"Anyone who's seen Mean Girls knows what a fierce comic actress she is," Lambert continues, in a well-argued essay lamenting the loss of the Hollywood "comedy of equals."

The Screwball Comedies of the thirties and forties really were a Golden Age of well-matched onscreen couples. Film critics like A.O. Scott and Anthony Lane, and David Denby are not just whistling Dixie when they claim that it was better back then...Women remain a much underserved audience and we deserve much better than How To Lose A Guy Wearing 27 Dresses. I'm just thankful the discussions have finally been opened back up. There are many millions of different modes for being male and female in the modern age. Maybe someday soon we'll get to see some romantic comedies that genuinely reflect that. Lord knows Woody Allen's not gonna make them.

And seriously? What. Happened. In the thirties, tough dames like Rosalind Russell sparred with Cary Grant His Girl Friday while Katharine Hepburn and Cary duked it out in Bringing Up Baby and the Philadelphia Story. One could argue that these films of male and female equals disappeared during the late 40s in the post WWII push to get women back into the kitchen, but uh, it's been 60 years since then.

I imagine film execs think that a "comedy of equals" couldn't sell tickets and so give us movies about equally repellent personalities like that forthcoming Cameron Diaz/ Ashton Kutcher shitshow What Happens In Vegas. Maybe part of the problem is that movie actresses are now solely seen as the sum of their parts (the New Yorker's Anthony Lane on on Tina Fey: "She hasn't yet made up her mind how funny her body is meant to be. She isn't big enough to make a joke of her ripeness, like Bette Midler, but she's no Lily Tomlin, either."). Fingers crossed that Tina Fey and Diablo Cody's successes can help change all that, but it's going to take time.

In Which A Comedy Of Equals Beats A Bromance Every Time [This Recording]
Weekend Results [Box Office Mojo]
Anthony Lane Thinks Tina Fey Is Fat, But Not Fat Enough To Be Funny [Emily Magazine]

Earlier: Baby Mama Is Fertile Ground For Mixed Feelings From Reviewers
Does The Female "Buddy" Movie Exist?

As someone who grew up on flicks like Desperately Seeking Susan and The Craft, I'm disappointed that, out of the 110 flicks counted, xkcd says, "There were over sixty movies in the sample with two male stars top-billed. The only movies with two top-billed female roles, on the other hand, were The Devil Wears Prada and Scary Movie 4." And sure, there's Juno and Little Miss Sunshine, but are they the norm? He continues:

My cousin has been working on tallying (by hand!) all movies with two top-billed female stars. She reports that there are staggeringly few of them, and the roles fall mainly in two genres: mother-daughter bonding movies and horror films.

Two Female Leads [xkcd]
Related: Whither Our Superheroines? An Outraged Culture Demands To Know [Defamer]
Earlier: The Future Of Female Comedies May Sit Squarely On Tina Fey's Shoulders
Where The Hell Are The Strong Women?
Women In Hollywood Speak Out On Women In Hollywood
"Cordial", "Charming" Studio Chief Explains Why Women Can't Sell Movies (Except Julia Roberts)

Women don't pursue producing and directing careers because they would rather have kids.
Ms. Ziskin says, "I think it's harder for women whose peak career-making years coincide with their peak baby-making years. Directing is a job that requires 100 percent of your time and energy and it's therefore hard to have children." Ms. Peirce points out, "I think the indie world is actually great for women, and for gay people. Because if you have a story, you're going to be able to [tell it]. That's where a lot of women get their start. But you get into your second, your third movie, and you're building a career, and it's hitting smack up against those years when you want to have a child. I mean, you can't get bonded [insured for the film] if you're pregnant." Callie Khouri admits that she chose her career over giving birth. "I didn't have kids because I felt like, I'm not going to be able to do both things. I'm not going to fail at two things," she reveals. "I'm the kind of person — it's hard for me to leave my dog. And my dog I can bring to the set and I don't feel so guilty about it. So I made a conscious decision... I'm going to give that up because I want to have a career." Margaret Nagle thinks that there's a double standard for working moms and working dads: "I was working with this producer, and his kid would have an ear infection and he'd leave the meeting, and everybody would go, 'Oh, God, he's so great,'" she says. "And I went, 'If I took that call and left this meeting because my kid had an ear infection, I'd be fucking vilified.' It would be over. There would be a call to my agent. I remember just thinking, 'You're probably going to see your mistress. You're not going to the kid with the ear infection.'


Women don't direct as many movies because the scripts don't come their way.
Cathy Konrad claims, "The material that gets made at studios is a function of the culture: what is branded and what makes money. I'm not saying that women only want to make dramas, but I do think that you'll find a lot more women that want to tell stories about people than cars." On the other hand, Ms. Khouri, despite writing Thelma & Louise, says she would love to do a movie about cars. "The stuff that comes to me is still way girlier than I would go after on my own," Khouri says. "I spent years trying to get a baseball movie made, and that didn't happen. I wanted to make a NASCAR movie. The stuff that comes to me, I'm always like, 'I don't want to do this. There's crying in this.' That's what sifts down to me, and it is frustrating. I would like to work outside of the female-centric world. But if it's got a woman in it, I'm going to have a better shot at [getting] it." Big action movies make money, but, Ms. Nagle says, "I've never wanted to make anything blow up. That was something my brothers did, and I never wanted to watch movies where people blew things up." Kimberly Pierce, on the other hand, is pro-explosions. "I love blowing things up," she admits. "I just did Stop-Loss, a war film, and there was nothing more exciting than when they set those cars on fire."


Women would go to the movies more if there was something worth watching.
The panel discussed the success of the Bourne movies, which appeal to women even though they have "all that testosterone." Also, though it was marketed to women, men went to see The Devil Wears Prada because "Everybody's had a scary boss," says Ms. Nagle. In addition, Spider-Man was an action-packed movie with emotional heart, so it had a broad appeal.


If Hollywood won't help, you have to do it yourself.
In the end, the women admitted that while there are only one or two women (Julia Roberts and Reese Witherspoon) that can get a picture green-lit by a major studio, Ms. Khouri and others just end up making their movies independently, with other actresses. Says Ms. Nagle, "There's more than one way to skin a cat. If you can't take one path, we're learning to take another path. And that's a very good path for chicks like us to learn."

Chicks Behind The Flicks [Salon]