This morning, during breakfast under the AMC cinema giant TV screens at The Shitty, I saw a preview for Kate Hudson’s upcoming release, My Best Friend’s Girl.
It made me cringe.
Y’all remember the Pothead hero, the dope smoking leading man in Knocked Up? Ya’ll remember a while back I bitched about the state of leading men in recent Romantic Comedies?
I have nothing against a good comedy or slapstick humour. Idiot guys can be fun. I don’t mind dope humour. While I’ve never joined in and can in all honesty say I’ve never inhaled, I’ll never condemn a person who wants to get stoned, or sloshed, or taken to another level of consciousness that expands one’s mind into a psychedelic Altered State as long as it’s done responsibly and doesn’t involve minors (Hey kids, don’t do drugs!). However, when it comes to a romance and romantic comedies can we just agree to leave a few things out of the story from now on?
1. The loser hero trend: the guys who live with their parents or in their sister’s basement. The guy who still doesn’t have a job at 30, or is homeless and hangs around schools offering his Navy SEAL protection to bullied skinny kids–seriously, did Drillbit Taylor need a romantic subplot?
2. The stoner/slacker with the heart of gold ( a twist on the hooker with a heart of gold). Ladies, a drunken one night stand with a weed fiend who leaves you Knocked Up is not going to turn into a meaningful relationship. Is it?
3. Toilet and fart jokes are hysterical. I like them. No I love them and they have a place, but seriously, the farting, belching, dude is not going to win your heart because he can cut one on command. No, honey, if you fall for him it’s because he makes you laugh about other things, as in A Lot Like Love where they both belched.
4. Slapstick for a cheap laugh. Situational humour is funnier than a pie in the face. Yet if the situation calls for said pie to be thrown, then by all means, toss away, but please, no America’s Funniest Home Video falling down shit. And no accidental allergic reactions a la Hitch. Getting hurt just isn’t funny.
****All right. I’m sort of guilty of breaking the no one gets hurt rule because I had the heroine in Driving In Neutral lock the claustrophobic hero in a pantry, but SHE FELT BAD ABOUT IT, but it relates to the theme of fear in the story and it all ended happily****
Regular guys are fine. Nebbishy and bad boys are fine. Even guys who start out as jerks are fine, but wipe off the layer of doody, blow away the haze of ganja, move him out of the basement, and give the man something that makes me believe a woman would find him attractive.
As for the Kate Hudson feature that set me back on this road to Bitchinopolis? It co-stars Dane Cook. Dane Cook makes me cringe.