View from the Top (2003) and Poorly Written Female Antagonists in Romantic Comedies

One of the most common complaints about film in the modern western world focused on equality is that there is not enough female representation in the industry.  There aren’t enough female directors making mainstream films.  The leading roles go mostly to men.  If the roles go to women, there tends to be a man leading with her to help her along.  Too few movies are about women, by women, for women.

The movies geared towards women tend to be of the romantic comedy sort.  Don’t get me wrong, men can also enjoy that genre.  But outside of romantic comedies, it can be hard to find a genre where women have many leading roles.  Non-romantic comedies don’t tend to star women.  That is changing thanks to Bridesmaids and the power of Melissa McCarthy though.  Action stars are mostly men.  Science fiction is usually about male characters (yeah, yeah, Alien).  The only genre besides romantic comedies where I can think of a lot of movies starring women is the horror genre.  There are a lot of women in horror.  However, in many cases, they are just there to look at or to scream.  The characters don’t tend to have a whole lot behind that façade.  Romantic comedies tend to make their female characters stronger, or more determined.  Many times, annoyingly so.

This problem that I have found in romantic comedies has shown up in the past couple decades and become an irritatingly common trend.  Basically, a self-absorbed woman comes up with an idea to further herself in life.  It could be something to do with lying to her family, friends, or coworkers about being in a relationship (Picture Perfect).  It could have something to do with television ratings (The Ugly Truth).  Or it could be about a woman obsessed with her career and getting away from home (View from the Top).  During this process, the woman meets a man that she uses.  In Picture Perfect, Jennifer Aniston’s character uses Jay Mohr’s character to fake a relationship.  In The Ugly Truth, Katherine Heigl uses Gerard Butler as the host of a television show so that she can get good ratings for the network.  In View from the Top, Gwenyth Paltrow’s character is using Mark Ruffalo’s character as a way to get some enjoyment out of Cleveland while she finds a way to get onto planes that fly to better cities.  Eventually the women move on from the man that they are using, only to discover that their life is incomplete without that man.  They love the man.  The woman then gives up her goals and settles for the man that she is in love with.

As viewers, we are supposed to root for the main female protagonist to get what she wants to get.  At the same time, we are supposed to want her to get the man.  But she is using the man to get what she wants.  That causes a contradiction.  It also makes the female protagonist into a highly unlikeable character.  A woman who would use the man as a means to an end rather than care about the man’s feelings is not someone who is necessarily good.  This would be fine if the point of the film were not for the character to find and fall in love.  Not liking the romantic lead in a romantic comedy only makes the film grating to the viewers.

This is not to say that the same thing doesn’t happen from the other perspective of the relationship.  If you take a look at a movie like She’s All That, you can see that in some romantic comedies, the male lead is more of an asshole that the female.  The big difference is that the man has some self-realization about what he has done wrong long before he loses his paramour.  It makes him a little bit more sympathetic than the female leads in the movies listed above.

What I am trying to say in my backwards, nearly incomprehensible, and easy to be misunderstood way is that the female characters in romantic comedies such as View from the Top and The Ugly Truth are poorly written.  They may be strong willed and focused on their careers in a way that would be respectable, but they are not written as sympathetic characters.  There needs to be some sympathetic qualities in a romantic tale.  The characters need to be able to compromise, to care about each other while focusing on these other aspects of their lives.  When a female character is simply using the male and not coming to terms with her emotions toward him until the final portion of the film, the romance is unearned.  The character is unlikeable.  The movie is not enjoyable.  The same could be said for a male character that acted the same way.  There needs to be a good middle ground between the focus at furthering herself or himself and the feelings that he or she feels for the other person.  There can’t simply be a final act realization that he/she likes the other.  It is unearned and disrespectful to the audience.

I understand how this entire post could be taken the wrong way.  I hope it isn’t.  This is a big issue in many of the romantic comedies that have been released in the past two decades.  Of course there are many good romantic comedies that don’t fall into this type of characterization.  But this is the Sunday “Bad” Movies, and it is going to focus on the bad.  This characterization is bad.  And it needs to be avoided.

What you don’t need to avoid is this list of notes:

• Troy Evans is one of the actors in View from the Top.  He was also in Ed, a movie I covered long ago in the Sunday “Bad” Movies.
• Another actor who appears in View from the Top is Chad Everett, who was in the movie Tiptoes.
• View from the Top was suggested by @KoalaInChicago.
• Do you know any other romantic comedies that can be categorized like View from the Top?  Put them in the comments.  Discuss them.  Go ahead.  You know you want to.
• Also, if you’ve got suggestions for future inclusions for the Sunday “Bad” Movies, you can put those in the comments.  Or just tell me on Twitter.