I’m so bored of stories about guys who like having fun with their fun friends but then learn a valuable lesson about responsibility from their not fun girlfriends and in the end settle down and mature and become an adult who still gets to have fun with his friends sometimes, but the rest of the time has to be in a boring mature relationship because that’s what grown-ups do.
Because what a bummer that is for the girlfriend, to have to be the responsible one, to have to be the one that actually cares about their relationship. Because of course she doesn’t have any of her own friends that she likes to have fun with — she’s just a prop for the male character’s development. It’s a trope every bit as stale as the manic pixie dream girl and it’s so boring.
The boy, goof-off sweetheart that he is, forgot the anniversary, or didn’t read the baby books, or took the girl for granted, so busy was he chasing his own dream. And the girlfriend rolls her eyes because, oh, boys will be boys, and it’s all fun and fine as long as they can get married at the end, because of course that’s all the woman really wants.
It’s a weird kind of sexism in the form of flattery— you put the girl on a pedestal, you flatten her out. She’s a passive aggressive wet blanket stick in the mud who instead of chasing her own dream just wants her boyfriend to be a little bit better, when really she should want a better boyfriend.
It’s so super-gross, especially in a kids’ movie, but it doesn’t make me angry, not really. I’m not offended or shocked or outraged when I see movies like The Muppets. I’m just bored. It’s so boring. And I’m so so bored of being so bored.
I totally loved the Muppet Movie, but this is still so true. The Muppets were great, the human frame story was dulllllllllllllllll.
Also I feel like the best argument for movies to be less sexist/racist/etc is because the alternative is so, so, so, so, so boring. By which I mean to say, dear Christopher Nolan, if you kill another wife/girlfriend to make the hero of the movie angstier, I swear to God I am going to fall asleep in a theater.
I’ve been thinking lately about the character of Leslie Knope, since some random bloggers have been complaining that she’s too saintly or something. (Which is so weird. She totally has TONS of flaws, it’s just that the show doesn’t think she deserves to be constantly put down for them, unlike how practically every other show on TV treats women. So maybe that’s why it’s confusing for people.)
I think what I love about Leslie and her flaws is that they are all, like, childlike flaws, in what is somehow a very appealing way — she’s impulsive and passionate and feels everything intensely, so she loses her temper very unself-critically. I feel like post-puberty so many women are socialized to not express negative emotions, or at least to be really… what is the word. Like, circumspect or careful about expressing them.
But the way Leslie Knope gets mad — man, that is the way a little girl gets mad. She is totally not worried about whether her feelings are legitimate, or whether she’s being unreasonable, or about anyone thinking she’s a bitch. She just scrunches up her face and loses her shit, and threatens to waterboard a teenage boy, or declares war on the country of Peru, or knocks files out of Mark Brendanawicz’s hands. I GUESS I’VE BEEN PRONOUNCING YOUR NAME WRONG ALL THESE YEARS, MARK BRENDANA-QUITS.
Basically I feel like Leslie Knope (and, honestly, a little bit Amy Poehler) is what would happen if a girl was allowed to get through puberty with her real self intact, instead of getting relentlessly socialized to be whatever an acceptable woman is supposed to be, and that is kind of great.
