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The Disneyfication of Feminism

Lauren

Screenwriters may have internalized them, graduate schools may have assimilated them, but contemporary romantic comedy heroines are pure corporate product, a desperately pandering and clueless assemblage of received notions, sexual anxiety and recycled focus-group-think handed down over the years like Grandma’s cheesecake recipe.

and

Romantic comedy heroines aren’t characters anymore, they’re tranquilizers. They provide exactly what love does not, in a way it wouldn’t if it did. They’re designed to fan the fantasies, soothe the disappointment and calm the frayed nerves that come later. And to do that, they must be built to specifications.

via Ms. Musings

13 thoughts on The Disneyfication of Feminism

  1. The romantic-comedy heroines are also incredibly flighty – they need a man to anchor them. Even in the way they’re played – I’m thinking Renee Zellweger as Bridget Jones here or Debra Messing in ‘The Wedding Date.’

    The actresses play each part as if they are hysterical, terrified ostriches who flap helplessly and mug at the camera until some smooth Dermot Mulroney type comes in to rescue them.

    I guess J. Lo. portrays a woman who has just been rescued and who will do anything to maintain that position – hence, she attacks her “monster-in-law” (played by a radical icon) and shoves her face in a plate of food.

  3. Today’s romantic comedies are a boring regurgitation of conventionality. Save me from Julia Roberts films and Bridget ‘the antichrist’ Jones!

    Conversly, I have been watching a lot of 1930s to 1960s romantic comedies and musicals on DVD recently. Even the B-grades are classics, and many of them are astoundingly subversive. It’s astonishing what directors, actors and screenwriters were able to get away with by using the appearance of conventionality and giving it a little twist.

    That twist is what is missing today.

  4. My Big Fat Greek Wedding to me is a romantic comedy that I enjoy as well as Shall We Dance….Gere may start out wanting J’lo but in the end he discovers what is important to him….

    The whole fantasy thing of “please rescue poor weak me” isn’t anything recent — most romantic comedies focus on the belief that women truly want the knight on the white horse to come rescue them — Me? no thanks as I realize in reality? I’d have to clean up after the horse….

    🙂

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  7. This is quite interesting, because a lot of conservatives accuse modern romantic movies of being too feminist. Phyllis Schlafly thought that Mona Lisa Smile was “feminist propaganda” that put down traditional choices (I disagree). Other movies bug the right by apparently playing up the single career woman over the family woman as well as “glorifying” (if you will) casual sex.

    I don’t think half of that (I enjoy movies and really don’t care whose political platform they embody more), but it’s interesting to hear that neither feminists nor anti-fems are 100% comfortable with Hollywood.

  8. This was one of the reasons I liked Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The romantic lead played by Kate Winslet was complex, reasonably well thought-out and, in fact, kind of annoying. (Becky, watching the first ten minutes, turned to me and said “I want to erase her from my memory.”)

    (Spoiler:)

    And the movie didn’t resolve into a nice comfortable package, and the viewer expected that they’d have more of the same problems that caused the breakup… kind of like being in love in real life as opposed to the movies..

  9. Me too, Chris. All I ask for are complex characters. I’d like to see more people in the movies who resemble you and I and everyone else in the world. Most Hollywood depictions of women’s lives are just plain stupid. That’s part of the reason why I’m so damned picky.

  10. I’ve been unsure whether I should watch the American version of Shall We Dance. On the one hand, I loved the Japanese original; on the other hand – I loved the Japanese original, and it had a certain commentary on Japanese marriages that I can’t picture translating into another culture. I suppose, if I do watch it, I’ll have to be prepared for the marriage coming across quite different.

  11. It is not only the Romantic comedy that suffers but all movies. The heroine is always one deminsional, human complexities no longer exist in movies.

  12. Blue said: It is not only the Romantic comedy that suffers but all movies. The heroine is always one deminsional, human complexities no longer exist in movies.

    overgeneralize much?

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