Last week, Heather Wood Rudúlph wrote an article for Huffington Post highlighting five reasons we still need feminism. Number four on that list was as follows:
Obsessed, Bride Wars, Bridezillas and everything else that paints women as crazed (in various and sundry ways) to find, keep, and marry a man.
To that, I say “Amen, sister.” I am quite sick of living in a world that offers men movies like The Hangover or the oeuvre of Judd Apatow, where shlubby loser guys get to have all the fun and women exist only as punchlines to the jokes, and offers women… well, very little. Except for, y’know, a chance to fight with each other over said shlubby men.
The white heterosexual male still rules Hollywood and sometimes I think that will never, ever change. Not when I read articles like this one, in which an earnest and talented young screenwriter is told repeatedly by both professors and producers that the world doesn’t want to see a movie starring a woman, or about a woman, or even a movie where two women talk to each other about something other than a man.
To this I say, fine. If Hollywood insists on offering me nothing in the way of suitable entertainment, well, then, I will make my own fun! I have long been a devotee of fanfiction, if only because, as a queer girl, I gotta take representation where I can get it. If Hollywood isn’t going to give me a TV show where the hero is a woman who just happens to enjoy making out with other women, well, I am not going to scoff at any writer who helps to fill that gap. Plus, I’ve always thought there’s something rather subversive about fanfiction, about taking the subtext, or even the text, and seeing it in a radical new way.
And thus, I present, Bride Wars: The Alternative Story, in which, using nothing but film stills, one of the most sexist, misogynist movies of the year is turned into nothing short of a glorious lesbian love story. Don’t you just love it when the two women get married at the end? Everyone say it with me: Awwwwwww.

And they lived happily ever after…
Interested in adding some female oriented fanfiction and subversive subtext to your summer reading list? You’re just in time! Next month is the second annual International Day of Femslash.



Digg
five comments
"...a movie where two women talk to each other about something other than a man." The Bechtel Rule! I just heard about it for the first time the other day. She is so rad.
Posted by Anna
June 12, 2009, 10:37 PM
This is brilliant! I was force to watch this movie against my will and HATED it for its revolting patriarchal crap. But this re-imagining is awesome. I think I'm going to make a habit of doing this for all crappy het movies!
Posted by LRowe
June 13, 2009, 11:15 AM
Yeah, Alison Bechdel is pretty much awesome in every single way.
Posted by Michelle
June 13, 2009, 4:52 PM
I do get ya, but I wonder if it's not so much that there aren't movies about women, as there aren't movies about women that you like or appreciate? I fully understand that. As I've gotten older, it does seem to me that I see myself represented less and less in films, and I see male counterparts represented more. But in terms of actual representation of women, there are certainly as many movies about women as ever (likely more, since there are more movies). But I think if you are only looking to Hollywood/American movies, you're always going to find stereotypes, the easy fix, unchallenging concepts and misogyny on a grand scale... and that's always been the case... rent a Woody Allen movie sometime for proof. And in terms of the punchlines... I think that men are the punchline to the jokes in films like Sex and the City, and it's yukky... so I dunno that I want the tables turned, ya know?
Thanks mate, thoughtful discussion as always!
Posted by Sandy O'Sullivan
June 13, 2009, 5:54 PM
Why do people always seem to think that just because something is queer-positive, it's equitable? Um, hello, there is a lot more work to do here than have a same-sex pair coupled in a movie. Lots more intersections of oppression to be unraveled.
Posted by Danielle
June 14, 2009, 1:59 PM
Leave a comment
This blog post is older than 90 days old. All comments submitted regarding this post will be automatically held for review by the editors before posting. Your comment will not appear on the site until it has been approved.
Our comment policy
Shameless prides itself on the diversity of opinions expressed by our writers, and we encourage and appreciate different points of view. Our intention at Shameless is to foster community and to maintain a safe and positive blogging environment; we do not consider it our duty to give a voice to anybody with an opinion.
Discussion on this site is moderated. We will delete comments that:
(We get to decide what's discriminatory, hateful, attacking, or inflammatory).
In some cases, we will cap off comments on a discussion when we feel they are spiralling out of control and fostering an unwelcoming space for bloggers and readers. Comments will be closed by the Web Editor, unless the post is by the Web Editor, in which case the Editor in Chief will close them.
If your comments repeatedly make the same point, they may be deleted. This also applies to comments made by multiple members of the same organization.
Your comments should be about the topic of the post, not its writer—although we certainly encourage praise for our writers, if you want to say something nice.