Because I feel like it’s been fifteen years and we’ve NEVER had that conversation as a society. How did we just let that slide?
Case In Point Of A:
Case In Point Of B:
If I remember aright, Bridget goes to a party that was SUPPOSED to have a costume theme, but the theme was somehow canceled and it was turned into a regular-ass party, which sounds highly implausible, but whatever, whereas Elle is tricked by Selma Blair into THINKING a regular party has a costume theme due to female jealousy, but I mean, come on, how did two super-popular movies in the same year have a scene where the blonde protagonist accidentally wears a one-piece and bunny ears to a party?
And don’t tell me it’s because Bridget Jones was a book first and the other movie guys read the book, because you don’t do that, you don’t just go read books and decide to adapt a single scene out of them into a separate movie. Why did we stand for this? Why didn’t we ask questions? I remember seeing both of those movies that year and thinking that was REALLY WEIRD but nobody else said anything and I thought, huh, maybe I’m just going totally insane and made it up, or no one else noticed, so I’ve kept it to myself until just now, and I’m not going to anymore.
IT WOULD BE LIKE IF IN THE SAME YEAR THERE WAS ALSO A BIG “BEND AND SNAP” SCENE IN SHREK OR SOMETHING AND EVERYONE JUST PRETENDED NOT TO NOTICE. WHY ISN’T SOMEONE BEING HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR THIS??
I have never wondered about this before now. I was a senior in high school when both these movies came out and I guess I was just like, extremely credulous about what adult life would look like.
I feel like “person is tricked into going to a fancy-dress party that isn’t a fancy-dress party” is a trope, but maybe I am basing that solely on the existence of these two films (which are weirdly bunny-specific).
There is a Legally Blonde book as well (my mum got it for my sister in our teens); it is almost nothing like the film and definitely for adults rather than teenagers. I can’t remember whether or not that has the bunny outfit as a plot point as well, or if it was added in the film. Can anyone say one way or the other?
PS How dare you point out that this was 15 years ago. (Bridget Jones’ Diary was on TV over Christmas, and I spent the entire time marvelling over the fact that people were SMOKING INDOORS, a very recent cultural change that nevertheless manages to shock me every time I see it in recent-ish films.)
OMG the smoking indoors thing always gets me. Like I think I’m watching a movie that was made not all that long ago and all of the sudden people are lighting up in the office/restaurant/whatever and I realized that A) smoking indoors didn’t really end all that long ago and/or 2. the movie I’m watching is actually from two decades past and I am an ancient old crone.
Smoking in movies in general looks so weird to me. Like its such a strange action and they all just sit around like that person is sucking on a stick and blowing smoke out of their face.
I have also noticed that casual smoking is sneaking back into film (not just period pieces, modern set stuff too) and you can bet thats because of some heavy campaigning by someone in Hollywood.
I am just now binge-watching The West Wing, and the first time Pres. Bartlett stepped just outside the oval office and lit up a cigarette, I thought I was imagining things. I mean, he wasn’t even smoking inside, why did it seem so strange?
Smoking was banned in public places in England in 2007 – so not that long ago, really, but it was when I was 17 so I had had very little experience of being in places where smoking was happening; by the time I was going to pubs, smoking was gone. I did go to pub quizzes with my parents as a (super cool) teenager, and would always have to wash my hair after getting home because it would stink of smoke. But that’s so alien now.
What really gets me is the fact that I can remember when smoking was allowed in the *mall*. Where I grew up, most shopping malls banned it around the early-to-mid ’90s, I think? I remember mostly because my earliest hanging-out-with-friends-at-the-mall years were also my earliest contact-lens-wearing years (not to mention prime insane eyeliner years), and my eyes were just eternally irritated.
Both high schools I attended had smoking sections. So that the high school students could smoke. During the school day. At school. 14-19 year olds.
This was the case at my high school too. I think the rationale was “we know some of you are going to smoke no matter what, so keep it confined to this area and don’t fuck up all the neighbors’ yards.” Which makes a certain amount of sense, but is still weird.
YES this is so true I actually came out of the shadows to agree with you whole-heartedly
I recently re- watched Bridget Jones on television, and once I noticed that her cigarette was fake, I couldn’t UN-notice it. It started to drive me crazy that she always has a cigarette and it’s always the SAME FAKE CIGARETTE. It never gets smaller. It never lights up. No smoke is coming out of it. Just the same like, Halloween store fake cigarette all the way through the movie.
I too always believed this was a common trope but am now struggling to recall a single other movie I’ve seen where it happens. Mean Girls doesn’t count.
It happened in an episode of Barbie Life in the Dreamhouse and I do not know if I should be proud or ashamed that I can contribute this fact.
own it, my friend.
You should be proud, I’m proud.
Maybe we have just been fooled into thinking it was a common trope by these two films coming out at the same time.
Not a movie but it happened in one of the less great episodes of The Weekenders, and was also used for a minor joke on Ugly Betty, and that’s just what I can remember off the top of my head. Pretty sure it’s a trope.
The embarrassing costume mishap is absolutely a thing. Doesn’t make it much less odd that two huge movies in the same year featured it using the exact same costume, though! It’s not always that someone gets tricked deliberately or with malicious intent, and I feel like there are a lot more examples from TV/sitcoms than movies. Like the U.S. version of the Office, where Michael’s girlfriend is dressed as a cheerleader for the Diwali party? Or sometimes it’s at work rather than a party, like on Modern Family when Mitchell wears a Spiderman costume to work and then spends the whole episode trying to retrieve a suit from his car without everyone seeing him. I also just recently watched an episode of Blindspot (forgive me) where two characters show up for a party in fancy 1920s dress for a Great Gatsby theme and then everyone else is dressed normally, although honestly I can’t remember why or how (they’re going undercover though, so it’s a big backfire of their attempt to blend in, at least).
Here is a page I just found about it, actually! Sure enough, not a lot of big examples from films, but lots from TV shows, many of which I do remember seeing now: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ItsACo…
That is the only episode of Modern Family that I’ve ever seen.
” I also just recently watched an episode of Blindspot (forgive me) where two characters show up for a party in fancy 1920s dress for a Great Gatsby theme and then everyone else is dressed normally”
Oh gosh, that kinda happened to my friends and I in real life, we were going to an 80s party and got all dressed up only to find that the other attendees were dressed normal (and they weren’t even playing 80s music so apparently it was only the posters that fit a theme). There were enough of us in our small group that it worked though.
Glad to see the king’s amazing chicken costume in Start The Revolution Without Me as one of the examples they list: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4aUgnGAXF8
It is a trope. It also happened to me. Not making this up.
I (stupidly) mentioned to a coworker that I did bellydancing. She had invited me to a party at her house. She said ‘Oh, you should dress up in your bellydancing clothes! My daughter would love that!’ I checked. Yes, it was that kind of party. Ok.
Turned up. In full bellydancing regalia. Was a regular barbecue. Not a single other person in anything other than regular clothes. Her kid wasn’t even there (I have no idea, it was her house).
Sat around awkwardly counting down an hour until I felt I could politely excuse myself.
…
That feels so unhappy when I end it there, so let’s have another party story that ended well. Another time, I wore the same bellydancing costume to my supervisor’s Miss Braddon Gardens 2007 Beauty Pageant (an annual cocktail party/beauty pageant she held), my talent was bellydancing, and I won! Hurray happy story!
I would be perfectly happy in a world where one could wear tribal style belly dance clothes at all times, but cabaret bras are so damned uncomfortable that if anyone wants me to show up at a party in one, they do have to pay me.
I have a lot of questions about the whole concept in Bridget Jones. Everyone talks about this “Tarts and Vicars” party like that’s a thing in the UK.
Question One: is that a thing?
Question Two: if so, why ON EARTH is that a thing?
Question Three: same as question two, only louder and with a stronger undercurrent of genuine distress.
I am unfamiliar with Bridget Jones, but “Tarts and Vicars” is also a thing in the movie “Starter for 10” which made me assume it was nonsense invented for that movie to make it seem like a more “university-y” party.
So, I guess this means it’s a real thing all British people know about?
That seems super weird to me. I guess the US equivalent would be togas parties, which are, to be fair, also weird, but I always thought those were just based on the toga as the laziest possible costume theme, since anyone can just pull the sheets off their bed and throw that on?
Still weird.
Nah, the US equivalent would definitely be CEOs and office hoes. I unfortunately know that this is a thing because greek life.
Or plain ol’ “Pimps & Hoes” parties, which spin off into “CEOs and office hoes” as well as a million other racist and/or otherwise questionable variations.
What the hell is “CEOS and office hoes”?
It’s pretty damn awful. Men wear dress shirts/ties/suits and women wear unbuttoned dress shirts, ties, and no pants. I always wanted to go to one of these in a pantsuit as a girl and just see what happened.
That’s horrifying.
Wear super high heels and a tight 80s powersuit (latex optional) and be the office dominatrix.
Tarts and vicars parties were common on sit-coms in the 70’s, but I cannot confirm that they ever happened in real life.
So, I guess this means it’s a real thing all British people know about?
Well this British person always thought it was a real thing (having never, obviously, been invited to one. Honest.)
But I always assumed that it was supposed to be some sort of weird commentary on the relationship between men and women, in which men assume that they are ostensibly pure whilst women solely exist to tempt men from the righteous path, taken to the logical extreme. But also dangerously presented as “just a bit of fun” which makes it hard to mount effective opposition, since it clearly is meant to be seen that way.
Then again, there was that minor controversy some years ago about a party in which a member of Royal Family went dressed as a Nazi, which had a theme of Colonials and Natives – which was an attempt to do the same sort of thing; to pretend that this was all perfectly OK.
Hilarious that only Harry was called out for his severely inappropriate Nazi costume when the entire party was Colonials and “Natives”- really sickening given the extent of British-caused deaths in India and so many of its other colonies
I had no idea that a Colonials and Natives themed party was something anyone with two brain cells would think was an okay thing to attend, much less someone with a full staff of PR people and a personal, relatively recent family history of colonizing people. How was this not at least the subtitle of all those outraged articles..
(yay Starter for 10! My fond quiz bowl memories + James McAvoy + first time seeing Rebecca Hall, iirc).
Speaking as a Brit, it is a thing. It’s not good thing, and it’s not a thing that happens so much any more, but it is a thing. We definitely had one in university. It’s basically an extra-sexist “heaven and hell” or “saints and sinners” theme.
Ok then, next question; did guys just…have clerical collars lying around for this purpose?
White cardboard!
Please tell me there are occasional Nuns & Gigolos parties to complete the set. I want this to be true.
Yes there are. The vicars and tarts parties I know definitely do not delineate the genders. Anyone can be a vicar/stereotypical member of a religious office and anyone can be a tart. It’s equal opportunities naughtiness.
it’s…yeah, it’s a thing. Why, I have no idea.
I am chatting this instant (via googles) with a friend in the UK (Somerset to be exact). 100% confirms that Tarts and Vicars was A Thing, mostly in the Hefner/Playboy era of the late 70’s.
I, an American who loved this movie, threw a Tarts & Vicars party in high school for my birthday and…didn’t explain the concept to my parents before my friends showed up. So they were very confused when all of my friends, both male and female, showed up wearing fishnets and corsets and feather boas. Except for my 1 male friend who showed up in a monk robe (that he just had lying around). This was pre-facebook, so all the pictures are lovingly pasted into a photo album. I think the dudes even wore makeup and heels to this event. Best part – it was a daytime party and no one was intoxicated in any way.
My parents pulled me aside later and asked what the theme was and I don’t remember what I mumbled.
This is amazing!
Peak teenage dirtbag!
Question three answer: there’s a meme/old joke, “said the vicar to the actress”. Or ” said the actress to the vicar” that’s basically an old timer “that’s what she said”. If actress is tart in regional dialect and/or when not in front of a small child (me when I lived in the UK), the theme party kind of follows. At least the idea never seemed weird to me even though I personally have never been invited to a tarts and vicars party.
Well, “show folk” of all stripes had scandalous reputations for ages. Some of that is due to the fact that travelling theatres and circuses did sometimes make a bit of money on the side by having pet pickpockets and whoring out some of their stars. A lot of performers were libertines by nature, as well. Then later, there was the whole “casting couch” thing, in which actresses were pressured into furthering their career by giving sexual favours.
…said Ripley to the android bishop!
This was precisely my reaction to finding out that “Jews vs. Nazis” beer pong was a thing. I once had the pleasure of stumbling upon my hallmates playing a friendly game of it in freshman year of college… it involves arranging a set of solo cups in the shape of a swastika.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/…
In short, a.) people are horrifying and b.) whether something *should* be real has no bearing on whether it is–particularly if we’re talking about college students.
I had never wondered about this before but that is because, CONFESSION, I have never seen Bridget Jone’s Diary. I know, gasp.
*fist bump*
Me neither.
It’s amazing! The book is better, but the movie is pretty great. I’ve never seen legally blonde, so we’re complementarily even
It’s worth it for Mr Darcy beating the crap out of Hugh Grant in a fountain.
This happens with whole movies all the time. Deep Impact and Armageddon. Dante’s Peak and Volcano, Gordy and Babe, The Illusionist and The Prestige…
Excuse you, Babe is an example of singular cinematic excellence!! I’ve never even heard of this “Gordy” fellow.
Don’t even try to put Gordy in the same category as Babe. There is only Babe, forever and always.
If I had words …
NGL, this scene was the first thing that popped into my head when Mallory shared with us the Baby Piglet That is Also Ourselves.
Babe really is a perfect movie.
Thank god others are defending Babe! I cry every time I watch it. Just such a beautiful film.
A Bug’s Life and Antz
Mirror Mirror and Snow White & The Huntsman
Still mad that Mirror Mirror wasn’t based on Gregory Maguire’s book.
Olympus has Fallen and White House Down. They even have the same title, although one of the titles has been run through some kind of pretentiousness generator.
Friends With Benefits and No Strings Attached.
I first interpreted this to mean that all these movies feature scenes in which the main character is tricked into attending a party while dressed as a Playboy bunny. I suspect that such a scene would have improved at least five of these movies.
Same here! And spent several confused minutes trying to figure out how/why Babe would be wearing a bunny costume…
It wasn’t Babe wearing the bunny costume, it was the farmer.
Same! I was pretty happy imagining those bunny Peles jumping into volcanoes.
It is at least halfway deliberate on behalf of animation studios. Like, ok, they are doing Aladdin, let’s throw together an Arabian Nights knockoff and get it out before them.
I was unaware until recently (as in, right now) that Deep Impact and Armageddon were two different movies. Whoops.
Whatever happened to LeeLee Sobieski? I liked her.
I feel like I can understand it more easily when it’s whole movies, though. There are fewer obvious reasons why it would happen with a single scene in two pretty different movies right at the same time, though.
I refuse to believe that Bridget Jones’ Diary was 15 years ago. Nope, nope, nope.
okay but why ISN’T there a bend and snap scene in Shrek?
My son played Lord Farquaad in the musical version in high school, and he’d have eaten up a bend & snap scene as he scuttled around stage on his kneepads.
And then on the flip side you have Mean Girls, in which the main character commits a major faux pas by not wearing a Playboy bunny costume to a party.
I am always frustrated during that scene because she leaves the fake teeth in even after she’s realized her mistake. Take out the fake teeth and you wouldn’t look that different from everyone else there, Cady!
Wait, wasn’t somebody dressed like this in Mean Girls, too? But maybe it wasn’t a trick. Either way, the Playboy bunny seems far overrepresented in movies as far as sexy costumes go. Has anyone seen them in the wild? I mean, I live near a college campus and sexy French maids, yes. Sexy Bo Peeps, yes. Sexy Christmas trees even, yes. Playboy bunnies I have not seen.
This is making me so happy.
I think Mean Girls did a great inversion of it – Caddy dressed in a legit scary costume while all the other girls were sexy animals.
Someone I know complained of seeing a sexy mummy costume (as in dead Egyptian ghost corpse, not a British mom), so in an effort to come up with the most outlandish possible sexy costume, I blurted out the words “Sexy Pope!” We came up with how it would look, but I don’t have the guts to follow through.
NOOOOO, Merripat, nooooo….
<shudders>
Not quite as bad as when I first saw “Blink” but close.
#sorrynotsorry
For a long time, that was the scariest episode ever for me; I started a rewatch and had to pause, even though I love Captain Jack Harkness with all my heart. And then I finally rewatched it and didn’t think it was so bad anymore? I have no idea why.
I think my “new” scariest episode is The Satan Pit.
Did you see the sexy Gandalf costume that some girl in….I think it was Australia?….made recently? Cause that one was pretty humorous.
OMG no but that is awesome!!!!
Ahem.
Are you Sexy Pope?
I’m so being a sexy Christmas tree this year.
She had a battery pack so her lights lit up! It was… cute, for a sexy religion tree?
i’m definitely just picturing this outfit from grease 2
Can we talk about the part where Bridget is supposed to be “just a little bit fat”? Because LOOK AT HER, she is basically EXACTLY the shape I was for my whole life and I never once thought I was fat, what the hell, movies.
THANK YOU. The last time I saw the movie, I was horrified when she says she’s “a little fat” at ~120-130 pounds? Bridget, relax!!!! Hollywood, go STFU!!!
I mean to be perfectly fair she’s pretty short and a healthy weight will vary based on your height but YES IN GENERAL.
(Signed, someone who is 5’8” and medium-boned and would look emaciated at 130 lbs.)
Yeah, I’ve had a lot of blessings in my life re: body self-image, but the outlier nature of my height is one of them. It meant a lot of characters going “I can’t believe I’m at 125 this week!” around me and my only conceivable response was “I don’t know, is that a big number? A small one? That is a number that represents a quantity, I assume, but exists for me only in a philosophical void.”
I’m only 5’2″ and 125 is a pretty awesome weight for me so I don’t know what those people are talking about.
I am 5’1″ and I haven’t been 125 since I was about thirteen so I feel your pain.
I am barely 5′ 0″ and if I ever reach 125 lbs again I hope someone drives me to the hospital because it will mean I have contracted a 19th-century wasting disease.
I am 5’0″ and make a point of not weighing myself, but I am pretty sure I am over 150.
I’m 5’3″ tall, going on 65, weigh in close to 130 these days, decent blood pressure, and still wear a size 4-6 pair of pants – what on the earth are these people talking about? I’m just about the size everybody in my earlier life wanted me to be when they fussed and said I was too skinny. Compete and you can’t win in this foolish world.
All of these comments exist for me in a philosophical void, because I only understand kilos, not pounds. One of the few cases where the US refusing to go over to metric works in my favor!
(I also agree that Hollywood should shut up about weight. Let’s just talk about something else.)
Those damn charts don’t work for tall women, do they? (6′ woman here who has a barrel for a rib cage and extremely broad shoulders and hips, and would look like a scarecrow at anything less than 180)
I’m 5’9″, and have, during particularly lean and hungry times, gotten down to 160. It was a miserable experience which I plan never to repeat.
The book is not great if you have problems with disordered eating and numbers triggering those issues!
The book does a much better job at showing that it’s only Bridget (and possibly her crappy boss) that thinks she’s a little bit fat. There’s a whole bit where she loses a bunch of weight and she’s super proud and her friends are like “um, sweetie, are you OK?”
This is just like how, in Love Actually, Natalie (the woman that Prime Minister Hugh Grant likes) is constantly referred to as fat, but is not fat at all.
<< It’s Hugh Grant’s first day on the job, and he’s saying hello to his new staff. One staffer is named Natalie, and as far as I can tell, her job is “woman.” She’s also incredibly, disgustingly fat, like a bean bag chair with feet, according to literally everyone else in the movie who apparently all have Natalie Dysmorphic Disorder (the silent killer). Natalie accidentally says some swears in front of the prime minister, and then she makes lemon-face for 45 minutes. Actually, she’s probably just thinking about delicious lemons, because NATALIE HUNGRY!!!!!!! >>
Lindy West, always http://jezebel.com/i-rewatched-love-actually-and-…
ah, lindy!! <3 her book comes out tomorrow!!!
In the book, the joke is that she thinks she’s fat, but she’s not. She’s not 90s waif model skinny, so she’s always dieting. There’s a part when she finally hits her goal weight, and everybody is terribly worried for her because she looks awful and sick. She then goes back up to her normal weight. The movie missed the point.
Yes, correct. Thank you.
That’s the thing about Bridget Jones, though–she always thinks she’s fat and obsessively tracks drinks and calories. At one point in one of the first 2 books she finally loses the weight she’s always wanted to and everyone fusses at her thinking she’s ill.
The point was that there was nothing wrong with Bridget all along–she wasn’t a stick, just squishy in all the girl places.
I never understood this either! In the book at one point she weighs like 118 pounds, and her friends are telling her that she looks tired. To me that is body dysmorphia. Why translate that to the movie this way?? And the actress looks great and totally normal! What is happening??
My boyfriend had to tell me there was an identical scene in Bridget Jones, and I flat-out did not believe him, and when I realized they came out the same year and thus had to just coincidentally have the same scene somehow I was confused as a person can be. Was 2001 a high point for Playboy Bunny emulation? Is there a wardrobe team out there with more bunny suits than they know what to do with, and when you have a closet full of bunny suits every “we need the lead to be humiliated, but sexily so” situation looks like a call for psych-out costume parties? The world may never know.
“we need the lead to be humiliated, but sexily so”
oh god
you summed that trope up way, way too well
D:
“Was 2001 a high point for Playboy bunny emulation?”
Judging by the huge amount of playboy themes body jewelry we attempted to sell at the mall store where I worked circa 2002, I am going with either:
1)yes
2)no, but some executives somewhere were really trying to make it happen.
Well, at least she didn’t spend as much as Bernard.
It’s one of my favourite quotes from the movie, along with “You like me just the way I am.”
OH! And “…because that is his name.”
I always want to say “…because that is his name,” but nobody ever gets it, so I don’t.
I would get it! It is one of my favourite quotes.
“To Bridget! Just As She Is.” *knowing looks*
That one is also up there. But “… because that is his name” is the best.
<3
Having *just* come from an argument where I had to explain the horrendous imbalance in how much women are sexualized but their sexuality is neglected, Ill give in and say this is obviously art imitating life I mean of course I am always gallavanting in playboy dress, this is just how women live their lives.
*curmudgeonous grump*
I’ve always felt that these 2 films are incredibly similar in that they mark a new wave in (white) feminism. So this is not shocking. Thank you though, Mallory!! Good to document.
Ooh, compelling!
The new wave of “you can be blonde AND pretty AND smart and you totally don’t need a man but you get one because get it, girl?”
Yep! And don’t forget the whole “career girl overcomes skeezy male boss and falls into arms of second-in-command” thing.
you say its implausible but when I was in 2nd grade my friend was gonna have a 50s themed bday party because we’d had an event at school with that theme and she liked it, but on the day of once i was already in my poodle skirt and what not, my mom called just to make sure and the girl’s mom was like oh yeah its not themed anymore we thought we told everyone
so like, shout out to my mom i guess
Yes yes yes. This is perfect. You are perfect. Anya is perfect and Xander never deserved her.
Correct on all counts.
(Editing/amending to add: People don’t deserve one another or get one another if they’re good enough. A better way to put that is: Xander never properly appreciated the fury and beauty and Ayn Rand-ian iron will in support of capitalism and unexpected pathos that was Anya.
I clearly Have Some Feelings About This.)
They are Good Feelings! No one appreciated Anya enough. 🙁
anya! misandrist foremother!!
You win.
A+ response. Anya is the best bunny.
And really, what DO they need all those carrots for anyway!
Best. Bunny suit. Ever.
Also in 2001: The Fellowship of the Ring, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and Gosford Park all featured scenes in which the heroes defeat a giant troll by riding on its shoulders and jabbing it in the head. I begin to suspect there’s a dark meaning to these seeming coincidences…
Huh, I don’t remember that at all. I guess I need to rewatch The Fellowship of the Ring tonight.
Weird that girls get tricked into Playboy bunny costumes and boys get to kill trolls
I just assume that Hollywood has decided every movie/show geared towards women needs to have something to appeal to the male gaze, because otherwise no men would watch it and that would be a disaster of disastrous proportions. (See: Nancy Drew being dropped because it skews “too female”. Or, like, Cleopatra 2525 if we want to go to older extremes here.) I’m pretty cynical, though.
Sidebar for us to cut to a demographics meeting:
Excited junior executive: We’ve run the numbers! Sarah Shahi appeals to the ladies!
Jaded ad sales exec: Yes, dear. But *those* are not our advertisers’ preferred sort of ladies.
…You KNOW this really happened, and my Harriet the Spy and Nancy Drew adoring inner child is seriously kicking rocks over it.
Sometimes it’s not even cynicism.
I would like someone to talk at length about how the plot for both Gabrielle Union and Aisha Tyler on friends is EXACTLY the same. They both date Joey and Ross, and its pretty much an exactly the same story line. i thought I was going crazy. The internet is not talking about this enough in my opinion.
Gabrielle Union was on Friends?!
yes for one episode. Aisha Tyler gets a 4-5 episode arc, but it’s the same one.
It troubles me that she would be playing a love interest to the so-called Adults on Friends just a year after playing a high school cheerleader but I suppose that is the magic of Ageless Gabrielle Union.
She might have been a college student…so it would fit the timeline?! but also, ick yes.
She was not a college student, she was some kind of adult, but she didn’t have much character development beyond, “That hot chick who just moved in.”
You’re right! She’s holding a lamp at some point and a heavy box. To my mind it was because she was in college? But of course, it’s just that she’s a new tenant. Good for her on affording the magical land of huge apartments after her HS cheerleading gig.
She was an extremely good cheerleader, to be fair.
Right? How have I not talked to anyone about this before?
I only watched all of friends recently as part of a “rewatching things when I cook” binge, and I was like, wait wait wait. They might be the only two black women in the whole show, they can’t possibly have recycled the plot? oh…yes, yes they did.
it doesn’t play out the same way, though. i mean, they both date joey and ross; but gabrielle union is dating both of them right from the start and they’re unaware of it, whereas aisha tyler is back and forth between the two with everyone knowing far too much about it (and rachel is involved, too, at that point). and really, chandler is married by then and always kind of in a different dating world than those two, so if they want to have a one girl/two guys plot it has to be joey and ross. further, that’s just kind of joey’s job on the show anyway, see the early season thing with whatserface, chandler, and the velveteen rabbit.
however, i am torn between my friends nitpickery and my need to acknowledge that you are totally right. it’s shitty, lazy writing (like much of friends, especially by the end!), and it sucks that that those two — who represented basically the only women of color (or even the only non-white characters, pretty much) on the show in its whole run — were just sort of throwaway traffic-in-women fodder. grrr friends
I just figured we’d all noticed the theme of female characters being humiliated on screen by being “slutty” at inappropriate times, despite having been told that “sluttiness ™” was not only appropriate, but an actual requirement at those times.
The late 90s/early 00s was such a weird time for mainstream expectations of female sexuality.
Unlike all other times, that had totally understandable and normal expectations of female sexuality!? Not trying to criticize your point but I think that phenomenon is pretty much universal and timeless!
True, but that period had its own unique flavour
what a great time to come of age D-:
I swear I had a book as a child (a Horrible History) that suggested that Lord Lucan did the same thing to his wife before he murdered their nanny – perhaps not a Playboy bunny costume, but that he convinced her to show up to a non-costume party in costume in order to prove she was mentally unstable.
(I couldn’t resist googling it and it turns out the text of the book just talks about his attempts to prove she was mentally unwell but it’s accompanied by a cartoon of them at a cocktail party with her in a chicken costume. The book was published in 1996, fwiw.)
. . .everything about this book description intrigues and enthralls me. Where was this when I was reading the Baby-sitters Club??
This is not a Horrible History book I read, and now I am desperate to track it down.
It’s the 20th Century one! Called The Twentieth Century. They just made shit up for all the years after 1996 and I loved it.
Thank you! I am supposed to be buying a book for my partner’s nephew’s sixth birthday today; maybe I will buy that for me.
Slightly OT but related: I was watching an early episode of Sex and the City and there’s a bit where some guy shows Carrie his collect of secretly filmed sex tapes and she’s just ‘ OMG, weird’ and warns her friends off him, but that’s IT, and my friend and I were just goggle eyed at how outrageous it is and how you’d NEVER get away with such a cavalier treatment of consent violation today, and I ended up feeling kind of good about how much things have changed?
There’s an episode of the West Wing, where Sam tells Ainsely that she would “make a good dog break his leash” and another woman who works there calls him out. So what does Sam do? He polls all his coworkers if it’s offensive, then checks in with Ainsely who is like, “oh sam you flirt I loved it”, then he goes back and tells the woman off for being PC instead of worrying about real issues.
Aka, textbook third party harassment, with hostility and retaliation thrown in. And it’s supposed to be a victory for the supposedly liberal Sam?
UGH. Fuck you, Sorkin.
I think that the west wing gets BETTER after he leaves. Come at me bros.
AND Sam tells THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES to say to Ainsley “People probably think you got the job because you’re a sex kitten but [you’re obviously a good lawyer, too].” And the president ACTUALLY SAYS THOSE WORDS to Ainsley. I wanted to vomit.
I’ve blocked this part out so I don’t die of rage strokes.
ughhh mee too because I love the west wing so much and there are many, many moments of complete terrible.
I have said I have to watch it less and less as I get older and older because it’s harder to ignore the farther we get away from the early 2000s and I get older and less willing to tolerate this bullshit.
If I remember correctly, his hidden camera was basically just behind a sheet of white paper, looking super inconspicuous.
Haha yes, and it’s an enormous camcorder, as befitting 1998. Dude must have spent a *fortune* on tapes.
You know, I’ve always believed that mistaken costume party situations are an imminent danger of adult social gatherings, despite it never happening to me or anyone I have ever known.
My high school speech team threw a year-end party one year that was supposed to be like this. They publicized it as a wacky costume party, then tried to independently tell everyone but one person not to dress up. But then she didn’t dress up anyway, and I showed up in a decades-old tailcoat from the back of my dad’s closet and had no regrets, like jeez guys, it’s the speech team, we’re basically theater kids, dressing up is fun.
ONCE in college I got invited to a friend of a friends’ party and didn’t grok that it was a costume party, and I was just dressed regular. Which for me then was somewhere between grunge and goth with sorta big hair b/c my hair gets big with any dampness in the air and I live in coastal New England.
I just told people I was “Fuckin’ Apathetic, So…?”
isn’t it just an extreme version of the fear that we all (surely, all of us, i can’t be alone in this) have that we will show up to a party inappropriately dressed? not necessarily in a pboyb costume, but wearing a dress when everyone else is wearing cutoffs, etc etc. i think i’m mostly over this now (i wear what i want, come at me, people!) but definitely when i was 13-19 it was my absolute worst nightmare.
Nah, showing up dressed for halloween or too formally is basically just being a goth. Plenty of respectable people are goths.
I attended the Fêtes de Bayonne wearing black instead of red and white because I assumed that people would half-ass the dressing up efforts like Parisians have done at every Halloween party I’ve ever attended, and well, I’m not sure how to add photos here, but just Google image search “fêtes de bayonne” if you’d like to see how wrong I was. I quickly bought a red bandana, but I was still glared at all night long.
I was invited to an ugly christmas sweater party where the two hostesses wore sexy cocktail dresses.
I feel like the bunny costume thing is a very subtle reference to the feminist road we’ve walked since Gloria Stienham and her days as an undercover journalist.
Okay, really subtle. Really, really subtle.
I got nothing.
I mean that’s literally how Elle turns it around in Legally Blonde, so maybe?
it is in Legally Blonde the Musical!!! When Vivian makes fun of Elle for dressing in the bunny outfit, Elle snatches someone’s glasses and says “Are you telling me you’ve never heard of investigative journalist and noted feminist Gloria STEINEM?” and then it’s a Big Win for Elle
Um, the reason Bridget didn’t get the message that the costume theme was off was because her PERVY uncle was supposed to tell her and didn’t because he wanted to see her in a “tart” outfit.
this. her uncle who repeatedly in the course of the movie in full view of her parents and everyone they know grabs her ass and no one comments except bridget, who gives a pained smile to convey that she expects this and has been conditioned her entire life to accept it politely…!!
And you see Pervy Uncle’s wife hate it, too, but she doesn’t think she can say anything, either.
Oh god yeah! Aaargh!
And this is why my default for any “costume party” involving people I don’t know very well is to do something super lazy which can have elements removed to make it basically a normal outfit. For example, wear black pants, boots, and a white button down; add or subtract a vest and hat for Lazy Pirate/not.
My go-to is a hat or animal ears, a la Mean Girls, except paired with a normal outfit instead of lingerie. I find it impossible to believe anyone would turn up in a skimpy bunny outfit at an event they are traveling to on their own, and not in the safe company of several similarly dressed friends.
I have often claimed to be Daria or Liz Lemon for costume parties. I never have to even try.
As a person who LOVES dressing up for Halloween, I have been both the Cady Heron and the Elle Woods at Halloween parties. I was particularly proud of the time that I combined the two – I wore a skin tight skeleton bodysuit and scary skull facepaint. To a college party where the rest of the girls were like “I’m a cat” in black leggings or Daria/Progressive Flo/cowgirl with a flannel shirt and boots.
I once attended a costume party dressed as my own mirror reflection. I’m left-handed, and my costume consisted entirely of holding a drink in my right hand.
This – this is my level of caring about costumes, right here. You are brilliant.
mm can we also talk about how Bridget Jones is BFF with Gaius Baltar??? Sure, sure it’s “the actor” playing “a different character” (but actually it’s Gaius Baltar escaping the cylons)
Oh my god it is. How did I not realize that despite watching it fairly recently?
OMG because if I’m remembering right, her other friend is Moaning Myrtle! Bridget Jones is clearly at some kind of fandom nexus–which probably also explains how Colin Firth can be Darcy when in the book, at least, Colin Firth and the BBC Pride and Prejudice definitely exist.
i mean if we’re talking about weird things in movies…why the fuck is moaning myrtle played by a full-on adult woman? this creeped me out so much when that harry potter movie came out
I bet this is studio/producer meddling. “Those kids like Playboy don’t they? Put a bunny in it.” Just like the giant Spider in the third act (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo2KB1dEDdk if you haven’t seen it before, no actual spiders in this). Or if you prefer to read, https://thepopcultist.com/2013/06/12/how-producer… (pictures of spiders however).
Was “put a Bunny on it” the 2001 equivalent of “put a bird on it”?
I think I am incapable of having critical thoughts on this highly interesting and worthwhile issue, because both scenes fill me with such intense vicarious embarrassment that just thinking about them for more than a few seconds short circuits my brain into constant cringe.
Definitely reader-response theory!
All of this is by way of evading the very serious question at the heart of this profound, obviously archetypal hypothetical situation: “What sort of deception would be required to persuade YOU to attend a party dressed as a Playboy bunny?”
1. “Did I not tell you about the party? Good thing I have this Playboy bunny costume, in your size, just lying around!”
2. “That person that you have a deep, aching crush on told me that they have always had a secret shameful desire to see you in a Playboy bunny costume.”
3. “Your arch-nemesis was just telling everyone how you wouldn’t have the guts to attend a party in a Playboy bunny costume.”
4. “It’s a charity event for diseases of sad children, hosted by a fantastically rich eccentric, who will donate ONE MEALEON DOLLARS for everyone who attends wearing a Playboy bunny costume.”
5. “It’s fine, the Playboy bunny costume lost its onus of objectification years ago in a huge lawsuit.”
6. “Don’t be ridiculous, this hypnotist can’t compel you to dress in a Playboy bunny costume, and then make you suppress the memory completely, except in your deepest nightmares!”
7. “That last one actually happened, by the way.”
8. “Of course it didn’t, now think about something else.”
9. “You feel very relaxed, and will think about something else.”
10. “Just don’t worry about it, and think about something else.”
“Studies Show That You Should Come Into This Room Right Over Here, And That You Should Come Alone”
You should go there now.
So yeah, when I was like 7 years old my parents sent me to a costume party dressed like this. I mean, it wasn’t a corset, it was a black leotard, but I DID have a playboy-bunny symbol brooch on. WHAT THE SHIT, PARENTS.
nope
I once attended a Halloween party where some guy and his girlfriend BOTH wore playboy bunny outfits – black ones exactly like Bridget’s. It was awesome.
I went to a college party in a silk dressing gown and velvet slippers, with my hair greased back and smoking a cigar. I was accompanied by two 6 ft guys in bunny suits and fishnets. 1983.
Unrelated to this but finally, an outlet for this story. So back in the day (in the UK) my friend had a pimps and bunnies party (we were like 17). I only got that it was a bunnies party and I dressed as the rabbit from Donnie Darko. The whole night people came up to compliment me on my outfit so when my friend came up to me, I assumed it was for that. Instead she was asking if I wanted to come home with her and her boyfriend. I did not understand for the longest time that they were asking me for a threesome, I thought they were asking to share cabs/take the same night bus. Eventually I got it and politely declined.
YEARS LATER she was at my house with her new boyfriend and my partner and talking about how her and her partner had JUST gotten past the phase where they could have a casual threesome. He expressed disappointment and she said, “No, it’s definitely past that time now,” and then started expressing her other threesome conditions – that she has threesomes with one man and one woman, and that these other women be “considerably less attractive than me.”
I asked her if she had always felt this way or if this was a new rule, and she said yes, that she had always felt this, with all her partners, and it would be ridiculous to feel any other way.
I asked her if she thought I was attractive (I do not usually ask people this).
“Yes, of course you are.” “As attractive as you?” “Oh, of course, if not more so.”
I then told her that she had approached me years ago for a threesome and she wasn’t even embarrassed!
Just…wow. Did she try to explain, or backpedal, or anything?
Follow-up question: Who the hell chooses to go to a costume party dressed as a Playboy bunny when they have the option of being LITERALLY EVERYTHING ELSE?
Her shitty boss/boyfriend helped her make the costume and she thought she’d be going with him, so I think that played a part.
I feel like these scenes are a perfect metaphor for the relationship between media images of women and how we are expected to act/look IRL. Media suggests that there is a party in which all the women will be in sexy pageantry, then the women who show up to school/work/life that way are shamed and embarrassed.
YES! Which made late-90s adolescence REALLY confusing.
I feel like these scenes are a perfect metaphor for the relationship between media images of women and how we are expected to act/look IRL. Media suggests that there is a party in which all the women will be in sexy pageantry, then the women who show up to school/work/life that way are shamed and embarrassed.
I think that one was actually called "The Ice Cream Truck That Couldn't Slow Down."
Without looking it up I can tell you #1 is "Hell Comes to Frogtown."
I don't remember watching it, but I do know there is a horror movie called "Ice Cream Man" starring Clint Howard.
Oh my god really???? That song always makes me cry.
In college one Halloween I planned to go as Bridget Jones in her tart outfit and told my boyfriend at the time to dress as a vicar/clergyman so it would make sense and we would have a couple’s costume. Spoiler: he didn’t and I felt ridiculous the whole night. In retrospect the whole affair was a fitting tribute to “Bridget Jones’s Diary”.
I absolutely noticed this in 2001, but had nowhere to take my confusion and offense. Thank you for breaking the silence. Together, we shall bring this discussion out of the darkness and into the LIGHT.
I recently rewatched both and vaguely registered this.
Maybe these films explain why, in 2004, a friend of mine went as a Playboy bunny to a Halloween party while I was dressed as Napoleon Dynamite. I can’t decide if standing next to her in a homemade Vote for Pedro shirt was one of the most embarrassing or feminist acts of my college years. Either way, I was single for almost all of them.
I recently rewatched both and vaguely registered this.
Maybe these films explain why, in 2004, a friend of mine went as a Playboy bunny to a Halloween party while I was dressed as Napoleon Dynamite. I can't decide if standing next to her in a homemade Vote for Pedro shirt was one of the most embarrassing or feminist acts of my college years. Either way, I was single for almost all of them.
And the Gilmore Girls, bless them
I NOW NEED A BEND AND SNAP IN SHREK.
Ideally Fiona teaching the princesses in Shrek the Third (the Shrek movie we do not talk about) and maybe even having the Dragon join in??? Yes I want this
I recently rewatched both and vaguely registered this. by the way its great information