I finally caught The Wedding Crashers over the weekend, leaving me with two overriding questions: 1) why was this wildly uneven movie so wildly popular? and 2) how come Hollywood can't write for women?
Me, I have the opposite problem. I can't write male characters who aren't basically me. I was raised by a woman. All of the benchmark people in my life have been women. My every childhood role model who wasn't a cartoon rabbit was a woman. I work in a female-dominated industry; indeed, almost all of my bosses have been women. Certainly all of my heroes and most of my villains are women. Almost every male friend I've got, I met through his gal. Women, in short, have been huge influences. Suffice it to say that if I have any redeeming qualities whatsoever, I learned them from a woman.
Women, I can write. Men, not so much.
So I'm sitting there and trying to like the Rachel McAdams character, who's blessed with Rachel McAdams' looks and not much else. We've all met this character before. She's poorly drawn, just a plot point that engineers conflict between the male characters. We're told a list of likable characteristics—look! she likes charities and football, yet she's funny, accepting, and most importantly, she looks like Rachel McAdams!—and the entire movie hinges upon her slow realization that Our Man is better for her than the Bad Other Man. (Yes, it's standard-issue Hollywood plot B. Or is it A? I get them confused.) Herein lies the problem. The Other Man is so obviously, comically evil—a point delicately underscored by his having the name "Sack"—we cannot help but wonder what mental defect she suffers. No woman worth dating would give this little Hitler a passing thought, yet she smooches him and talks marriage to him. Why? Because it serves the conflict between the male characters. It works as a plot point, I suppose, but at the complete expense of the character. There's no avoiding it: she's staggeringly stupid. Helpless, too. Those are not attractive qualities. The movie is undercut; indeed, I want Our Man to flee. She's nothing but a mindless trophy to be won, and she's certainly not worth "winning." And without that...well, why am I supposed to care, again?
Tomorrow: well-written female characters.