Bridesmaids (2011)

So I was recently informed about this thing called the "Bechdel test," and you can use it to (sort of) measure any given film's representation of women. The test is relatively simple. To pass, a film needs to contain one scene in which two named female characters exchange dialogue about something other than a man. Specific, but incredibly simple. Remarkably, so many movies fail this test. In some, it's expected. War movies, for instance, are more or less man-centric films, so it'd be silly to hold a lack of woman-to-woman conversation in such films against them. I mean, where in Saving Private Ryan would it have been organic to insert a scene with two women conversing? Still, it's incredible to see the list of movies that fails the test. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. What? Really? The movie whose title character is a woman, which is also a movie about bringing justice to those who abuse women, did not feature once scene with two named women talking to each other? Guess not. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. Seriously? The final part of an eight-piece movie franchise with a number of memorable female characters? Debatable, I guess. Like, at one point, Mrs. Weasley yells, "not my daughter, you bitch!" as she kills Bellatrix. It's two named female characters, one talking to the other and certainly not about a man... but can we really call that a conversation? I guess part of the test's effectiveness is that once you find yourself splitting hairs and debating whether or not some tertiary character had a name, or whether or not there's a difference between a person "talking at" someone and "having a conversation with" someone, you realize that the test exists for a reason. Anyway, I bring up that long-winded introduction in Bridesmaids because everyone seems to be making such a big deal about the female-centricity of Bridesmaids. At first I thought it was "gender blind" of me not to take the female-ness of the cast into account while watching and critiquing the film. Like, so what if this raunchy comedy stars a bunch of women? It's still just a raunchy comedy, and a middling one at that, and so why is anybody making such a big deal over it? But after learning about the Bechdel test, and seeing just how under-represented women are in film, still, today, I realized that an all-female "buddy comedy" like Bridesmaids is a big deal specifically because it shouldn't be a big deal. Like, isn't it kind of bothersome that it took until 2011 for a group of women to make the same kind of movie that groups of guys have been making for decades now? (Note: I'm not sure if the blame for that rests with women for never attempting to make such a movie, or men for never allowing such a concept to come to fruition, or some combination of factors, but the point is, it's a big deal that we've never had a movie like this before. Unless it isn't. I dunno, I guess I'm still capable of jumping back and forth across the fence.) So at any rate, the only way for it not to be a big deal just because a woman or group of women have done something is for women to start doing said thing over and over again. Like, the next time we get a comedy with a female ensemble, people will be unable to resist comparing it to Bridesmaids. But if we get five or six more of them, hey, maybe we can finally stop treating it like a big issue. We'll get there someday. Now, as far as Bridesmaids itself is concerned, I thought it was a tad overrated. I thought the same of the very bro-centric Hangover, though, so maybe I'm just down on summer comedy blockbusters lately. What I took away from Bridesmaids was that it started very strongly, faded somewhere around the third act's break, and ended up being a very funny but overall not amazing summer comedy. Like so many others before it, and like so many others yet to come. I'd give it a B+ I guess. Oh, and just to bring this full circle, I made it a point while watching Bridesmaids to see if there was ever a moment where any two named male characters converse with one another about anything other than a woman. Nope! The closest we come is when Jon Hamm's character says something like, "thanks, officer" to a named policeman character. I wonder how many other movies out there fail this "reverse Bechdel test." My gut says not nearly as many as fail the regular one.