Is Bridesmaids a feminist comedy? Sorry, I was too busy laughing…

Some critics have tried really hard to deride Bridesmaids, the latest Apatow vehicle with a woman in the driving seat (no jokes). Total Film summed it up by stating  ‘it’s uneven, unwieldy and overlong…’, after awarding it four stars. Yes, Bridesmaids is far from the usual nauseating chick flick wedding extravaganza (see 27 Dresses, and the guiltily enjoyable Bride Wars), but is it truly the first feminist film comedy? Below is a rigorously scientific ‘yes’ and ‘no’  tally, designed to uncover just how feminist Bridesmaids really is…

YES

• Annie (Wiig) and Lil (Rudolph), the two central characters (and one a bride, no less) are scared of commitment
• The actors are genuinely funny, the punchlines are theirs for the taking and they bounce off one another without the ‘need’ for a male lead
• It’s a film about female friendships, more than it is a film about romance or men
• The opening bang-athon between Annie and Ted (Hamm) is blisteringly honest about women and sex
  

  The elation a wedding brings is reversed in Bridesmaids - captured in Wiig's expression

• You groan at antagonist Helen (Byrne), whose sugary sweet fashionista lifestyle would usually comprise the rom-com heroine
• A derisory attitude towards relationships and commitment runs through the film

NO

• Annie’s ambition is to bake
• ‘The fat girl’ (McCarthy’s Megan) is the butt of the joke
• It’s still about a wedding
• The guy and the girl drive off into the sunset

So, is it or isn’t it feminist? I became so whipped up by the sheer entertainment of the film that I forgot I was trying to trip the film up. Fart jokes, the dreaded C-word and shitting in a wedding boutique, and all from the connoisseur of the ‘modern man’s’ filmmaker. However, given his previous borderline feminist characters, it becomes less surprising that this anti chick-flick came from Apatow.  From Catherine Keener’s ballsy cherry-popper in The 40 Year Old Virgin, to the knowing gender gags in Anchorman, Apatow flicks are less about the comradary of the ‘guys’ than they are about the politics of the gals, too. Bridesmaids was clearly just waiting in the wings.

There may be cupcakes and puppies, but Kate Hudson is nowhere to be found. Bridesmaids is a groundbreaking film, not just for it’s fem credentials, but for being a comedy which actually delivers genuine belly laughs.

X-Men: First Class

The titular First Class could relate to many a thing in Matthew Vaughn’s latest X-Men installation. It could be the first five candidate’s to constitute the X-Men, or the first class capabilities of the young mutants. Maybe Vaughn wished to prematurely predict the critical response to his addition to the  franchise; a big-budget, star-packed camp caped caper.

The year is 1962. Charles Xavier (McAvoy), a cocksure Oxford academic, meets vengeful Eric Lehnsherr (Fassbender), who is tracking down mother-murdering ex-Nazi, Sebastian Shaw. Meanwhile, FBI agent Moira MacTaggart (Byrne) discovers that the same Shaw has got plans for worldwide domination up his sleeve, alongside his hot sidekick (and ample-bosomed) Emma Frost. Skipping past a few more long-winded narrative prerequisites, and MacTaggart has joined with Xavier’s goodie mutants to stop Shaw’s baddie mutants forcing a cold war related catastrophe.

The film is Fassbender’s from the start. His chilling opening scenes, where he utilizes his powers to painfully extract a filling from a bank managers mouth (something I’m sure many of us would like to do), sets the pace for a stand-out performance. Lehnsherr’s transformation into Magneto is one which could have provided a more dramatic turn had the script allowed for it. Instead, we’re bombarded with a hoard of potential X-Men, and a politically-fused context which weighs the story down so heavily that not even Magneto’s super strength could prop it up. Fairly patronizingly, the sexual wares of the women are made to be more powerful than their mutant might. January Jones plays Betty Draper in a raunchy catsuit, and Byrne’s FBI agent, in a bafflingly superfluous plot turn, is required to strip off to get into a secret meeting. However, to make up for all the T&A on display, female spectators are treated to a few homoerotic moments between McAvoy and Fassbender, not least when they grapple with each other underwater.

The promising excitement of the first half hour gradually descends into something much more derivative, and at times, torpid. Considering the recent display of talent from Jennifer Lawrence and Nicholas Hoult, they seem wasted here in uninspired performances. When the grand finale finally arrives, it has all but been predicted. The characters tread familiar genre territory, played out against a backdrop of fairly naff CGI. Whilst it may be possible to glean deeper insights into the film (pro-Jewish, anti-women), it is unlikely that they alone will erase frustration towards what could have been a solid superhero success.