Sandra Bullock: Gradual Feminist or Closeted Misogynist

A few nights ago I had the dubious pleasure of watching Sandra Bullock’s The Proposal, the second of her three films this year. Along with Bullock the film stars Ryan Reynolds and is a fairly formulaic romantic comedy: a man and a woman initially dislike each other, are forced to spend time in one another’s company, finally manage to separate only to discover that they’ve fallen in love. It’s the same story over and over again. However, The Proposal throws a curve ball into the mix: Sandra Bullock plays the role of the older, more powerful professional, while himbo Reynolds is the plucky underling who falls in love as a result of his superiors coercion. In other words, The Proposal reverses the typical romantic comedy gender roles.

Or does it? Though Sandra Bullock, as a vile and reviled publishing boss, is definitely playing against her type she can’t really shake her Sandra Bullock-ishness. The role she’s been given is basically trying to be Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, but Bullock really just comes off the same way she does in every post-Speed movie. Though this tension between her supposed evilness and her obvious charm actually makes the movie more entertaining, it also begins to undermine the legitimacy of The Proposal’s gender reversal. Much like Miss Congeniality, this latest film casts Bullock in a man’s role but is narratively concerned with removing her feminist veneer to reveal the awkward, tomboyish Bullock archetype. In that sense it’s not unlike several of Barbara Stanwyck’s films that cast the golden era starlet as a spunky working girl who nonetheless ends up in a very traditional relationship.

The process by which Bullock’s feminist veneer is removed further raises questions about the feminist slant of the film. Though the initial gender reversal is laudable (Reynolds, for example, is accused of sleeping his way to professional success much as a woman might be in a less progressive movie) the end of the film basically ends like any romantic comedy with the man proposing to the woman. (This is not a spoiler, as the inevitable end of any romantic comedy is a heterosexual coupling.) It’s trite, but in this case it’s also particularly disappointing because The Proposal had seemingly already done away with that particular convention when it had had Bullock getting down on her knees to proposal to Reynolds earlier in the film.

In any case, The Proposal begins with what could be an interesting premise but slowly unravels everything it has going for it so that by the conclusion it’s just business as usual. Hollywood often takes a lot of flack for supposedly being “liberal” and trying to push a progressive agenda. When some (overly conservative) person watched the film they probably lamented the fact that the film seems to endorse woman’s rights and gender equality. However and unfortunately for those of us who actually believe in those things, the film actually condemns them and advocates the gender disparity status quo that it might have been trying to dispel. In the end, then, The Proposal shows that men are in control and women are just schemers trying to find a husband.

Grown-Up Movies

Have you seen The Soloist? I haven’t. And I don’t plan to. And, based on the box office , most of America apparently feels similarly.

I recently read an article on MSNBC.com about how “grown-up movies” are an endangered species. Basically, it argued that kids movies, teen genre movies, raunchy R-rated comedies, etc. were replacing more serious fare like The Soloist. While some of the other films that the article cited were actually good (like State of Play) I was surprised that the author of the article would lament the supremacy of genre movies over something that seemed as piddling as The Soloist.

First, let me say that I’m a fan of “serious” grown-up movies. In recent months I’ve seen Doubt, Nothing But the Truth, Frost/Nixon, The Wrestler, and many others. For the most part these films were profound and entertaining. Second, I generally agree with the article’s main point that more mature films are struggling to compete in the movie marketplace. However, I think the real problem is that a genre of serious films (a genre that apparently includes both The Soloist and State of Play) has emerged and that the defining feature of this genre is medicrity.

So lets look at The Soloist. From the moment its trailers were released the movie seemed like a disaster. It struck me as a cross between Mr. Holland’s Opus, Rain Man, and Stand and Deliever, only if all of those movies had starred Sandra Bullock and Matthew McConaughey. What’s more, every word seemed like a cliché: guy afraid of commitment? Check. Brilliant but troubled artist? Check. Down-on-their-luck characters overcoming great odds? Check. These aren’t necessarily bad ideas by themselves, but they came off as bafflingly superficial.

The Soloist did have some things going for it. Robert Downey Jr., for example, is a capable actor and has had several of popular films recently. Jamie Foxx has also had some success and popularity (though he apparently has no idea how to choose films. Following up Ray with Stealth? Seriously?) On the other hand, this movie seems to show these actors at their worst. I’d rather watch Iron Man any day and wasn’t The Soloist the kind of movie that Robert Downey Jr. actually made fun of in Tropic Thunder? In the end, then, I think its clear that The Soloist wasn’t compelling (its release date suggests the studios also knew that).

The problem then is that if The Soloist is one of the definitive movies of the “grown-up” genre, who is going to want to see anything else from that genre? When I go to the theater (or to get a DVD) and I can either watch The Fast and Furious or Jamie Foxx running out in traffic in some movie that seems really boring, its only obvious that I’m going to choose the former. This problem is compounded by release patterns (serious movies in the fall, critically panned but commercially successful blockbusters in the summer), and the Academy Awards (which shaft movies like Wall-E or The Dark Knight seemingly because they are popular). What happens then is that good “grown-up” movies end up in the company of bad ones and none of them make money. All the while The Fast and the Furious is releasing sequel after sequel and raking in the dough.

Of course, this is a simplistic assessment of the situation. Other things, like the global financial meltdown, have also certainly contributed to Americans’ movie viewing patterns. But grouping serious movies together regardless of quality will only result in the gradual disappearance of serious movies.