I went to the movies recently. Saw Sherlock Holmes. Quite enjoyed it. And it was the first Guy Ritchie film since Snatch that didn’t make me want to snip off my eyelids with a pair of nail scissors and pour bleach and talcum powder directly onto my defenceless eyeballs for 90 minutes.
But as with any trip to the cinema, one of the most enjoyable parts of the experience is sitting in the dark, filled with anticipation, watching the trailers and waiting for the movie to begin. Sometimes (often) the trailers are better than the film you’re there to see. Other times it’s the Sex In The City 2 trailer.
If you’re not a thirtysomething woman or a gay man and you haven’t seen the previous film or the TV show that vomited it forth, Sex And The City 2 is the continuing adventures of a pantomime horse (Sarah Jessica Parker), Quentin Crisp (Kim Cattrall), the prim one (Kristen Davis) and the ginger one (the ginger one). What those adventures will actually be is anyone’s guess as the trailer manages to tell you precisely NOTHING about the film whilst still showing heroine, Shergar, in a dizzying selection of outfits. Oh, and there’s some sand. Quite a bit of it. While knowing nothing about the film other than what I’ve gleaned from the trailer, I’m willing to go out on a limb and say the film will probably involve our heroines talking loudly about anal sex over lunch (in the kind of restaurant that, in reality, throws you out for anal sex talk) while putting away enough booze to give Oliver Reed heartburn. Admittedly, while I’m not the film’s target audience and I’m oblivious to the delights of the conspicuous consumer porn promised by the trailer, the prospect of Sex And The City 2 fills me with dismay. Is this what chick flicks have become?
Hollywood used to make some great chick flicks, films full of strong, gutsy independent women. You know, like Beyonce sings about. And unlike today’s female role models they weren’t defined only by finding a man and the perfect pair of shoes (not necessarily in that order). Sure, Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) in Gone With The Wind was a conniving bitch and she may have had her frivolous moments but, fiddle-dee-dee, there was a war going on right outside her house, she was starving and she had to blow a soldier’s head off while caring for her ailing friend. And she built her own lumber empire (that’s right, nobody ever remembers Scarlett the hardnosed businesswoman). Who can blame her for wanting the occasional pretty dress?
The films of the 40s were full of tough femme fatales like Ava Gardner (Robert Siodmak’s The Killers), Jane Greer (Jacques Tourner’s Out Of The Past) and Barbara Stanwyck (Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity), ball-busting bitches who twisted the men in their lives around their little fingers as they plotted and schemed to get what they wanted. And they rarely wanted a wedding ring and a happy ever after. But it wasn’t just in crime films that women were strong. Actresses like Joan Crawford and Bette Davis built their careers on playing strong women in bitchfests like Mildred Pierce and All About Eve (still the only film ever to have four actresses, nominated for Oscars. And George Sanders is in it. It couldn’t be any bitchier.), but it’s in their willingness to play unsympathetic roles that their true strength lies. We liked Bette Davis precisely because she didn’t care whether we liked her. These days, when a pretty Hollywood actress plays bitchy, she wants to do it without the audience thinking she’s a bitch (the exception being Sarah Michelle Gellar in Cruel Intentions who gives great bitch. And some hot girl-on-girl action). And she normally has a gay best friend. Or a Greek chorus of loved ones who serve as her conscience. And she always has to fail or redeem herself in the end.
In My Best Friend’s Wedding, Julia Roberts sets out to wreck a wedding so she can steal the groom with only waspy Rupert Everett as her moral compass. In the end she redeems herself by abandoning her evil plan and resigns herself to a life of Burt Bacharach and clubbing with Rupert. In The Wedding Planner, Jennifer Lopez falls in love with the groom of the wedding she’s arranging while her father and his mates comment from the sidelines. But fear not; the bride’s a cow and calls the wedding off leaving the field clear for Jenny from the block to bag herself a man. In Bride Wars we get two hot young actresses (Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson) as childhood friends who’s weddings clash and each sets out to sabotage the other’s happy event before finally realising the true meaning of sisterhood (and that Anne’s fiancé is a wrong ‘un) and making up. Notice anything significant? They all revolve around seemingly strong, independent women losing their minds at the first hint of confetti. Hardly a positive role model for the modern woman.
While crime movies are still the best place to find a bitch in today’s Hollywood (lesbian femme fatales Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon in Bound, manipulative trailer trash Neve Campbell in Wild Things, Linda Fiorentino in The Last Seduction, Juliette Lewis in Natural Born Killers, virtually anything Kathleen Turner has done in the last 30 years), being a bitch is increasingly the solitary preserve of the older actress. And by older actress I really just mean Meryl Streep and Kathy Bates. From Kramer Vs. Kramer through to 2008’s Doubt, Meryl Streep has excelled at playing the kind of onscreen bitch who terrifies us (with or without a funny accent); strong, independent women with their own agendas. The true successor to the likes of Bette Davis however, is the excellent Kathy Bates. Whether she’s crippling James Caan (Misery), hopping, naked, into a hot tub with Jack Nicholson (About Schmidt) or battling an iceberg (Titanic), Bates’ courage and lack of vanity always fascinates. But she’s at her best when she’s a bitch. As her character in Taylor Hackford’s Dolores Claibourne says:
“Sometimes being a bitch is all a woman has to hold onto.”
If there’s a Sex And The City 3 (and God help us, there probably will be…), I hope it involves the Atomic Mutton quartet being stranded in the middle of nowhere and forced to take refuge with Kathy Bates. And I hope she has a sledgehammer.
(A version of this piece appeared on filmjuice.com)
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