in history. I find this incredible with the many awful sequels that have been made. There are real complaints to be made about the trailer, namely that all of the physicists are white women. I would really love it if the next Ghostbusters has Leslie Jones’ character getting a PhD and leading the team. Fundamentally though, the criticisms of the trailer show the many biases both conscious and unconscious that women face when pushing against boundaries in physics and in Hollywood.

I am looking forward to the film’s release. Ten years from now I hope to have an introductory physics course where I can’t count the women on one hand. I want the students to look at my framed thank you note from set dressing, ooh and ahh, and I will get to tell them that yes, those equations are right.

Dr. Lindley Winslow is an assistant professor of physics at MIT. She is an experimental nuclear physicist whose primary focus is on neutrinoless double-beta decay. Winslow takes part in two projects that search for double-beta decay at CUORE (Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events) and KamLAND-Zen, and works to develop new, more sensitive double-beta decay detectors. Winslow received her BA in physics and astronomy in 2001 and her PhD in physics in 2008, both from the University of California at Berkeley. After a postdoctoral fellowship at MIT, she was appointed as an assistant professor at the University of California at Los Angeles. Winslow has also been awarded a 2010 L’Oréal for Women in Science Fellowship. Winslow was appointed as an assistant professor at MIT in 2015.

‘Ghostbusters’ Is One of the Most Important Movies of the Year

They’re moved to realize that, after everyone talked shit about them for weeks or months on end, someone actually appreciated what they did. It’s a moment of art imitating life that mirrored my experience with ‘Ghostbusters’… I also vastly underestimated how powerful it would be, and how great it would feel, to watch an action-comedy with only women in the leading roles.

Written by Katherine Murray.

There’s a scene that takes place during the final credits of Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters reboot, in which the Ghostbusters look outside and see New York skyscrapers lit up with messages thanking them for saving the city. They’re moved to realize that, after everyone talked shit about them for weeks or months on end, someone actually appreciated what they did. It’s a moment of art imitating life that mirrored my experience with Ghostbusters so perfectly that I basically just started crying as soon as it happened.

Straight up: I saw this movie out of spite. I remember watching the original films and cartoon as a kid, but I wasn’t overly excited about either of them, or the news that the franchise was getting a reboot. I thought, shooting ghosts with lasers is pretty much the same thing no matter who’s doing it, right? I was wrong.

As the release date for Ghostbusters neared, the backlash against it grew. Apparently, there are a group of men who are offended by the idea that anyone would try, on purpose, to combat sexism in popular entertainment. In this worldview, making hundreds of movies that star groups of men is just natural and good – something with no political implication at all, because it’s what every reasonable person would do by default. Making a single movie that stars four women means you’re going to hell.

After watching this build over the past six months, I decided to vote with my wallet and pay to see Ghostbusters, even though I was still pretty sure I didn’t care about shooting ghosts with lasers. What I can report is that, while it’s not the best movie I’ve ever seen, it’s a pretty good action-comedy. I also vastly underestimated how powerful it would be, and how great it would feel, to watch an action-comedy with only women in the leading roles.

The nuts and bolts of the Ghostbusters remake are very similar to the original in terms of pacing and content. It takes a while to get going but, once the four main characters have met and resolved to start fighting ghosts, the action picks up, and the story gets a lot more exciting. The special effects are more intense than the original, and they’re gorgeous to look at. You’ve already seen a lot of the funniest jokes in leaked clips on the internet, but, while it’s not laugh-out-loud hilarious, the movie stays fun and amusing. The filmmakers are extremely diligent in making sure to reference the most famous scenes and set-pieces from the original series – one might argue that they’re diligent to the point of not letting the reboot step out from the shadow of the original – and most of the original cast members return for cameo appearances in one form or another.

All the evidence suggests that this was a very carefully considered and carefully planned reboot, designed to win over fans of the original. It’s not executed as well as the 2009 Star Trek reboot, but it’s executed better than Star Trek into Darkness, and better than I expected it to be, for sure.

Ghostbusters is very careful about gender presentation – there’s no sense that this is “the girl version of Ghostbusters” in the same way The Chipettes are the girl version of The Chipmunks. This is probably due, in part, to Feig’s preferred approach of allowing actors to improvise and draw on their own personalities to create characters. My favorite example of this, and the one mentioned in the article linked above, is that Kate McKinnon’s character, Holtzmann, comes across as having an ambiguous, vaguely queer sexuality in the film – something that McKinnon, the first openly gay women to join Saturday Night Live, brought to the table herself. There’s an amazing sequence, late in the film, where Holtzmann fights a cloud of ghosts and even as I was watching it part of me thought, “This wouldn’t have existed thirty years ago. If people like me got to shoot ghosts with lasers when I was a kid, maybe I would have thought shooting ghosts with lasers was more cool.”

Other aspects of the film felt more disappointing. The first is that, just as in the original, the only Black Ghostbuster is also the only one who doesn’t know anything about science and acts as a plain-spoken audience surrogate. Leslie Jones easily delivers the funniest performance in the movie, and it’s hard to imagine that she would have been able to do that if she were playing a serious, straight-laced scientist. But it still feels awkward that a film that’s so thoughtful in challenging Hollywood stereotypes of women didn’t think at all about the stereotype that white people are book smart and Black people are street smart, when it comes to forming action teams in movies. While Jones is defending the choice on the basis that there’s no reason why she can’t play a working class character, the concern for me is less about this individual movie and more about how it fits into a pattern.

Similarly, there is some weirdness around Chris Hemsworth’s appearance as the team’s pretty-but-stupid receptionist, Kevin. Kevin is clearly intended to be an inversion of the pretty-but-stupid female stock character, but it might have been more interesting not to use that stock at all. It’s funny that Kevin took the lenses out of his glasses so he wouldn’t have to clean them and that he keeps reaching for a decorative phone that’s kept behind glass. But when that’s coupled with Kristen Wiig’s character objectifying him, asking him inappropriate questions during a job interview, and sexually harassing him in the workplace, it starts to feel uncomfortable. I’d be willing to accept that the Ghostbusters are stuck with Kevin, even though he’s dumb, because he’s the only one who applied for the job. The movie would work just as well, and maybe better, without placing so much emphasis on how he looks.

Ghostbusters isn’t a perfect movie, but it’s one that’s claiming important ground for women in popular culture. By the end, I felt a lot like the citizens of fictionalized, ghost-ridden New York – pleasantly surprised and grateful that these women made an effort to do something I didn’t even know was needed, while the haters tried to tear them down.

Katherine Murray is a Toronto-based writer who yells about movies, TV and video games on her blog.

‘Welcome to Me’ and the Trouble with Mental Illness Comedies

‘Welcome to Me’ is pitched as “woman wins the lottery and uses it to finance her own daytime talk show.” I interpreted this as “Joan Calamezzo: The Movie” and immediately added it to my to-watch list. What that quick summary fails to mention is that Kristen Wiig’s character Alice Klieg has borderline personality disorder, and that her decision to produce her talk show coincides with her going off her meds.

Kristen Wiig in 'Welcome to Me' — Kristen Wiig in *Welcome to Me*

At the end of her now-legendary Tonight Show interview as Daenerys Targaryen, it is revealed Kristen Wiig is there to promote Welcome to Me, pitched as “woman wins the lottery and uses it to finance her own daytime talk show.” I interpreted this as “Joan Calamezzo: The Movie” and immediately added it to my to-watch list. What that quick summary fails to mention is that Kristen Wiig’s character Alice Klieg has borderline personality disorder, and that her decision to produce her talk show coincides with her going off her meds. Yes, Welcome to Me is in the perilous genre of the mental illness comedy. Is it the Silver Linings Playbook for borderline personality disorder or another Blue Jasmine offering a vague Blanche DuBois-esque mélange of symptoms in lieu of actual characterization? Welcome to Me falls somewhere in the middle of that spectrum.

A very special episode of 'Welcome to Me' — A very special episode of *Welcome to Me*

On her show, Alice describes her history of mental health diagnoses: manic depression, rapid-cycling bipolar disorder, and most recently, borderline personality disorder. As a mentally ill person myself, I nodded my head along to the ever-changing labels psych patients keep up with. But borderline personality disorder is outside my personal mental health history, and I know very little about it. I don’t even “know” anything about it from Hollywood; the only other borderline character I could think of was Winona Ryder in Girl, Interrupted, and that film strongly challenges the appropriateness of that diagnosis. So I cannot tell you if Welcome to Me “gets borderline personality disorder right” (but here are some articles that address that question, each with different conclusions).

Alice delivering one of her 'prepared statements' on television — Alice delivering one of her “prepared statements” on television

Whether or not Alice is a fair representation of borderline personality diorder, she is a clearly realized character. Wiig plays her with a flat affect most of the time, somewhat interpersonally detached and awkward, and either unaware or uninterested in social decorum (her “prepared statement” after her lottery win begins, “I was a summer baby born in 1971 in Simi Valley, California, and I’ve been using masturbation as a sedative since 1991”). But Alice’s emotions are easily and erratically triggered in ways that leave deep wounds, evidenced by her talk show segments re-enacting small slights from her past, like a friend swiping some of her makeup. Alice’s personal take on her condition becomes clear when she reflects on “all the times in my life when I was supposed to feel something but I felt nothing, and all the other times in my life where I wasn’t supposed to feel anything but I felt too much and the people around me weren’t really ready for all of my feelings.”

Alice has an emotional breakdown on the set of her talk show.

While the writing and acting create a consistent vision of Alice, it is one wholly defined by her mental illness. She’s not a person, she’s a DSM-V checklist. So it is impossible to relate to her character, even as a mentally ill person myself.

And it becomes very hard to watch Welcome to Me as a comedy because laughing at Alice feels cruel. She is taken advantage of by the small-town tv station that airs her show, who keep telling her they need more money because she’ll robotically write them checks until she’s spent nearly all her fortune. Her therapist (Tim Robbins) is condescending and callous. And when people ARE kind to Alice (like her best friend Gina [Linda Cardellini] and her co-worker and occasional lover Gabe [Wes Bentley]), we see her hurt them terribly through her own self-involvement and volatility. It is a very sad story. The absurdity of the talk show in the center stops being funny and becomes tragic. And not being able to laugh at Kristen Wiig riding a “swan boat” onto stage while she sings her own theme song is just a waste.

Welcome to Me offers the ingredients of a good drama about mental illness and a good comedy about a low-budget vanity talk show, but combined this comes out like the meatloaf “cake” with sweet potato “frosting” that Alice presents on her show. It’s unpleasant and you wonder why anyone would make it in the first place.

Robin Hitchcock is a writer based in Pittsburgh. If she had her own TV show, she would hire a professional to sing the theme song.

Sex, Drugs, and Developing Breasts: ‘The Diary of a Teenage Girl’ an Unforgettable Debut

The film is beautifully shot and highly stylized, allowing us a panoramic view of Minnie’s inner life through animated versions of her intense and thoughtful comic illustrations, drawn frame by frame. Still, ‘Diary’s best feature is its script. While the lessons Minnie learns are expected ones, they are important and the audience will be deeply pleased to see her arrive there. As Minnie reflects on her changing body, interests, and desires, it becomes easy to empathize with a character so familiar and yet so individual.

This is a guest post by Ariana DiValentino.

When it comes to budding sexuality, movies have frequently told us stories of the trials and experimentations (sometimes with baked goods) of high school boys who can’t hardly wait. Teen girl sexuality, however, gets far less screen time and even less nuance. This is why The Diary of a Teenage Girl, directed by first-timer Marielle Heller, stands out as an exciting rare gem.

Bel Powley stars as the 15-year-old Minnie living in San Francisco in the 1970s, who is simultaneously naïve and precocious—both in her artistic and sexual endeavors. Minnie initiates an affair with her mother’s boyfriend, Monroe, played by Alexander Skarsgård, when, after he discloses an untimely physical reaction to some horseplay, she realizes for the first time that a man views her as a sexual being. Though Monroe is two decades her senior, the film manages to turn the Lolita trope on its head by avoiding illustrating Minnie as a deviant teen seductress or vilifying Monroe as a predatory monster. We are along for the ride, alternatingly understanding Minnie’s crush and desire for affection, and cringing at the blatant manipulation she is unknowingly subjected to.

Powley plays a hilariously and touchingly feisty, creative, and confused Minnie, whose bad behaviors are little mystery given the juvenile, wild-partying adults she is surrounded by. Alexander Skarsgård, while initially charming in Minnie’s eyes, portrays an excellent man-child who cannot grasp the impact of his actions on others. Kristen Wiig removes all doubt about her ability to play dramatic roles as Minnie’s loving but deeply flawed mother, Charlotte. Christopher Meloni makes a pleasant appearance as Charlotte’s ex-husband, and the closest thing Minnie has to a protective parental figure.

The film is beautifully shot and highly stylized, allowing us a panoramic view of Minnie’s inner life through animated versions of her intense and thoughtful comic illustrations, drawn frame by frame. Still, Diary’s best feature is its script. While the lessons Minnie learns are expected ones, they are important and the audience will be deeply pleased to see her arrive there. As Minnie reflects on her changing body, interests, and desires, it becomes easy to empathize with a character so familiar and yet so individual. The film finds its humour in its truth, deriving laughs from lines like the dead-serious “I’ve had breasts for three full years now” and genuine, sometimes embarrassing scenes of intimacy.

Not easily categorized, The Diary of a Teenage Girl is a deeply dramatic coming-of-age story with moments of sharp, undeniable wit. Minnie navigates the San Francisco of 1976, sharing thoughts and making mistakes that even more recent survivors of adolescence will gleefully identify with. Marielle Heller has proven herself to be a writer-director to watch, utilizing specificity and a deep understanding of people across generations to create a beautiful and deeply human portrait of growing pains.

Ariana DiValentino is a lover and budding creator of all things film and feminism, based in New York. Catch her in action on Twitter @ArianaLee721.

‘The Skeleton Twins’: Suicidal Siblings

The recommended treatment for attempted suicide in this film seems to be, “Give up your apartment and move across the country to live with a family member you haven’t spoken to for ten years. And whatever you do, don’t get any therapy!” Of course if these characters were introduced to a good therapist, just as when one particularly troubled character in ‘Cold Comfort Farm’ was, we wouldn’t have a movie–which maybe wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

When I was a kid, adults (who had no idea I would grow up to be queer) would talk about how gay men killed themselves once they reached a certain age. The adults acted as if they were talking about some strange species of animal featured on a National Geographic special instead of the people they (whether the adults acknowledged them or not) passed on the street and interacted with every day. The “queers commit suicide” trope was a film staple, one that Vito Russo denounced in The Celluloid Closet and shows up in clips from the documentary of the same name. Now that openly queer people (sometimes) get to write and direct their own films, the trope comes full circle with The Skeleton Twins, directed by out gay man Craig Johnson (who also wrote the script with Mark Heyman), which begins with a gay character (Milo, played by Bill Hader) turning the volume all the way up on Blondie’s “Denis“ in his Los Angeles apartment just before he gets into the bathtub and slits his wrists (cinematographer Reed Morano does a great job in this scene as well as the rest of the film).

We see Milo’s estranged twin sister, Maggie (Kristen Wiig), about to swallow a potentially fatal handful of pills when her disconcertingly cheery ringtone interrupts. The hospital is calling to inform her of Milo’s suicide attempt. So, in the manner of middling scripts through the ages, a character, Maggie, is able to take an unspecified time off work (with no notice), book a last minute flight across the country, invite her brother to recuperate at her home in upstate New York, then spring for an extra plane ticket for him. No one, not the hospital, nor later, her mother or husband seem in the least concerned that Milo could try to kill himself again, or that a suicide attempt is a symptom of an illness which should be treated to prevent the person from dying after a fresh, successful attempt.

The recommended treatment for attempted suicide in this film seems to be “Give up your apartment and move across the country to live with a family member you haven’t spoken to for 10 years. And whatever you do, don’t get any therapy!” Of course if these characters were introduced to a good therapist, just as when one particularly troubled character in Cold Comfort Farm was, we wouldn’t have a movie–which maybe wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

Twins’ Milo and Maggie appear to come from a working-class background. Maggie is a dental hygienist (which requires training but not a four-year college degree) and Milo seems to have skipped college to try to become a “famous actor” in Los Angeles. Later we find out Milo’s childhood bully now works as an electrician. But neither Hader and especially not Wiig act or speak like the working class members of my own family or anyone else’s–though Wiig’s self tan, which makes her look as if she were rubbed with the shavings of a burnt-sienna crayon, makes her resemble some working class folks I know. Luke Wilson, on the other hand, is hilariously natural as Lance, Maggie’s good-natured, good-looking, but not terribly bright, blue-collar husband. When he announces he and Maggie are trying to have kids. Milo says,”I can’t wait to be the creepy gay uncle.”

Lance answers,”You’re hired!”

Another trope that appears in the film is: all the siblings’ problems (even their father’s suicide!) seems to be the fault of their mother (Joanna Gleason in a brief, badly written, poorly conceived role) whom we see having dinner with her children. Again, the mother’s New Age leanings as well as the home she maintains in Sedona plus the ability to jet across the country for a meditation retreat are usually the provenance of the middle class and the wealthy, so the working class status of the family seems tacked-on.

Wiig has some nice moments outside of her comic rapport with Hader (all their best scenes are in the trailer) but she’s miscast. A person with this much to hide would probably present a sunnier facade to the world, the way politicians with draconian platforms cultivate a “friendly” persona. And the script doesn’t do Wiig any favors, calling on her character to smash a fish tank in not one, but two separate scenes to show her state of mind.

Hader plays his queeny character convincingly (though perhaps not as skillfully as an out queer actor would), but Milo seems to have had pretty much no life during the 10 years he was estranged from Maggie (the decade seems to correspond with how long the characters have been out of high school–but Wiig is 41 and Hader is 36, which adds to the film’s dissonance). We see in Milo’s apartment at the beginning a tank of goldfish and a photo presumably with an ex and those two items are the sum of the years the twins have been separated. Maggie, has, on the other hand, acquired a steady job, a house, a husband, and a history.

The characters have a way of joking in a “just kidding (but not really)” way that frustrated people use to blow off steam, but the script doesn’t really explore this dynamic. When Milo is reading Marley and Me he asks his sister if she’s read it and she tells him she has and found it “sad.” He asks why and she says, “You don’t know what happens?”

“What? Does the dog die at the end? Look how much I had left,” Milo spits, motioning to a few chapters worth of pages at the end as he tosses the book aside. He later tells her he knew all along that the dog died.

The jokes in the film are good, but there aren’t enough of them to carry the movie. They are disjointed, like skits (though they are better than the skits the two were in when they were both on Saturday Night Live), instead of a language the two siblings use to communicate with one another. We don’t need to know every detail of adult siblings’ background to believe in the characters bond and relationship: You Can Count On Me made Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo’s brother/sister pair seem real, even though we didn’t learn much about their shared past and Linney and Ruffalo, like Wiig and Hader, look nothing alike. The scene in which Maggie confesses to Milo she is cheating on her husband is very much like the (superior) one in which Linney’s character tells Ruffalo’s that she is sleeping with her married boss.

Skeleton piles on the tragedy, so it becomes ridiculous. Not only did their father kill himself, but their mother is an unfeeling bitch! And Milo’s teacher in high school sexually abused him! And both Milo and Maggie have more than one scene in which they try to kill themselves! Any one of these elements would have been enough to build a film around, but put together they become an unwitting joke, like the compounded tragedy (Incest! Dead best friend! Closeted football player boyfriend!) made The Perks of Being a Wallflower laughable in spite of some good main performances.

Skeleton Twins is the second film I’ve seen (Mysterious Skin was the first) in which a gay man says the adult man who had sex with him when he was underage is the love of his life. In Mysterious Skin this claim made a little more sense: the audience heard it as evidence of how screwed up Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character was. In Twins we don’t get the sense that Milo’s affection for his abuser is anything he should suppress, and Milo’s feelings of love don’t ring true. As I’ve noted before, no matter how “in love” they thought they were, minors who have sex with their teachers usually see, when they grow up, the power imbalance and manipulation in the relationship they were too young to perceive when they were students. Milo has had no such epiphany and for that reason alone–even without the suicide attempt–he should be seeing a therapist.

Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross, when she interviewed Tina Fey a few years back, asked about Saturday Night Live‘s checkered history with its women cast members, and Fey countered by saying that a lot of women had great opportunities to showcase their talents on SNL–and not many chances to put that talent to use elsewhere after they left the show. Although former cast member Wiig had a hit with (and co-wrote) Bridesmaids, subsequent films (which she had no hand in writing) like this one seem to have little idea what to do with her. She and Hader were not only on Saturday Night Live together but appeared in minor roles as the couple who ran the amusement park in the underrated (pre-Bridesmaids) Adventureland and I couldn’t help wishing someone had made a film that starred those characters–or another pre-Bridesmaids Wiig character, the one in Drew Barrymore’s Whip It–instead of Milo and Maggie.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhULZJDXLaE”]

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Ren Jender is a queer writer-performer/producer putting a film together. Her writing. besides appearing every week on Bitch Flicks, has also been published in The Toast, RH Reality Check, xoJane and the Feminist Wire. You can follow her on Twitter @renjender.

‘Hateship Loveship’: Mehship

With a slight tonal shift, this could have been a really interesting story. There are all kinds of interesting places this could go, but ‘Hateship Loveship’ doesn’t take this route. It’s a shame, because it winds up being rather a non-story.

We all know, and are deeply offended by, this story: the bad boy who is redeemed by the love of a good woman. We’ve spilled oceans of ink in our feminist critiques of the harm perpetuated by this cultural narrative. The man is allowed to have dimensions, flaws, agency, character; the woman can only be meek, conventionally pretty, good at traditional feminine pursuits like cooking and cleaning. She sacrifices all sense of self, existing only as a prop for his betterment.

It’s such a tedious cliché, we don’t even really need to rehearse the critiques anymore, taking them for granted as a baseline of feminist criticism. But have you ever wondered what this story looks like from the perspective of the woman?

Me neither.

Hateship Loveship, the new film by Liza Johnson of Return (non-)fame, does an uneven job of answering this unasked question.

Kristen Wiig takes on her first fully non-comedic role as Johanna, the stiff and taciturn caretaker whose employer passes away in the film’s first scene. Johanna is hired to be housekeeper and vaguely parental influence for teenage Sabitha (Hailee Steinfeld), who lives with her grandfather in a fancy house where her deadbeat dad is persona non grata. After briefly meeting said deadbeat dad, Johanna enters into a passionate correspondence with an email address she thinks belongs to him, but is actually run by Sabitha and her smirking, bratty friend Edith. Emboldened by “his” professions of love, Johanna throws away everything in one daredevil move, and goes to live with a man who barely knows she exists.

This is right where you’d think the story would get really interesting. Unfortunately, it doesn’t.

Hateship Loveship isn’t wholly without its merits. The main draws for me were Wiig and Steinfeld, two actors I (alongside, it seems, every feminist on planet earth) adore. Wiig’s performance in Bridesmaids had enough emotional nuance to give me confidence that she could deliver on a purely dramatic role, and she is solid here, using pointed silences and soulful stares to convey a woman whose depths and complexities are deeply suppressed by a difficult past only hinted at. Steinfeld, who knocked all our socks off a few years ago in True Grit, succeeds in giving depth and plausibility to a role that in lesser hands would seem two-dimensional.

Sabitha (Hailee Steinfeld) and Edith (Sami Gayle), being teens

Now, I have not read the Alice Munro story on which the film is based, and perhaps if I had the plot would have been more palatable to me, but it’s a poor film adaptation that cannot stand alone. I want to like a story centered on a woman who goes after what she wants and gets it, I really do. It’s just that apparently what this woman wants is to be a housewife for a hot mess of a man.

With a slight tonal shift, this could have been a really interesting story: a woman who has always been mousy and obedient is finally spurred to take decisive action to get what she thinks she wants, and her pride won’t let her back down from what, increasingly clearly, was not a very good idea. There are all kinds of interesting places this could go, but Hateship Loveship doesn’t take this route. It’s a shame, because it winds up being rather a non-story.

The screening I saw included a Q&A with Johnson and Wiig, and I had to fight the temptation to ask them: what was the point? What is the film trying to say?

Does Guy Pearce really deserve that look from Kristen Wiig? — Does Guy Pearce really deserve that look of devotion from Kristen Wiig?

As a potential subversion of the “bad boy saved by the love of a good woman” trope, it doesn’t subvert enough: Deadbeat Dad is a junkie and a crook, whose life is literally cleaned up by Johanna. Centering her doesn’t change the trajectory of the story. As a character study, it doesn’t give us enough character to work with: Johanna’s arc from quiet housemaid to, um, quiet housewife is frustratingly underdeveloped. As an unconventional love story, it has too much unexamined ick factor: who would actually enter into a relationship with a near-stranger who showed up on your doorstep claiming to have received love letters you definitely didn’t write?

There are a lot of angles this film could have taken to be something interesting, but it takes none of them and ends up as little more than a disappointment.

______________________________________

Max Thornton blogs at Gay Christian Geek, tumbles as trans substantial, and is slowly learning to twitter at @RainicornMax.

The Masculine Adventure in ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’

My question is: why? Why can’t women be part of his quest instead of the cookie at the end of the road? The message is that women can’t have quests or journeys or adventures for themselves. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty depicts women as love objects (romantic or familial) with their place at home, not on the road.

I went to see The Secret Life of Walter Mitty on Christmas Day, which turned out to be appropriate because Ben Stiller‘s film is an ode to embracing life, living kindly, and seeking meaningful adventure (all useful messages for a theatre full of Americans sitting on our asses). The movie is sweet, humorous, and light-hearted. It deals in fantasy and a fantastical reality. It begs us to value each other for whatever our contributions may be no matter how small those achievements may initially seem. It asks us to see art and beauty in everything. I enjoyed the film, but I was saddened by the lack of female involvement in Mitty’s quest.

There are several women who play prominent roles within Walter’s life. His mother and his love interest are portrayed with the most integrity (his sister mainly seems like a selfish woman who takes advantage of her brother). Walter’s mother Edna Mitty, played by the illustrious Shirley MacLaine, proves to be an integral part of setting him on the right path in his journey.

Edna’s clementine cake (Walter’s favorite) is an important clue as well as currency that gains him access into territory guarded by an Afghan warloard. Her piano, a memento of her late husband, is another clue Walter follows on his search for the elusive photographer Sean O’Connell (Sean Penn). Edna encourages her son to do whatever he feels like he must do, and she remains at home, holding many of Walter’s forgotten treasures, waiting for a time when he may need them. Though Walter clearly loves and respects his mother, she isn’t much more than a symbol of motherhood and the home to which he will return after his journey is done.

Walter’s love interest, Cheryl Melhoff, performed by the talented and versatile Kristen Wiig, is a single mother who is kind, intelligent, and encouraging.

Cheryl is the first person who tells Walter that he must follow Sean O’Connell’s trail and that he must go on this journey himself. Many of Walter’s fantasies center around Cheryl, and in one, she even coaxes him to take a risky helicopter ride with a drunken pilot because that is the path on which his quest lies. Much of his quest is about proving himself and making himself worthy for the woman he has put on a pedestal. When she falls off that pedestal, he turns to his mother who gently pushes him to finish what he started.

Both Cheryl and Edna exist to spur Walter into action. Neither of them take action themselves. Instead, they are gentle forces that compel Walter into creating a true life for himself while they wait for him to come home. Walter’s quest becomes independent of the women in his life as he strives for confidence, self-worth, worldly experience, and a sense of purpose.

Walter skateboards to an Icelandic volcano.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty doesn’t pass the Bechdel Test. No women are featured on his journey. In fact, the only woman we see during Walter’s travels is a bartender in Greenland. No women are pillars in his quest who either help or obstruct his progress. He doesn’t create amazing memories with them as he does with the men who rescue him from a shark or a volcano or even the men who play soccer with him. The women are all at home. The women themselves represent home. They are settled and stand for things like comfort, security, and love. There is no place for them on Walter’s harrowing, invigorating journey to self-actualization.

Walter climbs a mountain with his guides to find Sean. — Walter climbs a mountain with his male guides to find Sean.

My question is: why? Why can’t women be part of his quest instead of the cookie at the end of the road? The message is that women can’t have quests or journeys or adventures for themselves. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty depicts women as love objects (romantic or familial) with their place at home, not on the road. Men take action on behalf of the “home” ideals for which women are receptacles. While I enjoyed the movie and thought it had important things to say about the value of the “little man”, missing from it are women of action and agency, women who have their own agenda and adventures. Seeing the paths of women on their own quests intersect with that of Walter, however briefly, would have gone a long way to establishing women as autonomous actors in their own tales of becoming.

——————
Amanda Rodriguez is an environmental activist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a BA from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and an MFA in fiction writing from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. She writes all about food and drinking games on her blog Booze and Baking. Fun fact: while living in Kyoto, Japan, her house was attacked by monkeys.

I Love ‘Whip It!,’ But You Probably Shouldn’t: A Roller Derby Athlete Reflects

The cast of Whip It!

This review by Sarah Chamberlain originally appeared at her blog Sarah Chamberlain Does Things and is cross-posted with permission.

Whenever I meet a fellow skater, and they ask me how I got into roller derby, I get a little sheepish.

“I was in college and I saw Whip It!, and I decided I wanted to do that,” I say every time, hoping for a nonjudgmental reaction. Joining the sport post-Whip It! is not the coolest thing for a derby athlete to cop to. Unfortunately for me, my simple derby origin story is true. I walked into a movie theater expecting to see a frothy girl-power flick with my friend, and I did—but I also walked out figuring starter skates into my college budget. For at least the first year and a half of my derby career, until I was well past the point of knowing better, I’d watch Whip It! the night before every bout while I painted my nails in my team colors and sipped on a healthy, nonalcoholic beverage. And while I know that Whip It! Is not the best roller derby film out there, when I sat down a few nights ago to re-watch it for the first time in over a year, I cried at the same parts that always made me weepy. I love Whip It!, but I’m a sucker for it.

The cast of Whip It!

Whip It! Was Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut. Based on a young adult novel by Shauna Cross, the screenplay centers around a seventeen-year-old misfit named Bliss Cavendar (Ellen Page), who spends a lot of time screwing up at the beauty pageants her mom (Marcia Gay Harding) makes her do, until she discovers roller derby while on a shopping trip to Austin. Without permission from her mom or her sports-loving dad, Bliss lies about her age, joins the 21+ league, and becomes star jammer Babe Ruthless. Problems arise when she starts dating an indie rocker she meets at a bout, when she clashes with a member of an opposing team, and when her parents find out about her secret double life. While the plot is heavy on teen and sports movie cliches, it’s also generously sprinkled with esoteric cultural references and cameos. Jimmy Fallon has a minor role as Hot Tub Johnny Rockets, a perpetually hungover announcer who just wants to get laid, and Andrew Wilson (the elusive third Wilson brother!) faces off against opposing coach Har Mar Superstar. Many of the extras, skaters, and non-speaking roles are respected real-life derby skaters, including one of my coaches, who plays the deaf Manson Sister #1—hi, Krissy!

It barely broke even at the box office and drew mixed reviews. Mainstream critics were on point about the film’s predictability; however, their reviews lose credibility when they make uneducated comments about derby aspects of the film. For example, one critic questioned Page’s casting in the lead role, saying she seemed too small to play roller derby. Never mind the fact that Bliss is a jammer, a position traditionally (though certainly not always) assigned to small, agile skaters. More interesting criticism came from within the roller derby community. If you ask a skater about Whip It!, she’ll probably complain about the “Play #3” scene, when Wilson’s character fields a strategy combining an elbow and a 180-degree turn. In real-life regulation play, this move is grounds for immediate ejection from a bout.

Not okay.

However, the biggest problem with Whip It! isn’t the punches and elbows—if you watch closely, you’ll notice that Barrymore’s Smashley Simpson is always ejected, anyway—it’s the erasure of certain people and philosophies that make roller derby unique among modern sports. No visibly queer characters are included in the film, which is unrealistic for a sport known for its LGBTQ superstars and being relatively trans-inclusive a few years before anyone had ever heard of Fallon Fox. The grown women who drive both the skating and business aspects of competitive roller derby are weirdly two-dimensional. A big reveal happens when Bliss learns that her team captain, Maggie Mayhem (Kristen Wiig), skips afterparties because she needs to be with her young son, and another occurs when league bully Iron Maven (Juliette Lewis) snarls that she’s earned her derby stardom at age thirty-six—but after that, the film lets those characters return to the background. A large part of the criticism Whip It! received from the roller derby community regarded the age of its protagonist. Roller derby is so transformative and special for women who find it in their 20s, 30s and 40s, the criticism goes. Why make teenage Bliss the heroine, when Maggie’s and Maven’s stories are much more compelling?

Juliette Lewis as Iron Maven in Whip It!

This is where I begin to get soft on Whip It! When I started playing roller derby at twenty-one (not quite a grown-ass woman, to be fair), I became a teenager again. My body changed and I was hungry all the time. I worried about what to wear to practice. My new passion worried my mom, and I had to be a little bit sneaky to keep everybody happy. I had to make choices about relationships and priorities that I’d never had to make before. And I could think of nothing but roller derby: after class, I’d sit in my room ogling gear, watching and re-watching league promo videos. In class, I’d doodle pictures of skates and myself wearing a jammer star on my helmet. I felt about roller derby the way I felt about my crushes in middle and high school. Maybe it’s easier to translate that giddy feeling to non-skaters if you just make the main character a typical teenage girl who is still figuring things out.

Don’t give up on film depictions of roller derby if you’re less sentimental than I am. There are better representations of derby in film, but you have to go looking for them. Brutal Beauty, a documentary which follows Portland’s Rose City Rollers through their 2010 home and travel seasons, is a great introduction to the sport and is available for streaming on Netflix.

Trailer for Brutal Beauty

An upcoming documentary that promises to take a different approach to the topic of derby is Erica Tremblay’s The Vagine Regime, which will profile the titular pan-derby LGBTQ all-star team.

Trailer for Vagine Regime

Finally, my current favorite roller derby film is Turner Van Ryn’s dialogue-free short film Skater 26, which follows San Francisco skater Chantilly Mace through the weekend leading up to a high-stakes home bout. It’s breathtaking to watch, and does an incredible job of quietly creating a detailed narrative out of what is still a niche subject. Best of all, it’s available in full on YouTube.

Skater 26 (full movie)

Personal reasons for loving Whip It! aside—I’ve sat in the penalty box on delicate technical fouls enough times to scoff at “Play #3”—I can detect the tense, rehearsed quality of a new skater in many of the actors’ jumps and sprints. Johnny Rockets’s announcing places a little too much emphasis on the fishnet stockings the players wear, a trope that still crops up in mainstream coverage of derby. The underwater sex scene is truly unnecessary–so unnecessary that I won’t link to it. I cringe when Page’s Bliss tells her mom to “stop shoving your psychotic idea of ’50s womanhood down my throat,” because who actually says that?

But right after that, she throws out her hands and says, “I am in love with this.” I believe you, Bliss. I just understand why a lot of us don’t. Fortunately, there are just enough film options out there for the derby-curious.

Sarah Chamberlain (twitter.com/SChamberlainLA) graduated from DePauw University with degrees in creative writing and flute performance. She lives in Los Angeles, where she works in a charter school and skates and coaches for the Angel City Derby Girls. Her work has been featured on The Billfold and LAist.com.

‘Girl Most Likely’ to Not Meet Expectations

Kristen Wiig as Imogene in Girl Most Likely

Written by Lady T.

There’s a certain risk involved in being excited for a film. High expectations often lead to disappointment, especially when anticipating the film for two years.

Such was the case with me and Girl Most Likely. When I first heard about this film, it was called Imogene and still in pre-production. The premise intrigued me immediately: a female playwright fakes a suicide attempt and is forced into the custody of her overbearing mother.

I wasn’t just eager for this film. I was pumped, and not just because of DARREN CRISS OMG. The premise had “dark comedy” written all over it. I expected Imogene to be the next Young Adult and give us the next great comic antiheroine. With the combined talents of Kristen Wiig, Annette Bening, Matt Dillon, and Darren Criss, Imogene was going to be a brilliant dark comedy that would immediately make its way onto my DVD shelf, be completely ignored by the Academy Awards, and prompt another scathing blog post from me criticizing the Oscars for disrespecting comedy and not recognizing great female characters.

These two women in the same movie? Sign me up!

Instead, Imogene was a movie called Girl Most Likely, a quirky film about a woman in New York City whose life falls apart, and she has to return home to her family in New Jersey. At first, she resents having to go back to a life that she didn’t care for, and doesn’t like living with her quirky and strange family, but eventually, she Learns to Appreciate the Important Things in Life and reject all those New York snobs who didn’t really care about her as a person.

So, kind of like Sweet Home Alabama, except in New Jersey. Not exactly the great dark comedy I was looking for.

Now, I still enjoyed a lot of things about the movie. The script is often unfocused, but contains a lot of sharp writing and clever dialogue. Imogene’s family is delightful, and I was immediately charmed by her younger brother Ralph (Christopher Fitzgerald), a mollusk aficionado. I loved the relationship between Zelda (Bening) and “George Bush” (Matt Dillon), two weird, offbeat people who adored each other. (I also love that Zelda being older than “George” was not mentioned at all – extremely rare in depictions of relationships between older women and younger men.) Bening, Fitzgerald, and Dillon are consistently funny, and Darren Criss is charming and sexy as a singer/performer in a Backstreet Boys cover band.

I’m sorry, I lost my train of thought for a minute.

Because there was a lot to enjoy about Girl Most Likely, I tried not to be overly critical just because it wasn’t the movie I expected. In the wise words of Marlo Stanfield from The Wire, “You want it to be one way. But it’s the other way.” It’s not the film’s fault that I expected something different after reading the premise. I tried to judge the movie for what it was, not for what I wanted it to be.

But even after putting my expectations aside, I couldn’t help but notice two glaring flaws in the film: 1) Imogene isn’t likable, and 2) the story trivializes suicide.

Regarding flaw #1 – I recognize that female characters are often held to a higher “likability standard” than male characters. (Theater critic and my good friend Carey Purcell has a great article about likability on her website.) I don’t need all, or even most, of my female characters to be likable. But I got a very strong sense from the script that Imogene was supposed to be likable – and she’s not.

And whether the character is male, female, or genderqueer, if the writer wants us to like the character and we don’t…well, that’s A Problem.

There are very few times in the film where I genuinely like Imogene, and all of those scenes involve her interactions with Ralph. She’s affectionate to Ralph and supportive of him, and as a big sister of brothers, I have a soft spot for sister characters who are nice to their brothers.

Imogene talks to her brother’s crush. (Don’t get too excited to see Natasha Lyonne – this is, like, her only scene in the movie.)

But when Imogene interacts with any other character in the film, I have to wonder, “Why are these people wasting their time with this woman?”

When Imogene talks to her mother, I want Zelda to stop being so nice and yell at her daughter for being an ungrateful brat. When Imogene hangs out with Lee, I can’t help wondering what he sees in her. When Imogene finally confronts her absent father (Bob Balaban), the father character is written as such an over-the-top intellectual snob stereotype that I can’t take Imogene’s pain seriously.

But the main reason I find Imogene unlikable ties directly into Glaring Flaw #2 – the movie trivializes suicide.

Remember, Imogene fakes a suicide attempt to get her ex-boyfriend back. She fakes a suicide attempt to get her ex-boyfriend back.

In the real world, threatening to kill oneself to get a partner or ex-partner to stay with you is an act of emotional abuse. But for Imogene, it’s just a sign that she really needs help, poor thing.

Lee is really into her, for some reason.

And when Imogene confronts her ex-boyfriend and snobby fake friend at a book launch party, we’re supposed to recognize that these people are jerks and cheer her on. Because gasp – her ex-boyfriend didn’t even check in on her after she tried to kill herself! And he was totally cheating on her before he dumped her!

And we’re supposed to be outraged about this – except, considering that the suicide attempt was fake, I don’t think Imogene has any leg to stand on.

And if a screenwriter wants us to sympathize with the main character, I shouldn’t watch the big confrontational scene between the main character and her snobby fake friends and think, “Uh, the snobs kind of have a point here.”

More problematic, though, is the way a faked suicide is portrayed as another quirky character flaw in a film filled with quirky people. It’s just like Ralph’s fondness for mollusks, or Zelda’s penchant for gambling, or Lee’s Backstreet Boys cover band, or “George Bush” having been struck by lightning three times.

I don’t think I need to explain why portraying a faked suicide as a mere sitcommy quirk is a problem, do I? Good.

Imogene is depressed. So am I, but for a different reason.

And this goes right back to my initial point about my expectations for Imogene and the movie that Girl Most Likely turned out to be.

It’s not a bad thing that Girl Most Likely wasn’t the movie that I expected. It’s not the screenwriter’s job to write a dark comedy about an antiheroine just because that’s a movie I want to see.

But while a faked suicide attempt is a great inciting incident for a dark comedy about an antiheroine, it doesn’t work as well for a quirky comedy about a woman who needs to pull herself up and learn to appreciate her family.

And if Girl Most Likely would rather be a quirky comedy than a dark comedy, that’s fine. But I can think of about ten different inciting incidents to bring Imogene back to New Jersey that don’t involve trivializing suicide or pretending that emotional abuse is just a quirk. Would it have been so hard to have Imogene reluctantly go back home because of Ralph’s birthday, a dead grandparent, or just because she left the first draft of the play she was most proud of in her mother’s basement?

Lady T is a writer with two novels, a screenplay, and a collection of comedy sketches in progress. She hopes to one day be published and finish one of her projects (not in that order). You can find more of her writing at www.theresabasile.com.

Wedding Week: Why We All Need to See ‘Bridesmaids’

Movie poster for Bridesmaids

This guest post by Molly McCaffrey previously appeared at her blog I Will Not Diet and is cross-posted with permission.

I keep hearing people say they aren’t going to watch Bridesmaids because it’s a rom-com or a chick flick, and since this is really an important movie for women, I want to tell you why it’s not either of those things and why you need to see it.

Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig exercising in Bridesmaids

1. First and foremost, this is not a rom-com. Yes, this movie is a comedy, but it’s not a rom-com because those movies put the romance first (and it’s usually cheesy, unbelievable romance) and the comedy second. Notice that the word “rom” comes before the word “com”? That’s because the rom is center stage, and in Bridesmaids, comedy definitely trumps romance. (By the way, women don’t exercise in a rom-com; they just look perfect without trying.) Also, this movie is not a rom-com or a chick flick because the main plot of the story is not about a woman who would only be happy if she could just find the right guy, which brings me to my next point …

Drinks, pre-food poisoning, in Bridesmaids

2. No, this is a movie about … wait for it … female friendship. I know what you’re thinking—a movie about female friendship? I’ve never heard of such a thing. Well, there was Thelma and Louise, but that was like a million years ago. Yes, that’s my point. It’s been WAY TOO LONG since we’ve had a movie about female friendship, which is why people are saying …

3. This film is the first of a new genre. Perhaps you’ve heard of the bromance? Well, Bridesmaids is supposed to do for women what Wedding Crashers did for men. This new genre still doesn’t have a name—“sismance” and “wom-ance” just don’t sound quite right, and if you come up with a clever moniker (maybe “broad-mance”?), I’m sure you could make millions doing so.

Bridesmaids karaoke

4. And because this is a movie about female friendship, it passes the Bechdel Test, which asks: 1) Are there two named female characters in the film? There are SIX in this movie. 2) Do they talk to each other? Yes, they do. 3) About something besides men? Absolutely. I don’t have the exact numbers, but I would venture to guess that about 90% of the movies made in Hollywood do not pass this test, reinforcing the wrong-headed notion that women are only in the world to be accessories to funny male comedians or hot male action stars. In other words, that women are defined by men. And guess what? We’re not.

Kristen Wiig in Bridesmaids

5. It’s also the first Hollywood movie in a long time about a woman who is not played by an A-list actress. This may seem like no big deal at first, but when you think about it, it really is. The reason that most movies about women have to feature A-list actresses is because the people in Hollywood think good stories about women aren’t interesting enough to make us want to see them on their own and that they need something else—like Julia Roberts or Reese Witherspoon or Angelina Jolie—to get us in the seats of the theater. But we know that’s not true, and by giving Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph the leading roles in this movie, the powers-that-be are also giving us a chance to prove that. And because they are played by “regular” actresses …

The ladies of Bridesmaids

6. Bridesmaids features women who look like women in real life, which is almost unheard of in Hollywood movies these days. Kristen Wiig, as beautiful as she is, also looks her age in this film. She has wrinkles and bags under her eyes and doesn’t dress like she just stepped out of a Prada boutique. Maya Rudolph looks adorable, but she also doesn’t look stick thin. Nor does Wendi McLendon-Covey or Melissa McCarthy. Yes, three of the women in this bridal party are Hollywood thin, but three are not. And three out of six really ain’t bad. And the fact that we get this range of curvy bodies—from Rudolph to McLendon-Covey to McCarthy is really unbelievably impressive since normally Hollywood only features the two extremes of big and small with no in-between. Not only do the women in Bridesmaids look real …

A sweaty Kristen Wiig in Bridesmaids

7. Like real-life women, they talk about sex … If Sex and the City was important because it showed women talking about sex in raunchy ways that we had previously only associated with men, Bridesmaids is important because it shows them talking about it—and acting on it—in believable ways. Now that we’ve experienced Samantha Jones (and thank God we did), we can have authenticity, which is what you’ll find when Wiig and Rudolph discuss sex over breakfast, a scene that reads like an homage to the post-coitus brunch that was a staple of Sex and the City.

8. They also talk like real-life women. Like the rest of us, they talk about everything in life … they talk about their jobs, their life choices, their regrets, their bodies, their friendships, other women, their hopes and dreams, and, yes, their clothes and even sometimes men. But they don’t ONLY talk about men, which is crucial.

Kristen Wiig’s airplane freakout in Bridesmaids

9. And, for me, the most important thing is that these woman are well-rounded characters who have personalities and genuine flaws. And, no, I’m not talking about their bodies. I’m talking about the fact that these characters sometimes make the wrong decisions about their friendships, their jobs, their roommates, their lives, and as a result, the audience can’t help but feel for them while also wanting to kick their butts. Kristen Wiig’s character goes through the same kinds of ordeals we all go through—the kind that make us question who we are and what life is about. And her struggles are so frustrating and so moving that I found myself actually sobbing through the middle of the movie. The crazy thing about it is that while I was sobbing, I also started laughing. I’ve laughed and cried in a movie, but I’ve never before done both at the same time, and I did both while watching this movie more than once. I always tell my students that over-the-top comedy only works if it is paired with real, honest emotion, and my response proves that is something Bridesmaids does really well.

Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig in Bridesmaids

10. Finally, this movie was written by two women, Kristen Wiig and her former Groundlings castmate Annie Mumolo (pictured above). As we all know, there are not nearly enough women in Hollywood, so we need to support them as much as we can.

So what are you waiting for?

Molly McCaffrey is the author of the short story collection How to Survive Graduate School & Other Disasters, the co-editor of Commutability: Stories about the Journey from Here to There, and the founder of I Will Not Diet, a blog devoted to healthy living and body acceptance. She has worked with Academy Award winner Barbara Kopple and received her Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati. Currently she teaches at Western Kentucky University and designs books for Steel Toe Books. She is at work on her first memoir, You Belong to Us, which tells the story of McCaffrey meeting her biological family.

‘Friends with Kids’: Witty & Touching…But Is It a Feminist Extravaganza?

Adam Scott and Jennifer Westfeldt in ‘Friends with Kids’

I was deliriously drunk with excitement to see Friends with Kids. I mean, a film starring Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Jon Hamm AND written and directed by a woman?? And not just any woman but writer Jennifer Westfeldt?! Yes, please! And yes, it’s funny. Really funny. I laughed so hard my face hurt. Literally. Oh, and of course I cried. It’s not a complete movie-going experience unless I’ve devolved into a sobbing hot mess. But did it live up to my feminist expectations?

Westfeldt plays cheery, talkative and self-deprecating Julie who’s best friends with Jason (Adam Scott) a fantastic loyal friend who happens to be an objectifying womanizer in his dating life. Julie and Jason are the kind of besties who live in the same apartment building, have known each other forever, can finish each other’s sentences and continually debate hypothetical situations such as which is the best way to die.

After their circle of friends (Maya Rudoph, Chris O’Dowd, Kristen Wiig, Jon Hamm) get married and have babies, Julie and Jason witness the decline of spontaneity, romance and apparent happiness in the couples’ lives. Both Julie and Jason want a baby but they don’t want to lose romance. What if they could have a child but skip that part? Why must you have a baby with the same person you’re romantically involved with? And so they decide to have a baby together while remaining platonic friends.

Not only did she star in the film, Westfeldt also wrote, directed and produced Friends with Kids, which also happens to be the first film from Westfeldt and partner Jon Hamm’s production company. The writing (Westfeldt drew upon her own personal experiences with friends) is sharp, intelligent and witty. The two leads banter with ease. Westfeldt is super likeable and if you adore Scott as Leslie Knope’s adorbs BF Ben Wyatt (um, yes, yes I do!!), you’re going to loooove him here. He’s fricking hilarious. Westfeldt wanted the dinner scenes where all 6 of the friends sit around and talk to echo those in Hannah and Her Sisters. And those feel effortlessly authentic. But don’t let the posters and trailer fool you. If you’re going to see this supposedly ensemble film because of Wiig, Rudolph and Hamm, you might be disappointed. There’s just not enough of them in the movie. But maybe I’m greedy.

As the film unfolds, it encompasses shades of light and dark as it explores the characters’ lives. It’s funny yet brutally honest, never pulling any punches about life including babies with explosive diarrhea, stinging (sometimes cruel) spousal arguments and juggling romantic relationships while being a parent. It felt like a raunchier When Harry Met Sally… had a baby with a more mature Sex and the City.

I loved that Friends with Kids showcases different women and mothers at different stages of their lives. We see Leslie (Maya Rudolph) and Alex (Chris O’Dowd) bicker but in a joking and loving union. Leslie’s a loving and supportive friend to Julie, comforting her when she’s down and forever trying to set her up with a man, whether it’s a criminal or a hunky dad (Ed Burns). Sidebar, Julie’s singledom isn’t a death knell, people. There’s nothing wrong with being single! We see a different marriage in Missy (Kristen Wiig) and Ben (Jon Hamm). When they’re newlyweds, they can’t keep their hands off each other. After kids, they’re exasperated and miserable. It’s sad but realistic watching their marriage unravel. Whether she’s uttering a witty quip or evoking her character’s inner turmoil and pain (her scene standing in the window…dagger in the heart), Wiig makes every moment count.

Beyond the three female friends, we also see MJ (Megan Fox), a self-described “gypsy” free spirit dancer openly states she never wants kids. Yet she’s refreshingly never demonized for her choice. We also see Julie’s and Jason’s mothers: one who adores her child and dotes on her grandchild, the other swoops in at the baby’s birth leaving a check and then swoops out again.

Westfeldt’s 3 films that she’s written all tackle relationships from a unique angle differing from the societal norm. The unconventional exploration of parenthood is an intriguing premise. As Westfeldt told Melissa Silverstein at Women and Hollywood:

“…I’ve never understood why things always have to be just one way when I’ve seen so many people in my life struggle tremendously to fit into those boxes or to live up to those expectations or pressures put upon them by whatever society’s concept of ‘normal’ is…I’m frustrated by things that are exclusive to one particular life choice…I think that, in all three of my films, I’ve been trying to explore these different milestones, and the idea that there are a lot of valid ways to live your life and make decisions to find happiness on your own terms.”

I love that Westfeldt questions and explores individual paths to happiness. It’s refreshing to witness Julie and Jason as single parents yet parenting as an egalitarian team. While the friends all outwardly support Julie and Jason, only Alex (the adorbs Chris O’Dowd) actually thinks it’s a great idea. In fact, Julie and Jason’s parenting decision offends Leslie (Rudolph). She believes it’s “insulting” to their “way of life,” “to all normal people who struggle and make sacrifices and make commitments to make a relationship work.” Her teddy bear husband Alex responds with the humorous line, “We’re not Mormons or old-timey people. We don’t exactly have a way of life, babe.” While she pokes fun at everyone, Westfeldt never vilifies married parents or single people. Her film evokes the message that you never know where your choices in life will take you.

As someone in their 30s who isn’t married, doesn’t have kids and doesn’t want kids, I’m always glad to see alternative lifestyles. Although to be honest, the more radical choice would’ve been to depict a childless woman who wants to be childless rather than succumbs to the stereotypical ticking biological clock. But hey, at least we’re seeing a single mother in a favorable light…that’s a huge step. It also would have been great to see greater diversity, such as gay or lesbian parents or more people of color (I mean this is NYC, c’mon!), although I’m glad to see a woman of color (Rudolph) in the film.

While Westfeldt depicts complex female characters, I wish she had delved deeper into the female relationships. Instead, she chooses to focus on the romantic aspect of the comedy. Which is fine of course, in fact that component is quite compelling although at times conventional. And I’m delighted Julie doesn’t wait around for a man or the perfect scenario to lead her life. But as awesome as Friends with Kids is, there’s just not enough lady interaction. No real sisterhood or female bonding.

Considering that Kissing Jessica Stein, Westfeldt’s first screenplay and her breakout role, a wonderful romantic comedy of a straight and bisexual woman who enter a relationship together, passes the Bechdel test repeatedly, I assumed Friends with Kids would too. But it just barely does. The only times we see two women talking together are when Julie cries to Leslie about Jason dating, when Julie’s mom tells her that she’d love to babysit more, and when Jason introduces MJ to Julie and Julie tells her that she feels like she knows her cause she’s washed her thongs (ha!). In two of those three scenes, women might be talking to women but they’re talking about men. Even one of the most pivotal scenes, a verbal showdown at dinner on a ski trip, happens between Jason and Ben…two dudes.

Why must almost every film, even awesome movies starring and created by amazingly strong and talented women, perpetually revolve around men?

When a film is written and directed by a woman who launched her career on a pretty feminist film, my expectations for her directorial debut are high. Friends with Kids is a touching and hilarious film. And Westfeldt is an incredibly talented writer and director with a knack for capturing nuanced dialogue and raising thought-provoking questions. For a movie created by a woman who believes we should support female filmmakers and women’s voices, I just wish it had been the feminist extravaganza I had hoped and envisioned.

‘Friends with Kids:’ Witty & Touching…But Is It a Feminist Extravaganza?

Adam Scott and Jennifer Westfeldt in ‘Friends with Kids’

“…I’ve never understood why things always have to be just one way when I’ve seen so many people in my life struggle tremendously to fit into those boxes or to live up to those expectations or pressures put upon them by whatever society’s concept of ‘normal’ is…I’m frustrated by things that are exclusive to one particular life choice…I think that, in all three of my films, I’ve been trying to explore these different milestones, and the idea that there are a lot of valid ways to live your life and make decisions to find happiness on your own terms.”

Why must almost every film, even awesome movies starring and created by amazingly strong and talented women, perpetually revolve around men?