Feature: Pathetic Male Movie Leads, Get Lost!
Posted by: Natalie Krinsky | Filed in: News & Culture
11:00AM, Monday June 09th 2008
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Picture for a moment, if you will, the opening sequence of a film. A romantic comedy. Close, on the female lead, she stands in her apartment a puzzled look on her face – darn it! She wants love! Dating is hilarious! Sex is hilarious! People chase other people through airports and make embarrassing speeches at corporate functions all in the name of L-O-V-E. This female lead is unemployed. She is a slacker. She’s uncertain what she wants to do with her life, but she is certain that she’s ten to fifteen pounds overweight. She engages in recreational drug use, sometimes even drinking bong water. She fears change and cries at the drop of a hat. But boy is she lovable!
Now imagine that these characters are reversed the bong-water drinking counterpart of our relationship is a man-boy, and the sexy smart sophisticate is a twenty-eight year old woman. Now that sounds like a movie.
Her boyfriend/love interest is handsome, smart, well-educated, financially stable, adventurous and athletic. Sounds improbable right? A far-fetched fantasy that would never make it past a studio executive’s assistant. Right? Now imagine that these characters are reversed the bong-water drinking counterpart of our relationship is a man-boy, and the sexy smart sophisticate is a twenty-eight year old woman. Now that sounds like a movie. In fact, it sounds very much like every romantic comedy I have seen in the last year and a half. Now I may sound a little militant here, and for that I apologize but I have to ask – WHAT THE F%$*? Why has the romantic comedy turned into more of a male fantasy than a female one? And why is Hollywood telling well-rounded, beautiful women, that we should just settle?
I live in Los Angeles, and as it goes, I have dated my fair share of drug-addicted, semi-employed losers (they’re also called by another name – “writers”) and none of them has ever provided a happy ending. I know what you’re thinking – not everyone can end up with George Clooney (especially those of us who aren’t former Vegas cocktail waitresses). But whatever happened to the handsome, slick, successful dreamboat who sure made some romantic faux-pas here and there, but always wound up doing the right thing? What happened to Michelle Pfeiffer ending up with Robert Redford? Or Catherine Zeta-Jones and George Clooney? Or Demi Moore and Rob Lowe?
Let it be noted, I am all for the nice guy. I want them to finish first. Every last one of them. I do. I really do. But why can’t the nice, sweet guy bring anything else to the table? Hollywood is telling smart, successful, and sexy women everywhere the best that they can hope for is a “good” guy. What about hoping for our equivalent? Let’s be honest: What the hell is Katherien Heigl doing with Seth Rogan? Seriously. Why, in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, can Jason Segal sob like a child, exhibit not an ounce of male prowess and still end up with hotter than thou Mila Kunis? The entire time I was watching that movie I wished that homeboy would just grow a pair. That film shouldn’t have been titled Forgetting Sarah Marshall ; it should have been titled How This Dude Got Sarah Marshall In the First Place and Life’s Other Great Mysteries Solved.
Here I am, about to wave my feminist freak flag – but the problem with Hollywood today is not the triumph of the nice guy, but the unbelievable triumph of the loser. The fantasy is no longer that you too can get the dreamboat package. Instead, it’s that you too can make your mediocre slacker grow up. And guess what? That’s the biggest fantasy of all. I’ve tried – and it just doesn’t work.
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Amelia
[report]wrote on June 09 2008 @ 11:16 am:
I"m all for movie characters falling for people because of their personalities, but movies only ever show hot girls falling in love with schlubby guys. There isn’t one I can think of that does the opposite. I’m with you Natalie!
Deirdre
[report]wrote on June 09 2008 @ 11:34 am:
Totally.. I want to see “geek girl” (who does not transform into miss sexy half way thru film) or “slacker girl” (who again does not transform into miss sexy half way thru film ) win the heart of an employed stud in a flick. Come on Hollywood!
sassmouth
[report]wrote on June 09 2008 @ 12:02 pm:
You know, I’ve gotta throw Say Anything’s Lloyd Dobler in the mix here. Yeah, boy’s got a boombox and a heart of gold, but boy ain’t got no JOB!
Amelia
[report]wrote on June 09 2008 @ 12:09 pm:
Wow, you might be the first and only woman not to be in love with Lloyd Dobbler, sassmouth!
sassmouth
[report]wrote on June 09 2008 @ 02:19 pm:
Oh, I’m totally and completely in love with Lloyd Dobler (I wouldn’t be human otherwise). But he IS kind of a no-job loser if you think about it. In his defense, at least he doesnt lie when he cries,(like Joe).
HereComestheSunQ
[report]wrote on June 09 2008 @ 02:34 pm:
Uh, Bridget Jones, anyone? And I actually like these new movies because they star my favorite hilarious actors! Anything you and your guy can watch together is a good thing…
dumbwhore
[report]wrote on June 09 2008 @ 09:10 pm:
Just a quick defense for the guys here. Being wrangled into a stable relationship by the hard-working, athletic and sexy leading ladies ISN’T our fantasy either, so don’t think we wanted these films made.
I can commiserate with you that the current trend of romantic comedies leaves something to be desired in the shining knight department but it’s just a fad. I’m sure something sugary sweet and Cary Grant-esque will pop out shortly.
Now, I am off to have sex with my bong, IN THE POSITION I LIKE, DOGGY STYLE! (ok, so I liked some of the film, sue me)
Texas24
[report]wrote on June 09 2008 @ 10:19 pm:
I know, I have often times found myself thinking this every time I watch any movie with a male protagonist. In about every movie with a male focus, there is always at some point, a woman far more attractive than he is, that comes into the picture and becomes his woman. The hero is known to “get the girl.” It’s a rarity when a female protagonist gets a man more attractive than she is. That’s one of the reasons women love shows like “Sex and the City” because it shows women going after attractive men and not just settling for Joe Schmoe. Men hate this.
LovesIt
[report]wrote on June 10 2008 @ 08:10 am:
I think it’s part of this media conspiracy to make young women settle. Is America’s birth rate on the decline or something???
If you haven’t read “Marry Him!” then you won’t know to what I’m referring.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200803/single-marry
atlgirl
[report]wrote on June 11 2008 @ 03:30 pm:
I guess the point is more about slackerdom than just looks, but I feel like the “unequal attraction” tradition even goes back to movies like When Harry Met Sally. Some people may find Billy Crystal funny, but his looks border on hideous—and Meg Ryan was cute then.
Think about sitcoms, too. Usually a chubby, not-so-hot husband with a great-looking wife and teen daughter.
Julie
[report]wrote on June 21 2008 @ 10:54 am:
Uh oh.... my last boyfriend was kinda a mediocre (if very intelligent and funny), slightly overweight slacker. And here I thought I liked him because I had bad taste, not because Hollywood was subliminally telling me - setting for dbags! settle for dbags!
Anyway, I think there are plenty of movies about got-it-together guys dating the Hollywood version of the female slacker: the footloose, fancy-free flower child whose head is too in the clouds to manage anything but like, turning around in circles in a cornfield sexily. It’s just that that chick is always really sexy because like, the people who make movies are usually overweight studio executives (men mostly) with unbelievably hot, younger wives.