The Women: Standing Athwart the Steamrolling Gynocracy Yelling, “Stop!”

I was skeptical about seeing this movie.  I’m not a Sex and the City fan, I don’t like Desperate Housewives, and these pantsuits do not travel.  So this should be interesting, no?

We start with Sylvia Fowler (played by Annette Benning who made even Running with Scissors tolerable), telling a shop girl in Saks Fifth Avenue that she doesn’t want to try facelift cream because “this is [her] face.”  Because she’s a strong woman like that, and no way have any of the women in this movie ever had plastic surgery.  Speaking of, that brings us to Mary Haines (Meg Ryan), Sylvia’s BFF from college.  Sylvia learns from her manicurist (Debi Mazar) that Mary’s big fancy Wall Street husband is having an affair with a “spritzer” at the Channel counter (Eva Mendes).  With the help of her “demographically inclusive” and “stereotype affirming” friends, Edie Cohen (Debra Messing) and Alex Fisher (Jada Pinkett Smith)—playing the neurotic Jewish woman and the bitter black lesbian, respectively, Sylvia tells Mary about the affair.  But Mary already knew thanks to the manicurist. (Query: Is Debi Mazar the Gossip Girl?)  Mary then begins her quest to deal with the fallout of her husband’s dalliance.  In the process Mary not only reconnects with her ya ya sisterhood but she discovers herself and rediscovers love…with her husband.

Oh brother!  (Sorry, “sister”!)  Where to start with this one?  Well, contrary to any impression you may have that a woman-only-cast would give a favorable portrayal of women, this was not the case.  Mary was a devoted housewife/socialite who gave up her life for her husband and when that didn’t go well she lost control of her life at the expense of losing her relationship with her daughter.  Sylvia is a go-go career gal who’s constantly struggling to keep her job from her overbearing male boss; in building her career, Sylvia never develops meaningful relationships with anyone.  Alex is just a very angry person who keeps telling her non-lesbianic friends why sexual prostheses are better than men.  The minor characters are no better: the manicurist is a stereotypical gossip; the “spritzer girl” is a temptress; and Mary’s mother (Candace Bergen) is a shell of a woman who gave up on her dreams to support her husband (who also had an affair).  The only two positive portrayals of adult women are the housekeeper (Cloris Leachman) and Edie—both playing exclusively mother-type roles: one for other people’s families and the other for her many, many children.

As if the portrayal of women was not lackluster enough, the image of men is even worse.  We only hear about adulterers and work and money obsessive types, who only seem bent on destroying the dreams and lives of the women around them.  The only male we ever see is the birth of Edie’s son at the very end.  This newborn is loved and doted by the women around him.

Are the filmmakers telling us something here besides the typical anti-male tripe we’ve heard over and over again from some feminists?  Perhaps.  True, they give the impression that the only good men those who remain in perpetual child-like states before they can exert their patriarchal dominance, but consider whether the actual message is that women are only truly happy when they are exclusively stay-at-home mothers?

Now that’s a scandalous theme for our so-called modern world, where icy glares and finger wagging often greet even the suggestion that there are innate difference between the sexes or that some woman want to stay home and raise families.  But before people are picketing outside of Poptimal.com World Headquarters, I note that Mary (after a lot of struggle) manages to land a career and a family in the end.  And she’s not alone.  Now more than ever we see more (and much younger) women realizing that, unlike their mothers who started the cracks in the glass ceiling, they really can have it all.  Just look at Governor Palin.

On the other hand, maybe I’m just reading too much into a mediocre film that never should have been remade?