I saw "He's Just Not That Into You" tonight, and it was so very disappointing for me as a feminist. I am usually a pretty strong believer that you can love something (or at least enjoy something) and still be critical of it. However, this movie may have been the exception to that rule.
Sure, I laughed at the funny bits and tried my best to enjoy it, but I couldn't ignore that little voice inside telling me that this movie and its one-dimensional portrayals of female characters is just so very wrong. It is chock-full of ridiculous, neurotic, borderline-psycho women whose sole concern seems to be getting and keeping a man. The big "prize" in the end is, of course, getting a date, or a kiss, or an apartment together, or a ring. And to top it off, everyone with more than a line or two is white, stick-thin and hetero. Nope, I just couldn't do it this time.
I really miss the days when movies about and for women were at least more substantial and provided something for us to sink our teeth into. Mainstream films marketed to women these days are for the most part extraordinarily dull, generic and play into all of the same inane stereotypes.
Though this film and what it represents truly made me sad, perhaps the saddest part of my evening was listening to the theater full of women around me cooing, giggling and sniffling their way through the 2-hour running time. Because that's the worst part. We LOVE this shit. We are trained to love it, and we do. Even I couldn't help getting a little thrill when one of the male characters offered a surprise engagement ring to his partner at the end. What does this say about women today? I don't know, but I hope we find a better script very very soon.
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The book this film is based on is written by a man who's career is managed by his wife. Some would observe that she also micro-manages him.
He once wrote for Sex In the City.
When films that are written by men and directed by men, produced by men are marketed to women, it's almost always an insult to our intelligence. It is always neglecting to work with women to get the women's perspective.
The film industry is incredibly sexist- please keep writing about your experiences at the movies or about your experience of not going cause there is nothing worth seeing.
Yeah, that's what I expected from this film based on pre-reviews, which is why I didn't see it.
Hollywood's only motivation is to make money so if they see something like this at the top of the box office, of course they will make it again.
I wanted to address this since this cropped up as an edit to the page recently. Feministing is avaliable to everyone and is read widely by young & old, women & men, and liberal & conservative. However, the target audience of Feministing is young progressive women. There are some posts about other groups of people, and different voices are welcome, but that is the target bedroom furniture audience. Thanks!