Everyone who cares about showcasing funny women knows there’s a lot riding on the success of Bridesmaids, opening this weekend. Director Paul Feig has said, “I kept thinking, ‘If I blow this, I’m going to ruin it for these women for years and years.'”
There are even impromptu campaigns by women in the industry exhorting people to give Bridesmaids a good box office showing. But judging from the press and marketing for the movie, the belief is that women can’t do it alone. Dudes have to like it too.
Getting them to see the movie means butting up against the widespread Hollywood belief that, in the words of The New Yorker‘s Tad Friend, “male moviegoers would rather prep for a colonoscopy that experience a woman’s point of view, particularly if that woman drinks or swears or has a great job or an orgasm.” By contrast, it’s believed that women will go with men to movies that singlehandedly target guys.
Short of winning that battle, here are some of the ways the folks behind Bridesmaids have had to bend over backwards to assure men that viewing a funny movie that happens to star women won’t involve castration.
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