Ugh

While Chris was in Atlanta last weekend, I watched Miss Congeniality since it's supposed to be funny, and I'd never seen it. I didn't know anything about it, so I was absolutely blindsided. I guess I probably should have been able to see it coming by readying the back cover, but I wasn't paying that much attention.

Icky.

I haven't seen that misogynist of a movie in a long time (although I'm sure that's not for lack of them). I knew there was going to be trouble the minute Sandra Bullock clumped on stage sans makeup or manners, and all the butt-slapping only made it worse. The theme song made me want to throw stuff at the TV. Thank you, Tom Jones, for such uplifting lyrics as:
"Well she's all you'd ever want.
She's the kind you want to flaunt and take to dinner.
Well she always knows her place.
She's got style. She's got grace.
She's a winner. She's a lady.
Talking about that little lady. And the lady is mine."

Gag.

So at the end of the movie, women are left with two options, both bad. You can be a rather incompetent denizen in a male world, ugly, ungraceful, and unmannered. Or you can be an air-headed, shallow beauty queen, beautiful but incapable of anything but the copious application of makeup. At the end of the movie, when you're supposed to feel good about the "heroine," it's not because she became more competent or got the job done or saved the day, it's because she went from tromping to "gliding," from ugly to made-up, and from reeking stereotyped testosterone to rolling in equally-stereotyped estrogen.

Waaaaaay too many stereotypes and hormones for me.