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!