 (Honest
Title) Why Men Don’t Like Chick Flicks
by Martin Winer
(Honest Title) Why Men Don’t Like Chick Flicks
(For those politically minded) Why Men Don’t Like
Female Centric Films
(For those with a penchant for subtlety) Why Men Don’t
like Baby Bird Films
A Case Study : ‘Notting Hill’
-- Martin C. Winer --
1) Plot inconsistencies.
The plot in all female centric movies seems to center around
prolonging a
certain romantic uncertainty. This is usually done at the expense
of logic.
There are two good examples of this in Notting Hill:
i)
William (Hugh Grant) goes out in the morning to find a frenzy
of Paparazzi
outside his door. He knows this will upset his actress girlfriend
Anna
(Julia Roberts) but only mentions “don’t ask”
when she asks him what’s going
on outside. He lets her walk outside and be confronted by the
same
Paparazzi. This, of course, upsets Anna who wrongly accuses
him of
summoning the Paparazzi and causes a ‘break up’. This,
in turn, provides
Hugh Grant a grand opportunity to apologize (despite his innocence),
setting
the female audience swooning and the male audience hurling.
ii)
William goes on a movie set where Anna is being filmed where
she greets
him warmly and intimates that she’d consider getting back
together.
Unfortunately, she’s just in the middle of a shoot so she
walks off to film
a scene and William is provided with a headset to hear what
is going on
unbeknownst to Anna. While casually preparing for the scene,
a fellow actor
asks Anna: “Who was that rather difficult chap (referring
to Grant) you were
talking to on the way up?” Anna replies: “Oh... no
one... no one. Just
some... guy from the past. I don't know what he's doing here.
Bit of an
awkward situation.” Grant reacts negatively and leaves.
When Grant asks her later as to why she would say such a thing,
she
dismisses it as: “You expect me to tell the truth about
my life to the most
indiscreet man in England?” This is an example of terrible
writing where
the writers dig themselves out of a whole by floating to the
top in syrup.
Why didn’t she just answer the fellow actor with “He’s
a friend” and leave
it at that? Why does Grant have to put up with such behaviour
and accept
such lame excuses? Of course, in tradition with all Grant films,
he accepts
the explanation and leads up to:
2) The grand apology.
It seems a new trend in the effeminized America to have the
leading male
prancing around apologizing. In every Grant movie there is a
huge apology
where he apologizes to some horribly behaved woman to get her
love.
Watching Grant wince his eyes and beg forgiveness having committed
no wrong,
aside from his selection in screenplays, is like fingernails
on the
chalkboard for the male audience. Ross (from Friends) and Grant
(in every
movie) always apologize for no apparent reason, and in fact,
often apologize
for not apologizing. Perhaps the only real apology in such films
should be
an on screen cameo by the screenplay writers apologizing for
overly syrupy
content.
Looking at the movie script: http://www.juliaroberts.de/script2.htm,
Men
apologize some 23 times compared to 8 times for their female
counterparts.
The male lead Grant apologizes some 12 times, compared to Julia
Roberts
apologizing a mere 3 times. Somewhere around the 10th apology,
women in the
audience are becoming enraptured while their male counterparts
are wondering
when the next episode in the Star Wars saga will premier so
they can watch a
movie where men can proudly wield their light sabers and offer
no apology in
so doing.
About the Author
Martin Winer is a computer scientist by day, owning www.rankyouragent.com
and a comedian by night. |
|
