This is the second installment of a feature we call “Harpy Cinematical Society,” in which we watch a movie (new or old) en masse and then replicate for you our subsequent discussions about it.
A scene from I Love You, Man. Via the movie's website.
The subject of today’s discussion is the #2 film of the past weekend, I Love You, Man, starring Paul Rudd, Rashida Jones, and Jason Segel. If you’ve seen the commercials for it, you pretty much know what it’s about, so without further ado but a brief, hardly-warranted spoiler alert, because if you can’t see everything in this film coming from ten miles away, we just can’t help you…
Becky Sharper: Y’all, can we talk about the previews? I turned to PhDork and said “I guess these are all going to be dude previews.” And I was not disappointed.
sarah.of.a.lesser.god: I was afraid the testosterone in those previews was going to seep off the screen and leech into my popcorn. The Adam Sandler/Seth Rogen vehicle ostensibly had a love interest for Sandler, but it was clearly another, ahem “bromance.” (A word that needs to fucking die.)
BeckySharper: Also, that trailer for the new Sandra Bullock movie rubbed me the WRONG way. Let’s see…we’ve got the bitch stereotype all fired up…She’s older! She’s his boss! He’s forced to pretend they’re engaged! And kiss her! Eww! Hijinks ensue! Because an older woman in authority could never be likeable, let alone loveable or sexually attractive. I kept thinking, “you know, some European filmmaker could take this concept and write a really deep, thoughtful script about the relationship between older women and younger men, and paper marriages, and make it a vehicle for, say, Isabelle Adjani.” But no, this is Hollywood, so we get stuck with Sandra Bullock playing a bitchy stereotype because that’s the only “funny” role that’s available to America’s sweetheart actresses once they’re over 45.
PhDork: So, the previews made me nervous about the feature to come. It had to get better, didn’t it?
sarah.of.a.lesser.god: The movie was actually far more enjoyable than I had expected. Most of that was because of Paul Rudd. His character Pete was perfectly fine, and I appreciated that Rashida Jones’ character, Zooey, was not made out to be some humorless nag/bridezilla. Also, credit must be given to whomever cast Jones, because not only is she talented but mainstream movies like this (especially romantic comedies) almost never ever revolve around interracial relationships.
PhDork: I don’t think most people recognize Jones as bi-racial, anyway. Just incredibly beautiful and charming. Which is kinda nice, in a certain way. Problematic in others…
Becky Sharper: The main quibble I had with the movie was the whole “OMG, you’re getting married, so you have to CHANGE for the wedding!” There was nothing wrong with Paul Rudd’s character. He didn’t like excessive dudeliness, as exemplified by the douchebag real estate agent and the douche-y husband played by the woefully bloated Jon Favereau (sorry to body-snark, but he was unrecognizeable). Can’t blame him for rejecting that ish.
sarah.of.a.lesser.god: However, I just could not understand what was wrong with the fact that he doesn’t have male friends and (OMG!) actually understands and likes hanging out with those mysterious, wily females. Is the lack of a best man really a deal-breaker? Is this so remarkable? And — spoiler alert! — I was rolling my eyes really fucking hard when Jason Segel showed up to pledge his undying (BUT TOTALLY PLATONIC! DON’T WORRY FRAT BOYS IN THE AUDIENCE!) love for Pete during the wedding ceremony. During the ceremony? I think Zooey would have been entitled a major shitfit at that point. Come on, a “friendship pledge” with a guy you’ve known for a really short time gets to interrupt the wedding? Talk about a blatant admission that the movie never gave a shit about Pete and Zooey to begin with.
PhDork: The more I thought about that scene, with Zooey looking on all dewy-eyed at that dude-reunion, the more I thought: this is shit writing.
Becky Sharper: I think we’re meant to like Paul Rudd and think his friendships with women are cool–he was never portrayed as creepy or weird for being so nice to all those women in his office, or sweet to his fiancee’s friends. So why was is such a problem that he didn’t have a male friend? I mean, we’re not supposed to choose our platonic friends based on their genitalia, are we?
PilgrimSoul: It seemed to me like this movie didn’t have a very coherent idea of what “male friendship” is. It seemed to have something to do with talking frankly about sex and also guitars, or, uh, something.
I am totally cool with that, of course. I have no idea what “male friendship” is either or why it is necessarily different from female friendship. But it seemed sort of odd that Rudd’s character’s whole goal in the movie is to find a male friend. I notice that for whatever reason his female friends/co-workers were not acceptable as wedding attendants or whatever (total strangers being acceptable so long as they are graced with the presence of testicles, one supposes).
PhDork: Not sure what to make of Jason Segel’s character’s quirks, either. So he’s got his dudely attitude towards wanking and rock-n-roll and hittin’ on (or fuckin’) hot chix, but he also has a weeny litttle dog, drives a Vespa (which I think is rad, but is supposed read as “faggy”), wears Uggs with shorts, and doesn’t seem to have much homophobic anxiety at all (although the movie managed to squeeze in some gay-panic jokes elsewhere). He’s mega-charming, but kind of gross and sad and weirdly and inappropriately aggressive. I’m all for three-dimensional characters, but I wonder how much of that stuff was just for left in for laughs.
PilgrimSoul: One thing I still don’t get and maybe some of our male audience can enlighten us is how much of “dudeliness” seemed to be associated with child-like behaviour in this movie. I mean, mostly, Rudd and Segel played. They played outside and they played inside and they sometimes acted like crazed dickwads and occasionally had cute moments with a dog.
Meanwhile, I’m not sure what adult women friends do together could be called “playing” most of the time. Oh, I suppose somewhere out there, women spend their time with friends shopping and going for pedicures, but that is hardly the “standard” behaviour one engages in with female friends.
PhDork: In movies, it’s pretty standard, but not true to my friendships, anyway. This wasn’t an Apatow flick (although it was very much in that vein), but I’m just not sure what we’re s’posed to come away with. Segel is the boy-man who sorta-kinda grows up, Rudd is the girl-man who sorta-kinda butches up (by wearing a blue tuxedo and “slappin’ de bass”). The women are thinly sketched (the nice girl, the bitchy girl, the slutty girl), and thin-bodied, too–the dudes are given a lot more leeway there (wait, did I spoil something there? Oh no, of course not…), and while it was diverting in the moment, I’m just not sure what it says about modern masculinity that still needs to be said. Or ever needed to be said, really.
sarah.of.a.lesser.god: One last quibble: I loved Andy Samberg in this. Not quite as crazy about his “fuck-everything-in-sight-including-straight-married-guys” character. The other gay character devolves into a caricature. I understand that the characters in this movie were generally painted with a very, very broad brush, but still left a bad taste in my mouth. And yet it still made me laugh. I need to give my reflexive laughter a stern talking-to.
Well, readers? Have you seen the film? What did you think? Weigh in in comments!
I dunno if this is universally true, but, in my experience, “dudeliness” is associated with childlike behavior. My otherwise mature fiancé acts like a damn child when he’s around his dude friends. They fight, they curse at each other, they dissolve into hysterical laughter over ridiculous jokes, they play video games… Replace the Xbox controllers with G.I. Joe figures, and the guys might as well be 10 years old. Same was true for my ex-bf and his best dude friends, too. Sure, they occasionally have high-minded arguments about movies or books or even criminal law — one of bf’s best buds is a lawyer — but for the most part, they act like children.
In general, I think that male friendships are founded on shared activities — i.e., “playing” together — whereas women tend to bond over different things.
@Kivrin: I wonder if that’s generational? My dad and stepdad are never like that with their friends. Even when my dad was in his late 30s, I still remember him being non-dudely with his guy friends.
I act as silly–or sillier–with my dude as he does w/ his male friends. Granted, I’m not there at all times when he’s doing the guy-thing, but they go to movies, or go out for beers or dinner or whatever, which is totally-not-at-all-different from what I do with my ladyfriends. I don’t know, maybe they talk about Rush? Or maybe, just maybe, movies are lying to us about how men and women are rilly rilly different?
I sort of agree, Kivrin. I mean, my husband’s most meaningful friendships are also based on the kind of thing that I enjoy with my female friends, namely good conversation, but there is an awful lot of “playing” as well. One of his best friends was here for the weekend, and there was bike riding (a la 10 year olds) and Rock Band playing and lots of cracking on each other, even though neither of the two of them is particularly dudely– other parts of the weekend involved playing the piano and singing. His other bff is known to bring out some of the childlikeness in him as well, usually involving drinking and attempts to “spar” which have at least once gotten then kicked out of a wine bar.
I think you’re onto something with the shared activities. Guys DO stuff together, like playing or watching sports, playing video games, etc. I don’t personally do a whole lot of that.
Is my boyf the only guy who’s not into video games? Maybe it’s why I like him, but my guy is nothing like the guys portrayed in Dude Movies.
@PhDork: I think that last line kind of sums it up. We ladies are not there when the menfolk are doing their ritual bonding, so we will have to take the word of Apatow et al that this is the universal dude code.
The day I let Apatow tell me How It Is is the day they cart me away to the crematorium.
I act like the the biggest dope around my dude, seriously, even you other Harpies would be seriously shocked how out-and-out stupid I can be (I think). “Yer maaaam!”/fart/weiner jokes, nonsense songs, crazy flailing dances, terrible accents, the whole thing. And I love Guitar Hero, but we don’t have a system, because then we would develop carpal tunnel syndrome and rickets.
ETA: I guess I don’t think of those behaviors as “gendered,” because I’ve always done that stuff with whoever I’m closest to.
I know what someone’s getting for her birthday.
I guess I don’t think of those behaviors as “gendered,” because I’ve always done that stuff with whoever I’m closest to.
Same here. I love watching baseball with other people, so whenever anyone tries to say that watching sports is a dudely ritual, I politely inform them that it’s one of my ultimate bonding ritual and I do not have a penis.
Pilgrim, you want me and the Dude to die a slow and painful death? Happily die a slow and painful, but totally rockin’ death?
I haven’t seen the film but I was sort of interested by the commercials in the sense that it seemed to be examining the gender expectations for men marrying as so many films do for women. I think there is something interesting, like reverse homosexual panic (heterosexual panic) in the idea that a man marrying a woman feels the need to assert or reassert his homosocial relationships. But I can also see how it could be framed in a misogynist way like oh no! With marriage i’m getting sucked into the ur-vagina and need to define my masculinity before the vagina dentata eats me alive.
JD, that was sorta what I was interested in: gender policing issues, but really, I don’t think it was even as substantial as “my marriage will unman me.” Like in a lot of Apatow/esque flicks, there was this strange, dude-on-dude vulnerability that is both mocked and treasured, but not really seriously inspected or unpacked in any way.
In defense of bromance: I agree that the concept as advocated by Apatow is tiresome, but the original bromances, like Redford/Newman…they take me to a happy place.
Also, re: dudely behavior…I think a lot of it depends on when the friendship started. I’m a lot goofier with my friends I’ve known since middle school than with the coworkers-who-became-friends, and my most recent ex was a totally different person with the brothers he’d grown up with vs. college friends.
I haven’t seen the movie, probably won’t until it’s airing on a loop on TBS. It’s hard to love all the ingredients but still hate the final product.