Romantic Comedies Laugh at Career Women
“Oh, cool, the female protagonist is a career woman. That’s feminism, right?”
So, last night I watched this romantic comedy with Julianne Moore and Pierce Brosnan. She plays a very dedicated and mid-successful divorce lawyer. He plays another divorce lawyer who is rather arrogant and a bit of a mess, but as he has never lost a case, people attribute his messy look and lifestyle as an important factor for his utter success.
As many of you can see it coming, yes, these two characters fall in love with each other. I think it is pretty predictable since the first scene that they are going to end up together: the career woman who is focusing on her work and leaving her love life behind, and the arrogant yet brilliant and socially acclaimed man whom, as somewhat of a player, decides to settle down with her.
I sensed that there was something wrong with all this love story as I watched this caricature of a career woman portrayed by Juliane Moore, who I actually respect as an actress—I mean, she did not write this script. Because, if law—or divorce law, specifically—is our female lead’s true passion in life and she has deliberately decided to put a pause to her love life, why would she behave like a sixteen-year-old girl who has just been asked to prom by some high school’s quarterback every time the opposing counselor speaks to her?
The career woman is a recurrent character that the 2000’s romantic comedies have used to attract women who truly are strong and independent in their everyday lives. But I can’t quite agree with the plot of these movies. The idea that women who have given their best at their jobs are secretly waiting for a man—a rather douchey one—to come and woo them so they can feel “complete,” is pretty much the same stereotype that we have been fighting against for decades.
Going back to Laws of Attraction, there is even a scene in which Pierce Brosnan’s character implies, without a shame, that Juliane Moore’s character “will be lost without him,” which is funny because, in another couple of scenes during the movie, he kind of gets her into a lot of trouble: [SPOILER!] He uses private information that she gives out — within the intimate relationship that evolves between them — in order to win a couple of cases and even almost makes her lose a client! Seriously, while I was watching this, I asked myself, “Why would a smart—career-focused or not—woman, if interested in having a relationship, would choose to be with an arrogant man who has been disloyal to her since day one?” (Well, maybe because she is the same woman who quotes the very sexist and completely untrue phrase, “80% of women who are too busy to have a relationship, are extremely lonely.”)
Laws of Attraction is not the only example I can set here. We see this constant theme in romantic comedies like The Proposal (2009, dir. Anne Fletcher), where Ryan Reynolds plays Sandra Bullock’s character’s assistant and Sandra Bullock herself plays the character of a working woman who now as a boss is a bit demanding and seems tough, but then her U.S. visa expires and she believes the most reasonable thing to do is to propose to her assistant, who hates her. [SPOILER!] During a trip to Alaska, which is his hometown, they fell madly in love somehow, and with the same salty tone and aggressive comeback jokes he constantly gives to Bullock’s character, they marry and she does not get deported. Romantic.
Even Working Girl (1988, dir. Mike Nicholas), one of the first movies to portray women at work, is actually a just caricature implying that women are not professional people. The two female protagonists are involved in what would be called a catfight back in the day and they bring this to work, they try to sabotage each other constantly. Moreover, both female characters display a lot of need to be in a relationship with a man.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PE-3JxqiV7M
Verdict? We need new scripts with strong and independent female leads, not just women that are hiding behind their jobs to deny that they desperately want a relationship.
We know by now that wanting to be in a relationship is not a bad thing, but having a desperate desire to just fall madly in love with the first handsome stranger you meet at work—even though he is clearly not good for you—probably should be treated in therapy.
