Shallow Hollywood

Bobby and Peter Farelly's 2001 romantic comedy Shallow Hal seemed like a revolutionary idea: forcing men to looking beyond the physical appearances of women and appreciating them for their beautiful souls. With a very classical Hollywood narrative structure, Shallow Hal has an exposition, conflict, climax and harmonious happy ending: the spell over Hal to see "unattractive" women as physically beautiful is broken and he embraces that he is in love with obese Rosemary by deciding to marry her.

While this film is simple in structure and has the appearance of ridiculing shallow men instead of "unattractive" people (mostly women), Shallow Hal actually leaves audiences with the impression that conventional physical attraction is incredibly important and necessary in order to have a fulfilling love life. While nearly all of the "unattractive" characters in this movie have exaggerated make-up, we are expected as an audience to laugh at these portrayals. These overweight and "unattractive" characters actually exist in society. And most of the general population do not consider themselves to be perfect by any standard. This film explodes the fact that if you are not 5'10", super-model thin, nor flawlessly beautiful like Gwenyth Paltrow- you are SCREWED. Actually, you are only screwed until everyone else is put under a spell which makes you out to be a lot more attractive than you really are. This film gives audiences the impression that physical attraction is the only important thing to men when seeking a mate.

The hypocrisy of this film can be rather confusing. This is because the Farley brothers are either trying to get us to simply laugh at their movie OR they want to show the audience that we too are shallow. The Australian nineMSN website MovieFix has a great variety of opinions of this film that show you how this film is either respected, hated, or a mix of both. As for myself, I'm not really sure how I feel about this movie now after reading those reviews.

The Failure of Monster's Ball

Monster's Ball, directed by Marc Forster, attempted to analyze the ethical dilemma of the modern-day "slave" in the United States. In other words, Forster wanted to present the lasting effects of slavery on the social condition of present day African Americans. However, the film limited itself of such analysis by shifting from discussing ethical dilemmas to moral dilemmas in order to make this film Oscar worthy.

Monster's Ball touches upon to the "non-existence" of the African-American in everyday society. For example, there are several bird-eye view shots when Leticia and Tyrell see Lawrence for the last time before his execution (an African-American family). This represents how the African-American is trapped and cannot climb the paradigm to a better position. Also, Lawrence can never escape enclosure because he is constantly surrounded by prison walls, prison bars, prison guards, or is filmed on security cameras. From just these few examples, it is obvious that this film could have had great potential of surfacing these modern day issues but decided to shift to the less confrontational moral dilemmas.

Once Lawrence and Tyrell have died, Letitica finds herself needing the company of Hank- a white, racist, ex-prison guard. She needs him for a number of reasons: money, emotional support, and sex. Forster tries to disguise all of these reasons with love. In the middle of the movie, Hank's father (also racist) offends Leticia and she decides to avoid Hank for a time being. She eventually needs him again once she is evicted from her home and he invites her to live with him. Toward the end of the movie, Hank tells Leticia that he is going to take care of her. She says "Good. Cuz' I need to be taken care of." This proves that the film does not antagonize African-American's relation to the world- it supports it. It furthers the notion that the white "human" will always be superior to the black "non-human". Once Leticia finds out that Hank was actually one of the prison guards who executed her husband, she is initially upset but eventually submits to him and does not say anything. In the final scene (picture above), Hank feeds Leticia ice cream- representing his ownership of her. This film gives audiences the impression that blacks need whites in order to "make it".

Frank B. Wilderson III was a past teacher of mine who taught African American Drama in Film. This film was one of his primary examples of the social condition of African-Americans but agrees that it failed to bring up anything revolutionary to audiences. In his book Red, White & Black, Wilderson describes the scene when Leticia beings sobbing uncontrollably about her dead son Tyrell and his low position in society:

"I didn't want him to be fat like that...'cause I know a Black man in America- you can't be like that" (2). She then bursts into uncontrollable sobbing while Hank says in a dumbfounded manner "I'm not sure what you want me to do" (3). Wilderson explains why this potentially ethical dilemma immediately turns into a moral dilemma: "...Hank's...'I'm not sure what you want me to do' has the effect of a punctuation mark on...Leticia's stream of consciousness, it snaps them both back into their roles" (3).

The truth that IS surfaced in this film is that bi-racial Leticia and white Hank can only be together as long as they avoid analyzing their structures in society.

"Bridezillas" ravages views on women.

I admit that I have seen my share of "Bridezillas" episodes. Like most reality TV, its ridiculous theme and subjects grabbed me for at least two seasons. Once it became obvious that the subjects were purposely Bridezillas for the sake of getting filmed (i.e. physically and mentally abusing their finacés and family) I was immediately turned off. I'm assuming its both contrived and encouraged by the producers. Every bride on that show is encouraged to be as ugly as possible for the entertainment of viewers.

Before this show, brides already had a negative reputation for being difficult when planning their wedding. While this maybe true for a lot of brides because of the stress experienced when planning a wedding, this show explodes that negative perspective on women. FlickFilosopher critic MaryAnn Johanson gives her two-cents about this tasteless show in her review of its 1st Season: "Yeah, more than one of these women uses the dread word “princess,” even the ones who are high-powered stockbrokers, and you’ll want to smack every damn one of them for throwing the concept of feminism back about half a century." She also mentions how "Bridezillas" gave white, upper-class New Yorkers a bad image (most of the subjects in the first season). (Un)luckily, WE eventually gives brides of every race and social status an equal opportunity to look like morons. Basically, "Bridezillas" makes every WOMAN look like a moron. Not to mention, the "Bridezillas" forum almost completely consists of angry and shocked responses of viewers who are obviously in the dark about the $2500 and fifteen minutes of fame the brides receive for their performance. Sadly, this is the most popularly viewed TV wedding show in America.

As a woman, this show offends me more than a man asking me if PMS is to blame for my bad mood. This show just gives men more of a reason to think that all women are born insane. These women make viewers believe that they live in a fantasy world and have the emotional maturity of a child. Even though women are naturally more emotional than men, Bridezillas takes it too far and makes me almost embarrassed to be female. I hope WE makes up for this by creating more shows about women who are controlled by their brains instead of their feelings.