Part 1 of this watch-whatever-happens-to-be-playing-on-HBO-when-you're-home series focused on a 51 year old film that aged beautifully and was as poignant and stirring today as it was upon its release in 1967. Part 2 will focus on a romantic comedy from 2000, and spoiler alert: it aged like that flower water you forgot to dump out before leaving on a 2 week vacation to the Maldives. #TimesUp
2000's What Women Want stars Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt as advertising executives. Mel's character is a self-involved chauvinist at best, and a self-involved serial sexual harasser in reality, but he's like, 'totally super cute and good at his job' so all is overlooked. Helen Hunt is also extremely good at her job and is brought in as an equal to Mel, but with a bit more targeted knowledge of the specific product they're trying to sell. The mere thought that a man could be worse than a woman at the same job is the key-motivator for this film's storyline, and in 2018 that's just plain embarrassing.
Plot overview: after a totally adorable accident during an at-home wax attempt, Mel's character finds himself suddenly able to hear women's thoughts. And apparently, women don't have a single confident, self-loving, important, non male-focused thought in their heads at any time. We're all insecure, depressed, unsure, non-confident, weight obsessed, sex fiends, who doubt every decision, focus only on our negatives, and have no confidence that we can grow! Sarah Paulson's character of personal assistant to Mel has the only redeeming line of the film, "...why don't you take me seriously and give me some real work to do?! Oh, yeah, because I have a VAGINA!" Classic Paulson.
And of course, the chauvinist, schmuck has to have his come-around moment and save the day because we women aren't capable of saving our own day. Why not heap some more shit onto this pile!
I hate this movie and I hate that people loved it and went to see it and doted on it and celebrated it the way they did! And I hate even more that it was directed by a woman because I've projected my thoughts and feelings into her actions and assume she felt that it was OK to portray women this way, and that makes me sad. It's hard AF to be a female director in hollywood today, let alone for as long as she's been at it, so she knows the uphill battle we face and the glass ceiling that at times seems bulletproof, and yet here she is, writing and directing films (It's Complicated, The Holiday, Something's Gotta Give) that constantly have women in a subservient or dependent role to her male characters. Why? She's a strong, willful, and clearly successful lady; am I to believe that all she thinks about is the calories in her smoothie and the penis of her co-worker? Hell no!
The one good thing to come from this movie is a realization that while things are still a bit shit for us ladies, we have indeed come a long way in the 18 years since this was released. I think I can confidently say that this film would not make it out of a pitch meeting in 2018, let alone to an international Christmas release in theaters.
