Feminist Criticism Of Bridesmaids - 1618 Words

The film is lead by Kristen Wiig, who plays Annie, a broke and lovelorn, soon-to-be maid of honor, who attempts to mend her low self-esteem through sex with a hot, rich conceited narcissist. The bride, played by Maya Rudolph, who’s new beautiful, perfect friend, Helen, played by Rose Byrne, is threatening to take Annie’s place as the bride’s BFF. The supporting cast includes Melissa McCarthy, who plays Megan, the butch sister of the groom, adding to the array of humor throughout the film. The film is set up with long gags, like the speech-off between Annie and Helen at the wedding shower and Annie’s intoxicated airplane fiasco in the attempt for a bachelorette weekend in Vegas. All of which add to the hysterical comedy of the film, while†¦show more content†¦These narratives are embedded in the films plot, which is set in a traditionally acceptable feminine theme of wedding planning, featuring a protagonist whose career ambition is also acceptably womanly, a baker, and pits two conniving women against each other in competition for another women’s friendship (Smalls). Along these imperfections, the women onscreen come to reject the possibility of a male gaze by deviating from the passive object of male desire, to the active subject of female agency. This transition is supported by the fact that the script was written by two females, Wiig and Annie Mumolo, which serves to empower women because it gives women a voice in a field that has historically denied them (Buckley 14). The film continues to reject notions of patriarchy through the use of language by featuring women who candidly complain about sex, children, and men, but above all celebrates the value of women’s friendship. These rhetorical elements are symbols of female desire that provide the reversal device to disrupt the male gaze that society standardly embraces (Buckley 11). Because Bridesmaids attention has stemmed from its portrayal of females in come dy, a genre generally reserved for men, this device also rejects that patriarchal discourse that typically dominatesShow MoreRelatedMy Friends Begged Me At The New Comedy Central Show2929 Words   |  12 Pagesapproaches to criticism we have learned throughout this course, I found it most intriguing and relevant to relate it to the feminist perspective. Brummett defines the feminist critique as â€Å"a wide ranging group of approaches to rhetorical criticism, and begins with the assumption that there is gender inequality between men and women, particularly in todays industrialized economies, and thus power differentials† (Brummett 2015). As we have learned throughout this course, the feminist critique intends