The first time I heard of the Bechdel Test, it made me rethink every romantic comedy/movie with a female in it I had ever seen.
Nerve’s Beautiful Women Falling Down: A Short Film isn’t quite that life changing, but it’s still made me look a bit differently at the female comedy genre. It plays off this quote from The New Yorker:
“‘To make a woman adorable,’ one female sucessful screenwriter says, ‘you have to defeat her at the beginning… It’s as simple as making the girl cry, fifteen minutes into the movie.’ Relatability is based on vulnerability, which creates likeability. With male characters, smoking pot, getting drunk, and lying around watching porn is likeable; with females, the same conduct is hateful. So funny women must not only be gorgeous; they must fall down and then sob, knowing it’s all their fault.” — Tad Friend in The New Yorker, April 11, 2011
Gotta love those clichés.
