Abstract
Despite being one of the most ‘enduring cinematic genres’1 in Hollywood s history, the romantic comedy or rom-com has struggled to gain the cultural legitimacy accorded to many other (‘masculine’) Hollywood genres. However, in 2011 the female-fronted ensemble comedy Bridesmaids (Feig, 2011) received widespread critical and commercial success across the United States and Great Britain. Saturday Night Live (1975–) regular Kristen Wiig leads the cast as Annie, a 30-something single woman dealing with the aftermath of a failed business venture and break-up while preparing for the impending nuptials of her best friend. The film follows Annie as she struggles to perform her duties as maid of honour with a group of ‘misfit’ bridesmaids. As with many other ‘chick flicks’, the narrative is preoccupied with traditional ‘feminine’ themes such as female work, friendship and romance; themes which often secure the rom-com as a critically maligned genre. Yet, Bridesmaids escapes such censure. The film out-performed producer Judd Apatow’s back catalogue (including The 40 Year Old Virgin [2004], Knocked Up [2007] and Funny People [2009]) at the box office and found itself the cause of much celebration among film critics.2 Indeed, in response to claims that Bridesmaids is the ‘female equivalent of The Hangover (Phillips, 2009), the Washington Post remarks that, ‘with any justice, its smarter — if equally silly and scatological — sister will earn pay equity and then some at the box office’.3
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Notes
Claire Mortimer, Romantic Comedy (London: Routledge, 2010), p. 1.
Robert C. Allen and Douglas Gomery, Film History: Theory and Practice (New York: Knopf, 1985).
Barbara Klinger, Melodrama and Meaning: History, Culture, and the Films of Douglas Sirk (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1994), p. 69.
Diane Negra, ‘Structural Integrity, Historical Reversion, and the Post-9/11 Chick Flick’, Feminist Media Studies, 8:1 (2008), p. 52.
Rosalind Gill, Gender and the Media (Cambridge: Polity, 2007), p. 254.
Yvonne Tasker and Diane Negra, ‘Introduction’, in Interrogating Postfeminism, ed. by Yvonne Tasker and Diane Negra (London: Duke University Press, 2007), p. 8.
Suzanna Danuta Walters, ‘Premature Postfeminism: “Postfeminism” and Popular Culture’, New Politics, 3:2 (1991), p. 106.
Sarah Projansky, Watching Rape: Film and Television in Postfeminist Culture (New York: New York University Press, 2001), p. 67.
Mark Jancovich, ‘Genre and the Audience: Genre Classifications and Cultural Distinction’, in Horror: The Film Reader, ed. by Mark Jancovich (London: Routledge, 2002), p. 151.
Tamar Jeffers McDonald, Romantic Comedy: Boy Meets Girl Meets Genre (London: Wallflower, 2002), p. 7.
Kathleen Rowe, The Unruly Woman: Gender and the Genres of Laughter (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1995), p. 19.
Indeed, we are also reminded of Angela McRobbie’s concept of the ‘phallic girl’. See Angela McRobbie, ‘Top Girls? Young women and the post-feminist sexual contract’, Cultural Studies, 21:4 (2007), pp. 718–737.
Ariel Levy, Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007).
Yvonne Tasker and Diane Negra ‘In Focus: Postfeminism and Contemporary Media Studies’, Cinema Journal, 44:2 (2005), p. 107.
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© 2013 Helen Warner
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Warner, H. (2013). ‘A New Feminist Revolution in Hollywood Comedy’?: Postfeminist Discourses and the Critical Reception of Bridesmaids. In: Gwynne, J., Muller, N. (eds) Postfeminism and Contemporary Hollywood Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137306845_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137306845_14
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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