I was watching ‘Just Go With It’ last night with my sister, a 2011 romcom starring Adam Sandler (of course) and Jennifer Aniston. I remember being such a big fan of this movie (as I am of all romcoms)
when I watched it for the first time, I was probably 15? Its a classic, two people who work together don’t know they love each other till some crazy stuff happens, and it gets me every time. But the thing is, the more I re-watch these movies, the worse it gets. There is endless objectification of women and the constant reinforcement of the ideal beauty, it just made it less of a comedy for me. The men in the movie literally kept talking about the other lead woman’s body(right In the middle of the poster), her sexual appeal, and what they’d do with it (??). The movie’s plot revolves around the physical beauty because of course, Sandler plays the role of a Plastic surgeon so he fixes himself and constantly makes comments about fixing others. They even make fun of overweight women because they don’t have the same appeal and they are not the ‘hottest chicks’ unlike Jeniffer Aniston. It just made me think how with time we start looking at these kind of things differently (thankfully).
Here’s to hoping we get less problematic rom-coms!
I think its important that you bring this up because most of Adam Sandler's films are like this. They rely on very high-school, frat boy-esque humour that is really tasteless. Even though I personally do still enjoy these films, I often cringe when something similar to a joke about women's bodies or a one-dimensional female character comes in. There's always this girl who is overweight and who ends with another overweight guy, implying that that's the only thing someone can link about them, or if they're overweight they have to seem pretty with makeup or something. And the female characters are always so predictable and only act as an accesory to the "obviously more funnier" man. SNL parodies this really…
Thank you for bringing this up. I completely agree! The representation of women in romantic comedies is highly problematic, and its time to address this issue. The storyline of most romantic comedies revolves around the male character; boy meets a girl, boy falls in love, boy loses the girl, and finally, he wins her over. These shows and movies feature the male character in the active position leaving behind women as some object to be lost and gained. Thus all these movies are very predictable. They almost always objectify women. However, what is surprising is that despite this objectification women are still watching these shows and movies. We need to question the element of oversimplification in these romantic comedies that…
You made an amazing point, which is 100% true. The movies of Adam Sangler are often seen as objectifying women. Another movie starring adam was grown ups 1 and grown ups 2, where we can see women's vivid objectification. I think that Adam Sangler is attracted to such scripts only.
after reading your post i actually watched the movie again and OMG i was shocked. its sad because children watch these movies as well and I cannot imagine the effect it has on their mindset:(
Yes!!! I agree. I used to watch rom-coms as a way to decompress and just, i guess turn my brain off and watch something fun but now i cant get past the first 10 minutes of any movie. The sexism is unparalleled.