Tropes Team up in Underwritten Female Character: The Movie
Nuclear Family uploaded a sketch recently that pokes fun at the tiring female tropes Hollywood loves to recycle. Written by Bree Essrig and Dani Rosenberg and directed by George Nienhuis, the fake movie trailer begins with beret-wearing Lola, AKA our manic pixie dream girl played by Essrig, getting dumped now that her sensitive boyfriend knows how to experience life and doesn’t find her library screaming cute anymore.
Now that she no longer serves any worth to the male protagonist, she’s kidnapped by “mama bear”(Ceciley Jenkins), the sassy over-supportive black friend (Shannon Malcolm), and “eye candy”(Ana Cheri), who recruit her into the UFC squad.
Just read this description and tell me this premise isn’t what you wish would happen every time you watched an indie romance or Hollywood action blockbuster with mediocre female characters:
It’s sassy comic relief meets eye candy, in a sketch that brings together the all-stars of insulting roles for women. These are the characters who either exist solely to prop up more important characters, deliver exposition, or fulfill diversity quotas—and now they’re working together like a band of superheroes. Manic Pixie Dream Girl, the free-spirited Zooey Deschanel-in-2008 type, is recruited into the fold by a bunch of other ambulatory stereotypes, and together they’re out to, well, exist. They’re not really up to much of anything here besides establishing a broad sketch of who they are, which is a 100% accurate portrayal of way too many women in movies.
Her training consists of learning to pass the Bechdel-Wallace test, acknowledging an Asian-American actress (Jenny Yang), and ordering a cup of coffee without interacting with sad, broken, Beach House-listening flannel-clad men at the cafe.
Does anyone else want to see this made into a full-length film?
(via Women and Hollywood)
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