A-List: Top Five Female-Driven Comedies
By J. Don Birnam
April 7, 2016
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Today, we will look at some of the best such movies - female driven comedies - in the last couple of decades. I'm limiting it to the last 30 or so years because I want to be precise about the contours of the genre. Musicals don't count, as funny as Funny Girl is, and romantic comedies definitely do not count or the list would be endless. Nor do dramedies count. As funny as Working Girl or Broadcast News are from the 1980s, those are really movies about female dreams and anxieties at a time of sexual revolution.
Arguably, then, female-driven comedies as such did not really exist much before the 1980s. Sure, some movies like Some Like it Hot had a strong female lead, but were really buddy comedies, and other comedies like How to Marry a Millionaire or She Done Him Wrong are, in the end, romantic comedies. To be sure, many comedies feature romance, so it's an arbitrary question of degree.
Here's twitter if you have other suggestions. Some honorable mentions must include all of Sandra Bullock's body of work, but we will leave her out today as we've devoted an entire column to her. There is also an entire genre that perhaps I'm discounting unfairly - the high school girl drama that has given us gems from Bring it On to Pitch Perfect. Finally, I'll leave Legally Blonde in sixth place only because it is arguably a rom-com, as the main character is driven mostly by her desire to get back her man. Those are good but, somehow, feel a notch before the comedic genius of movies with/by Melissa McCarthy.
On to the main event…
5. Clueless (1995)
Before you had ditzy blondes at Harvard, you had the ultimate, consummate ditzy blonde in Alicia Silverstone's Cher. Rest in peace a delightful Brittany Murphy, and, arguably, rest in peace Silverstone's career. Still, which trio (those two plus the always sassy Stacey Dash) gave us more memorable one-liners than Clueless did? Clueless lies at the border of two clearly demarcated eras in movie comedy - the era of John Hughes was drawing to a close, movies like Pretty in Pink had been relatively small affairs. Sure, Julia Roberts was still doing her thing, but all of her movies were, at bottom, romantic comedies. It would be a while before the Saturday Night Live crowd revived the genre entirely.
Clueless also lives perfectly in those hysterically oversimplified and stunningly archaic '90s. Gigantic cellphones are one thing, but their hairdos threaten to make the '80s look fashionable. Anyway, you can forget “as if” and “whatever” - words that are in the vernacular without even being identifiably from that movie.
And, if you need more proof that the movie lives in a weird capsule of ancientness but continued relevance, consider that virginity was a central theme of the characters' anxiety, and that none other than Paul Rudd was the central heartthrob.
4. The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Leave it to Meryl Streep to buck the trend and get an Oscar nomination for a comedy. It is hard to believe that there was a time when Anne Hathaway was more popular than Emily Blunt, but it is perhaps this movie that marked the end of that time.
The movie is lower on the list because of the somewhat sloppy second act, when they try to reconcile the devilish Miranda Priestly with some humanity in her relationship with Andie (Hathaway's character), but some of the outrageously zingy one-liners, the clever exaggerations, are timeless in their own right. Who can forget, of course, Miranda brushing away a tornado as “just a little sprinkle,” demanding the unpublished version of the ultra-secretive new Harry Potter book, cutting someone down to size about the “bargain-bin” clothing they are wearing, or explicitly telling her assistant she looks fat and dumpy in her clothes.
When it comes to bro-medies, it's dudes being silly or getting high or doing stupid things. When it comes to girls, it's girls being mean to each other. On the list of those mean ones, no one is soon to top Meryl (sorry Melissa), who gave us a timeless, unforgettable villain qua heroine.
3. Juno (2007)
I struggled with the question of whether to include Diablo Cody's Oscar-winning dramedy about a young girl deciding between keeping a baby she did not want and putting it up for adoption, but the movie does deserve the spot. Caper comedies, if you will, (think Sideways or Little Miss Sunshine), were making a renaissance amongst movie illuminati - they were respected and sought after by critics and fans alike. Juno came alone at that time and gave you a decidedly female-driven piece. Sure, those others had feminine affectations but the leads were always men. Here, by contrast, the lead was the eponymous character, in Ellen Page's breakout, Oscar-nominated turn, with a decidedly strong female push.
No surprise, of course, given the source of the material - the wildly inventive, somewhat autobiographical, and deeply moving script by Cody, the exotic dancer turned Oscar-winner. What works well in Juno is the mixture of relative young and unknown actors (Page, Michael Cera), mixed in with the well-known, from Jennifer Garner to Allison Janney, and even J.K. Simmons. Slapstick is right up the alley of all these stars, but the movie has enough of a heart to be almost cheatingly on this list.
2. Mean Girls (2004)
Before you had Juno, of course, you had Regina George and Gretchen Wieners, you had the simpleton Karen Smith, and the sweet but corruptible Cady Heron. Before Lindsay Lohan was a train wreck and Amy Poehler was a household name, you had Mean Girls.
Mean Girls is arguably the first female-driven comedy of the new century. What Clueless was as the end of its era, Mean Girls was at its beginning - timeless, classic, masterful. Sure, you had the high school dramas like Bring it On, but it was Mean Girls that really set the bar and the stage for movies from Bridesmaids to Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. And none has been able to quite live up to it.
As discussed, a sure sign of a good female-driven comedy is the zingy one-liners, the outrageous outfits, the catty comments, and the unforgettable moments. “We wear pink on Wednesdays” and “My boobs can tell the weather,” are two that come to mind immediately. There are others, and who can forget, of course, the burn book, which undoubtedly generated many an unfortunate and ill-conceived real life imitation.
But the brilliant core of Mean Girls is something that is arguably lacking in lesser female-driven comedies - the ability to tap in for real into female anxieties of the time and thus connect with the public. The Devil Wears Prada was, after all, about a small world. Juno, to be sure, addressed the important issue of teenage pregnancy but in an unrealistic way. Mean Girls, by contrast, for all its outrageousness, captures arguably well the zeitgeist of high school - the stereotypes, the feeling of being new and the desire to fit in and not be left out.
Never has a high school prom been so memorable. Other female comedies, from the adorable Saved to even Pitch Perfect are without a doubt inspired by and derivative of this brilliant comedy.
1. Heathers (1988)
But the original Mean Girls, and those most deserving of the top spot today, are undoubtedly Heathers. Heathers is, first and foremost, the original Mean Girls. It is arguably also the original Diabolique or Death Becomes Her, and everything in between. Heathers is, to be fair, a hilariously dark, female-driven comedy. What else do you expect from a movie starring Winona Ryder?
Ryder is a popular girl - the Cady of her film - and has the most desirable boyfriend. Remember when Christian Slater was young and hot? Before she realizes it, they have accidentally poisoned the leader of the Mean Girl clique, Heather Chandler. Is her boyfriend doing it on purpose? The other two Heathers - one of them played by the exacting Shannon Doherty - remain as part of the clique. But, they will face Slater's mysteriously evil character and Ryder's increasing ambivalence. Oral sex, gay sex, bulimia, and more “accidental” deaths follow.
And, yet, somehow, the movie remains unforgivingly funny, unforgettably disturbing, and unmistakably influential. It may seem like a copout to place as the top two movies two films that are most obviously a copy of each other. But give credit to Tina Fey for adapting and reinventing the dark Heathers to a lighter-hearted time or humor, and give credit to the people behind Heathers (mostly unknown industry people), for making a movie that capture both that high school acceptance anxiety that can be ominous in female-driven comedies, as well as the pulse of the culture and what makes it tick.
In a way, this brings us full circle to today. From the upcoming The Boss to the summer blockbuster Ghostbuster, these female-driven comedies arguably are at their best when they put their finger on that pulse. Women executives and women leaders, of course, were discussed but tragically under-represented in the 1980s. Today, they are arguably still so, but decidedly less so, and these comedies are reimagining the different ways in which old scenarios can give way to new laughs.
Onward.