I recently watched the new Amy Schumer film, Trainwreck. Even though it was a mediocre movie, there was something refreshing about it; it was fun to watch an unapologetic, unconventional female lead.
Bridesmaids was the first mainstream film I'd seen that really pushed that boundary. It was the type of comedy that used to only be made for men - raunchy, somewhat disgusting, and completely silly. When I saw Bridesmaids with my best friend (who'd just gotten married), I hurt from laughing by the end. I couldn't believe how much the characters hit home. In the movie, women were people who swore, sweat, shat, and talked shit to each other.
I'm not saying that women hadn't been depicted this way previously in films - they had been. Although it's always the weird friend, strange sister or crazy aunt who feels comfortable enough to apologize loudly for her snart (sneeze-fart), while everyone rolls their eyes.
Liz Lemon (Tina Fey's character), in 30 Rock also pushed this boundary. She was a female lead who wasn't primarily concerned with her looks, romance, and how to have it all. She liked food, generally didn't know how to talk to or date men, and spent ample time on her couch. Even though the characters in 30 Rock were all somewhat exaggerated personalities, she was still a more realistic female character than almost any character I'd seen prior.
Recently, I've noticed more of this in both TV and film. Bridesmaids satisfied a craving that women everywhere didn't even know that we had. We'd been craving relatable, realistic, multidimensional female leads in our entertainment.
Even though Trainwreck will probably not go down in history as a great movie, the theater was still packed on a Tuesday night. Who knew that the niche of depicting women as human people would be so profitable?
The big change for me was the liberation of women being able to laugh at themselves and not worry how that looked. The rigor of being "ladylike" was like rigor mortis: the jokes were dead. Ellen also pioneered there, but I agree: Tina Fey in 30 Rock was a revelation, and Amy Schumer takes it to a whole new level.
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