The Wedding Planner
and Someone Like You
Now playing; check Movie Times for listings.

Given the choice between smart or dumb, we'd all like to think we'd opt for smart. But when it comes to romantic comedies, "smart or dumb" doesn't carry as much weight as whether or not it makes viewers feel happy or sad. Why? Because the livelihood of the genre depends on its heroines being dumb--which makes them (and us) sad, which makes the tiny breakthroughs experienced by these heroines feel gratifying. Most of us, it seems, would rather be happy than smart: We could ditch the dumbass who alternately worships then shits on us, and spend the next year or so determining why we ended up with him in the first place (smart = sad), or we could stick with him in an empty relationship that, while neither healthy nor enlightening, ensures that our nights spent sleeping alone are kept to a minimum (dumb = happy). Clearly, there is a gaping hole in both sides of this logic.

Still, it is a hole that recent romantic comedies do not feel the need to fill in, tamp down, and sod over, thereby contributing to greener pastures. Shamelessly female-targeted, these films--The Wedding Planner, Someone Like You, and now Bridget Jones's Diary--feature successful career women (Jennifer Lopez, Ashley Judd, and Renée Zellweger) who are fiercely smart, capable white-collar workers with personal lives that leave one wondering just how they attained any success in their professional lives.

When I worked as a cosmetics salesgirl in college, I was always struck by how fucked up the lives of my co-workers were, and what losers they saddled themselves with. Divorce, infidelity, and abuse were constant topics of conversation among my fellow counter girls, and the life stories of those higher up on our staff were no different. Eventually, I was fired for not being "a team player," but given the emotional and intellectual handicaps displayed by the women on my "team," I was proud to be cut from that particular organization.

I realize my prejudice toward the cosmetics industry is just that--prejudicial. But I don't apologize for my attitude, because I set out to attain something more cerebral for myself from the get-go (whether I succeeded or not is a matter of some debate). So, it would seem, did the lead characters in at least two of the three films mentioned: Jennifer Lopez's wedding planner is a slick delegator and swift manager who completely lacks the self-consciousness of someone without a college degree; Ashley Judd's talk-show producer is all sharp sparkle and can-do efficiency. But while Renée Zellweger's sloppy Bridget Jones apparently possesses the educational chops required for a job at a publishing house or a career in television journalism, she ends up being an idiot--on the surface and, ultimately, intellectually as well.

In order to make these kinds of films enticing to a broad female audience, it seems that Hollywood insists on a core plot of romantic struggle. In the world of Successful Woman romantic comedies, a woman wrestling with her professional life doesn't speak to those who receive an hourly wage; three professional women who live in such cosmopolitan cities as San Francisco (Wedding Planner), New York (Someone), and London (Jones) don't speak to someone living in Creswell, Oregon... until you bring in Everywoman romantic complications to even things across the board. Movie studios are banking on what I like to call "the eye-rolling sisterhood of solidarity": the notion that all girls, no matter what their status and intellect, love to grumble about and cry over a lying, dog-ass guy. "You may not identify with her professional success," Hollywood seems to be saying, "but we bet you'll identify with the mess she's made out of her personal life."

Here, a question begs to be answered: What woman who's seen even one romantic comedy has ever wondered longer than the duration of the opening credits who the lead character would eventually find happiness with? And given the numbing predictability, why do we keep coming back? Bridget Jones is a cow. She desires a boyfriend, so she sets her sights on the office cad (Hugh Grant), and then moans when he dumps her. In Someone Like You, Judd's character, Jane, is not a cow, but she conducts a nonscientific study that likens men to cows, takes up with a guy already involved in a lengthy relationship (Greg Kinnear), then moans when he backs out of the new commitment he made to her.

Is it that we secretly hope the Jerk will change into a Good Guy so we can justify our bad choices in life? Is that why we keep coming back? After all, Andie chose rich boy Blaine over devoted Ducky in Pretty in Pink, despite the original script's outcome to the contrary. Through a "startling" realization made by Judd's Jane, we learn the office cad is actually a misunderstood prince. Does this ever happen in real life? Fuck no. And I've got a long line of sisters who can back me up on that. The very same sisters who'll be standing next to me in the ticket line when the next romantic comedy comes along.