Party

[prog]

Missed an ICCB holiday party Thursday evening. Felt conflicted and sad when first reminded about it by an orker (over AIM, since I was working from home that day), despite the fact that I knew there was little point going since I have never enjoyed these things; I invariably end up bored within minutes of my arrival and leaving as soon as it's polite to do so. I theorize that office parties exist to give "normal", extroverted people a chance to act out their extroversions upon their co-workers at a scale that a work-day environment doesn't encourage. I can respect that, but it's really not something I need. Still, some part of me wanted to go, because surely I'd impress everyone, or meet the girl of my dreams, or some similar poopadoodle. And I just might have given in, too, except that I remembered that there was a movie thing happening at a friend's house, and so I spent the evening in quiet comfort watching Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility with cool people. And Christmas was saved.

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A while ago tahnan brought up the observation (originally put forth by the comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For) that very few movies exist containing (1) two or more female characters (2) who talk to each other (3) about something other than a man (or men). I find it a wonderful world-context brain twister, because I can immediately draw forth a number of apparent counterexamples containing strong female characters before I realize that they're the only significant women in their respective films, and thus fail all three criteria.

I was about to offer Thursday's movie as an example, but now that I think about it, nearly every word exchanged between the principal characters (all female) is about the secondary characters (all male). There is dialogue at the start that constructs the setting (of the women being in a difficult financial situation) and individual lines here and there to maintain it, but I don't know if it's enough to count.

I think the most recent movie that meets all these criteria is Ghost World, and I'm interested by the fact that I have a very hard time coming up with any others. I guess if I really puzzled over it I could name several. Horror movies, certainly, and maybe Star Trek movies. Hmm.

Comments

[jadelennox]

Dykes to Watch Out For proposes Aliens. If you exclude children's movies, I think I eventually decided that Charlie's Angels works. Though I'm not 100 percent sure.

Upsettingly, Miss Congeniality works -- women talk to each other about their weight and their eating disorders -- despite the fact that is a completely hegemonic antifeminist tirade which disguises hatred of women who aren't beautiful and couth as a female empowerment film.

Divine Secrets of the YA-YA Sisterhood works, though it is a chick flick (is this the definition of a chick flick?), and nowhere near as powerful or good as the book.

Huh. Given those two, maybe it's a Sandra Bullock thing.

Oh, and capping off the irony for the evening, Gigi works, even though all the female characters involved are courtesans, failed courtesans, or learning how to become courtesans.

[prog.livejournal.com]

Aliens I count as a horror movie, as I do Final Fantasy, which I saw a couple of months ago for some reason, and which also hits all three. I figure that horror movies usually feature women (as well as men) ordering each other around to better face the unearthly crisis at hand, leaving them unconcerned with mushy talk. (Hmm, maybe the same thing could be said of Star Trek movies, and other strong-setting films...)

I haven't seen any of those other movies, though. I guess I should see Charlie's Angels since two people have brought it up today for different reasons, and that's just odd. :)