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Warning: not for the eyes of anyone attached to contrived illusions of love. You’re about to see your favorite chick flicks in a whole new light—like a nasty fluorescent one that reveals all the flaws.
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How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days
The breakdown: women’s magazine writer is assigned a project to make a guy fall for her fast, so she can then show how to get rid of him in 10 days. Of course, she chooses a man who has made a bet to make a woman fall in love with him within a similar time period, so their goals conflict. In the meantime, they fall in love.
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Why we look bad
When Kate Hudson’s character selects a “subject” for her article, she literally just plucks a random guy out of a crowd—she assumes that all men are subject to the same manipulation, have the same thoughts, can be controlled in the same ways and are, essentially, all exactly the same. Don’t we fight so hard to make sure men don’t think women are all the same, all subject to the same manipulation tactics? But then this movie turns around and does that exact thing to men.
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The Sex And The City Movie
The breakdown: all you need to know is that the main character is pretty much left at the alter in the beginning by a guy who has already broken up with her several times, and she takes him back at the end.
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Why we look bad
This happy ending is contrived bull-you-know-what. Sorry to say it but, in real life, if a man breaks up with you several times, it means he is not that into you/not willing to invest in you. Plain and simple. And a woman would be silly to take a man back one, two, three, four, five… (oh my we’ve lost track of how many times these two split during the course of the series) times. This movie celebrates what is essentially weakness as “romantic.” It’s not.
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The Notebook
The breakdown: the story starts with a very sweet love story of two teens, and we like them together. But, life takes them apart. The girl goes to college—that happens. But then, when she returns to her hometown and where her teenage sweetheart still lives, she jumps back into his bed. One problem: she is engaged. The once-estranged lovers end up together though, of course.
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Why we look bad
Rachel McAdam’s character literally runs away from her fiancé. She doesn’t call or write or let him know what’s going on—she just disappears so she can have a sex fest with her old sweetheart. At one point, her mother tries to convince her to go back to the fiancé and she considers it! Basically this character makes women look like they take no responsibility for their relationships. McAdam’s character should have had the integrity to tell her poor fiancé she was over it, and honestly, Gosling’s character should have judged her a lot for teeter-tottering.
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Notting Hill
The breakdown: a humble bookstore owner and a mega movie star fall in love. She briefly goes back to her movie star boyfriend, and the bookstore owner is intimidated by her glamorous life, but they find each other in the end.
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Why we look bad
When Grant’s character goes to Roberts’ hotel room to find she is still with her movie star boyfriend, and she does all but say she’s with him because they make sense from a business perspective, this really doesn’t help combat the idea that women have to engage in romantic trysts they don’t really want to be in, all to get ahead in life.
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Pride and Prejudice
The breakdown: like in any Jane Austen story, there are several miscommunications and character misjudgments before the heroine realizes that, in fact, the male protagonist isn’t a jerk—in fact, she loves him.
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Why we look bad
If this isn’t the best example of poor communication, I don’t know what is! Knightley’s character flip-flops on her opinion about MacFadyen’s character half a dozen times all based on hearsay. God forbid she just, oh, I don’t know—ask him what his intentions were behind certain actions, and whether or not certain rumors were true. This story celebrates acting like we’re all still on the kindergarten playground, passing notes along to our crushes!
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Something’s Gotta Give
The breakdown: a middle-aged divorcee falls for a seasoned playboy. Oh, but the reason she met that playboy in the first place was because her daughter was dating him. Anyways, she turns him from his playboy ways and he decides he wants to finally settle down for the lovable divorcee.
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Why we look bad
Um…is NOBODY else extremely bothered by the fact that a mother and daughter dated the same man?! In real life, that would be enough for the mother to not act on any romantic impulses she was having towards that man. As it should. The movie just makes women look so man-crazy that they’re willing to overlook incestuous undertones of a situation.
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Pretty Woman
The breakdown: a prostitute and one of her clients fall in love and live happily ever after.
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Why we look bad
I know this is a tough pill to swallow since this is such a beloved film but…no woman should fall in love with a man who is okay with paying for affection and having a woman as his object. So, he was a “sweet” client. That doesn’t erase the fact that he was still a man who was comfortable with essentially buying a woman! The message of this film is that we can just wait for a rich knight on a white horse to come save us from our circumstances and should be flattered to be purchased.
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Two Weeks Notice
The breakdown: a notorious playboy realizes he is in love with his quirky, usually-not-his-blonde-bombshell-type personal assistant. And, she eventually falls in love with him too.
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Why we look bad
The truth is that you never want to be the first woman a playboy decides to try to settle down with. The harsh reality is that seasoned playboys need several trials runs before they can effectively settle down. If you’re the first woman he wants to commit to, you’ll spend most of the relationship “fixing” him and working out some of his old kinks. That’s not a relationship—that’s a job!
