The Hangover: I'm Over It.
Not to sound like a total killjoy, but what is the deal with the never-ending flow of all-male adventure comedies? I get it: men can be dumb, and are often more dumb the more of them there are, and we all find that funny. I am not denying any of those things. But how come in a pop culture moment where Tina Fey rules Must-See-TV and Kristin Wiig, Elizabeth Banks and Amy Poehler are all hailed as some of entertainment's funniest comedians, there isn't a single female-centric, totally ridiculous and hilarious big screen hit? Where are these screenplays? I'm sure studio heads and producers have some bogus argument about how American audiences would never laugh at the completely absurd trials and tribulations of womanhood. Or, I wonder, is it because those funny ladies in showbiz, no matter how well they're doing on their own, still feel like they need a boy's approval to put it out there?
Trust me, if I could write it, I would. I have plenty of real-life material to use and I know other women do too. I mean, c'mon: most girls can't handle Vegas. If anyone else has ever driven there from Colorado with two girlfriends on a three-day weekend to see two Phish shows back-to-back where you drank your underage selves demented while playing nickel slots, snuck into Coyote Ugly to laugh at rednecks, took E at New York, New York and woke up in the car in a parking lot behind the hotel, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
You may not believe it, but chicks do tons of funny shit when we're hanging out--we get stoned, we make fun of each other, we fumble in front of hot guys, we get confused by our own private parts and sometimes, on the rare occasion, we even fart. Fey knows this, so why was her "hilarious" cinematic contribution about having babies and trying to make it in corporate business? Diablo Cody is supposedly this edgy bad girl who runs with an Amazon army in Hollywood, but even she wrote about the uterus. SNOOZE. There is a sweet, if brief, period in between girlhood and baby-making where women make lots of comical mistakes, usually in the company of other women. If the movie industry can keep churning out film after film about alcohol/pot induced male silliness (Old School, Wedding Crashers, Superbad, Pineapple Express), imagine the fun when you have half the tolerance!
Sure, they toss us girls a few crumbs every once in a while--my boyfriend and I both laughed our asses off at Kat Dennings and Ari Graynor in Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist. If I think back really far to 2002, I remember Cameron Diaz and Christina Applegate nailing it when they jiggled their arm fat and played with their saggy boobs in the otherwise cheesy The Sweetest Thing (which, by the way, is not as funny now that I can see gray hairs peeking through my bangs). And in between all the marriage and high heels and true love stuff, even Sex and the City managed to get some pants crapping in there. But when will us girls get our own immature, perverted, inappropriate, screwy and hilarious buddy comedy? When funny women look beyond the pregnancy bit and finally start writing and making movies for the comically crazy and confused girls they used to be.
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The Sweetest Thing , with Cameron Diaz and Christina Applegate, was a screwy perverted girl buddy movie
Sex and The City was a huge hit.
"Boys on the Side"? "Girl, Interrupted?" j/k!
Personally, I think it's a good thing that we don't have more low-brow comedies like this.
I agree 100%. There is this generalization that men are funnier than women...it has become a huge problem in the world of comedy. Movies are made for men, and movies geared towards women outside the formulaic chick flicks that do well are considered flukes.
As a young women who grew up performing improv, I love all these guy "buddy" films...in part because I can see bits of my girlfriends and myself in them. We are at a time when young women are fearless and empowered. We have one night stands, adventures in Vegas and Europe, crazy weekends away, etc. I, for one, would love to see that recognized.
Free market.
You or you and your improve buddies should write a script and then find someone will put money into it or put up your own. If you are right and people want to see it, you'll be rich.
There is NO Hollywood exec out there saying to himself, "Gee, I bet a female based gross out comedy would make millions, BUT I have to sexistly deprive women of their right to joke about bodily functions."
The reason no one has made the movie you two girls are talking about is that you two girls are the ONLY ones who want to see it. BTW, just FYI, other than Old School, I never saw any of the movies you are talking about, because they looked dumb.
ALSO, the "generalization" that men are funnier than women????
Ask a hundred random people, or a thosand even, who is funnier, men or women? You will get 90% saying men. The other 10% are just stubborn feminists.
Look at the world of dating and you will get your answer. When a woman says she wants to find a man with a sense of humor, she means she wants to find a man who is funny and MAKES jokes. Conversely, when that same woman says that SHE has a sense of humor, she is staking no claim to being funny, for a woman having a sense of humor means she GETS jokes.
There is no such thing as the free market. Perfect information is necessary. The rest of what you say is speculation and society based opinion.
Most humor tends to be aggressive, so this might explain why there are more men in comedy.
But look, whether it's "The Hangover" or "I Love Lucy", you watch them because they're were funny, not because you're making a political statement. You want a particular type of female comedy, well, then those female comedians and writers have to go and make one.
There is NOTHING on the planet EARTH that is less funny than a group of girlfriends out together.
Conversely, there is NOTHING on the planet earth that THINKS it's funnier than a group of girlfriends out together.
"You may not believe it, but chicks do tons of funny sh*t when we're hanging out"
You are right. I do not believe it.
After reading this comment, and your comment above this one, I must say that I find your statements rather sexist. The reason that '90%' of people BELIEVE that men are 'funnier' is not because men have a biological predisposition to being funny, but rather that we have been taught that they are funnier by a patriarchal society.
And no, I'm not a woman.
WHO "taught" you that?
HOW did they teach you that?
I can name one funny woman, Wanda Sykes. I can name hundreds, perhaps, thousands of funny men.
My comment can certainly be construed as sexist. I would have to assert that men and women are EQUALLY funny for the statement to NOT be construed as sexist. However, there is no truth to that statement, so I will not allow political correctness to obscure the truth.
So, you think, that if we started when they were kids, we could raise a generation where the women are funny and men are not....strictly through socialization?
Then why u bent out of shape? Do you want to be a woman or are you showing your gallant side coming to their defense. I kinda like the Patriarch thing overMatriarch kinda thing and that is what America is, so men power to ya! women well you always take care of momma's own.
You say these movies don't exist, and then you mention examples of them. The Sweetest Thing being the first that came to my mind. What about Dirty Love, The Banger Sisters, The Devil Wears Prada, even The Women? The fact is, most chick flicks are geared toward reactions, where guy movies are centered on actions. Look at Mean Girls, Bad Girls, Heathers, Jawbreaker, etc.... all revenge or reaction.
The studios need to give fearless actresses an opportunity to look stupid. That's how Will Farrell became a star. Where's the big Sara Rue movie? What happened to Molly Shannon? When was the last time Whoopi Goldberg was funny? Outrageous only works if you buy the premise, and TV has been able to do that with female leads (Lucy, Tea Leoni, Jenna Elfman, Julia Luis-Dreyfus), but for some reason, the movies don't take that chance.
You really want to know what it is- movies like 'Hangover', 'Old School', '40yo Virgin', etc. are, at their cores, celebrations of the freedom that being a guy is all about. No body issues, no biological clocks, no monthly visit from aunt Flo and associated hormone swings, no self-esteem issues, no taking hours to getting hair/makeup done, no gynocological exams, none of it. I'd never be able to say this to my mom, sister, girlfriend, etc., but fundamentally, all those things suck. All those freedom-zapping things make for a less-funny group of people. But women are still beautiful, smart, compassionate, wonderful, sexy people, and that's more than enough.
So let me get this straight.... you want to see an all-female adventure comedy where women act like...guys? Hollywood studios want to make money and sister, no one would want to see this movie.
Because when you get it, it'll probably be written/co-written by horrible men and called 'sexist'. Then bored housewives will rally in the streets demanding the jobs of the writers.
Or you could just go put on 'Sex and the City', but considering the average age of those yentas, it won't fulfill your 'immature' requirement.
When men are stereotyped as moronic, drunken clowns, they tend to just laugh, shrug it off and move on. If a movie was made that stereotyped women in a similarly unflattering way, there'd be demonstrations outside half the theatres it played in.
It's simple. Wives and girlfriends will go see "The Hangover," "Wedding Crashers," etc.
Husbands and boyfriends (for the most part) will not go see "Funny Chicks Drinking and Farting."
If half your potential audience is staying home in droves, you're out of luck.
It's the same reason far more kids' movies feature boys in the lead, rather than girls. Or at the very least, there needs to be a boy or two as part of the heroic team (the Narnia movies, for example).
It may not be fair, but it's the reality of the marketplace.
What about all the poor, terminally-bored boyfriends who get dragged to the latest Hugh Grant romcom? You can hear their souls screaming half way across the city.
I'm a female and would never take my husband to see a Hugh Grant movie. In fact, I'd be the one kicking and screaming half way across the city.
Would it be acceptable if the movie starred elderly women? "The Banger Sisters" comes to mind. I'd like to see Carroll Baker, Barbara Eden and Elke Sommer in such a movie.
Greenwalt hasn't considered the possibility that--generally speaking--women writers and directors don't want to make the kinds of screwball comedies she's describing. Just as there are several industries that primarily consist of men, such as different areas of scientific research, it's only natural that there might be natural gender predilictions towards different kinds of comedy.
As a parallel, look at engineering majors. At technical schools, there are seven-to-one or even ten-to-one gender disparities favoring men. While female students outperform males at the high school and college level and women have the same kinds of academic opportunities as men, there's simply a dearth of women majoring in mechanical engineering. At the end of the day, female students may not be doing so because they don't want to.
Greenwalt is mischaracterizing movies such as Old School and the Hangover by saying that they're dumb. The movies are about guys having fun, but that doesn't mean the films aren't well made or that they're unworthy of the attention of intelligent moviegoers. And let's face it, if you have to think about whether you're enjoying an activity, it means you're probably not having fun. In this case, she's demonizing something she doesn't understand.
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