Why I Cried During Bridesmaids
I used to see movies like every day of my life back in college. I lived right across from a Loews and would always go to see a movie by myself, no matter what is was. Yes, I even saw the dismal Beauty Shop. Why? I don’t know. Most likely I was sex-iled by my old roommate who had the same haircut as Frodo.
Now, I don’t go to the movies as much. With driving an inconvenient distance to my dayjob and driving yet another inconvenience distance to an audition, followed by a dinner that includes a meal bar and honey roasted almonds from a gas station, and then going to rehearse or perform, when I have a day off - I take the day OFF. Meaning, I don’t leave my apartment, and I watch the same episode of Buffy where Sunnydale is silent and she kisses Riley for the first time. I’ve always been Team Riley. Fuck you, Spike. Angel, get it together.
Needless to say, I felt more than compelled to see Bridesmaids this weekend. Bridesmaids is a movie I had been fantasizing about since the 10th grade when I really made a game-plan in my mind to become a comedian.. Back in 10th grade, the only popular funny stuff involving women was Sex and the City and I hate Sex and the City. If Carrie were my friend, every day I would tell her, “You fucking selfish cunt, why don’t you ever ask me how MY day is going?” That’s neither here nor there. Bridesmaids opened. It was a success and Thor was just about a hammer, so its numbers don’t even count.
I loved Bridesmaids. At the beginning, I was dying laughing. It was finally nice to see women have a real conversation about how ridiculous penises are because THEY. ARE. RIDICULOUS.
However, about halfway through the movie, I just lost it. I cried like a fucking baby. Yes, I first thought it was hormones, but I double checked and a woman can not be pregnant for 5 and a half years. (Zing. Eat it, Bridget Jones.) There were a lot of reasons I cried, mainly because I didn’t get pregnant five and a half years ago. Jeez louise, I’m KIDDING.
I feel like in most other “chick flicks” (God, shoot me in the face) it’s just assumed that women have friends. There’s rarely a movie where the main plot is about a female friendship. Friendship between two adult women is a special thing with deep complexities and it was finally nice to see that captured on screen. I cried because it was the first time I had ever related to a main character that much (with the exception of Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi- that explanation is for another post.)
I hope I’m not the only one, but I have often felt that as I get older my friends evolve way faster than I do. They get jobs and become way more self-sufficient before me. Sometimes it’s an isolating feeling to watch everyone around you change and find their bliss while you’re still stuck getting your shit together. It’s a common thing I think a lot of people go through - men and women - but it’s never discussed with a female point of view- especially with all the blah, blah, blah, pressures society imposes on us, blah blah, why am I not happy without a man, blah blah, flat abs, blah, blah, blah, appletinis and chunky necklaces.
I think what got my tears flowing was the shock that I was finally watching something that relates to me: a woman who doesn’t work at a fashion magazine in New York. Jesus, if I see Candace Bergen or Patricia Clarkson assign a “writer” who is a year out of college an assignment on casual sex one more time, I will shoot myself in the face. Or, just walk out of the movie. Whatever is worse.
Although this movie was made for everyone and it truly is a comedy where the main characters just happen to be women, as a female comedian, it does have a special place in my heart. Right next to Herschell Gordon Lewis’ She Devils on Wheels (again, that’s for another blog post.)
