Badass Digest (the thinking geek’s pop culture site) has a brilliant article up by the fantastic Meredith Borders called “Welcome the Woman Child” detailing Hollywood cinemas sudden fascination with portraying flawed, emotionally stunted women: she cites three recent examples of this trend, namely, Kristen Wiig in Bridesmaids, Cameron Diaz in Bad Teacher, and Charlize Theron in Young Adult. In the article she states plainly:
“It’s interesting that Hollywood often portrays women as more “together” than men. Obviously, this is not the case—that I even need to write the words “women are as fucked up as men” is the most bizarre, backwards evidence of sexism ever. Hey, we’re messy and lazy too, fellas! We are women, see us suck!”
She goes onto describe the characters of each film in more in more detail; please read the whole thing because it really is a fantastic examination of one of the most positive trends in Hollywood right now (as depressing as that may sound). If you’ll allow me, though, I do have some of my own thoughts to add on the recent phenomenon.
From the period of the 1940s to the end of the 1950s Hollywood cinema was largely about putting male fantasies up on screen, portraying cowboys, astronauts, soldiers, the type of square-jawed badasses who took no shit. I’d go so far as to say that video games find themselves in this stage at the moment.
Come the dawn of the 1960s, however, directors wanted to make more films that spoke about the human condition, with male characters that were just as flawed as the average guy in the street. I mean any actor could play a cowboy or a soldier and make him interesting, but could they do the same thing playing Joe Everyman? It presented one of the greatest acting challenges for any leading man. Unfortunately, while that was going on, roles for women (with some notable exceptions, of course) kind of just stayed the same. As Meredith states in her article, even when women were portrayed as evil there was still a basic competence to them. The reason women in movies tended to be flawless is because most of the time there was very little depth to the way they were written. This has got better as time has marched on, but there are still remnants of this lack of substance in female characters, and you can see this most strongly in the films of Judd Apatow and Todd Philips.
This has created the problem we now find ourselves facing, as now you have these stunted but ultimately very human men playing off cinematic goddesses who seemingly can do no wrong and whose job it is to civilise men and make them just as perfect as they are.
I’m well aware that there’s another side to this as well, by the way, with the endless romantic comedy fluff portray women as needing a man as the only way they can be happy. However, look at the women in these films: they always seem to have a) a kickass apartment in the middle of a major metropolitan city, b) an exciting and fulfilling career, c) masses of disposable income, d) friends that love and support them.
By contrast, Kristen Wiig’s character in Bridesmaids has none of those things except for her close friend, but now even she’s being taken away from her. This makes her someone whom we can sympathise with and root for; sure, she doesn’t always make the right decisions, and she can be selfish, but that’s because she’s human.
Now that Hollywood can admit that both men and women are just as capable of being aimless fuckups who’d rather procrastinate than work on themselves, I think we might be getting somewhere in the whole gender equality thing.
Jim – I absolutely *love* film noir. I’m not sure if I’d say it was a genre with well-rounded female characters, or even many female protagonists. Still, the femme fatales of that era are certainly some of the most memorable female characters ever.
Also, it’s important not to forget that the 40s and 50s were the age of the “women’s movies” of Douglas Sirk and George Cukor. That might have been a small subset of film coming out at the time, but it was a notable one.
Typing FAIL. Please excuse.
“From the period of the 1940s to the end of the 1950s Hollywood cinema was largely about putting male fantasies up on screen, portraying cowboys, astronauts, soldiers, the type of square-jawed badasses who took no shit. ” And that holds for the female roles too. I rememebr watching Blue dahlia what a pweorful, together and sympathetic perosn Veronica Lake’s character was. My mom (82) said she wondered why there were no memorable female actors these days, why they seemed so homogenized and played just really flat characters – the superwomen you mention above. She was comparing that to the female… Read more »
@Iamcuriousblue True I think TV is allot more on the ball about these things than than Hollywood is these days.
I think these movies are taking their cue from successful cable series featuring flawed women. Weeds (which I’m a big fan of), The United States of Tara (probably not coincidentally another Diablo Cody creation, like Young Adult), The Big C, and Nurse Jackie. One could also throw in Jane Adams character on Hung, even though Thomas Jane’s character is the center of that series. So this trope is not entirely new.
Why doesn’t anyone remember Roseanne?
It’s not a “fat wife sitcom,” but why does balance demand being offensive in a different way?
Agree with the op. Out of curiosity would a bechdel test for men work with bridesmaids?
“Elaine from Seinfeld might be a good early example.”
Disclaimer: I am a huge Seinfeld fan.
I think Elaine from Seinfeld is possibly the most well developed woman we’ve seen in an English language screen comedy ever. She’s in some ways a very admirable person (smart, sexually liberated, independent) but in other ways she’s quite contemptible and deserves the crap that happens to her (she’s vindictive, petty, physically violent). It’s kind of sad that despite Seinfeld’s popularity nobody seems to have carried the torch.
If there is a womanchild genre, shouldn’t the “waii-fu” genre–essentially, the 110 pound model who is the ass-kicking action star despite her frail appearance like Kate Beckensdale in the Underworld Series–be connected? Two inversions of typically male pop-culture archetypes? Of course, the problem is that they’re just inversions of male archetypes and have no other real narrative substance. They carry over all the flatness that can be found in the worst depictions of action heroes and “manchildren.” For instance, the movie Bad Teacher has Cameron Diaz as a foul-mouthed, pot-smoking super-jerk. The movie failed for me because for a variety… Read more »
These 3 movies are just role reversal flicks, usually an indication that Hollywood has been making the same lame movie so many times that people started to notice. Calling them “authentic” female roles makes me want to bang my head against a wall. And one of the rather “weird” differences between the “manchild” and “womanchild” movies is that in the typical “manchild” movie there is at least one very mature adult-like woman who teaches the sexless “manchild” some valuable lesson about being a man and getting a woman. In the “womanchild” movies all the supporting male characters are tools and… Read more »
I also welcome the womenchildren! I thought Bridesmaids and Young Adult were both refreshing, even if the characters weren’t always likable.
This also kind of reminds me of Mindy Kaling’s funny essay about women in the movies. I’m still waiting for my Fat Wife sitcom, though.
Point conceded Ed. Sometimes too, caricatures are necessary – not every character can be some complex, super interesting, nuanced human being.
Ooh, this is such a good point. I admit it, when I saw the trailer for Young Adult I was just like “oh no do we really need a movie about a totally screwed up, self-destructive woman who goes on a homewrecking crusade?” and DID put it down to sexism. But this article is LEGIT, seriously. Now I realize I’m just personally not very much into this type of comedy, whether with male or female protagonists! Not everything I hate is a result of sexism, WTF, where the fuck are my smelling salts. I kinda wish the womanchild had come… Read more »
But surely having two forms of bland caricature allows for a more nuanced portrayal than just one, right?
Are the women and men portrayed as – _____children truly an example of a complex and realistic portrayal of real human beings, or are they just another caricature at the other end of the spectrum?
I only ask this because I think that I’m slowly getting tired of the “aimless fuckup that we’re supposed to care for” character. I don’t care for them – I’ve seen enough of them already in real life. I’ve been one myself. It’s not a fun place to be.
Cool post!