French Themed or Fight Club: Appearance vs. Content in Bridesmaids

For this week I watched Bridesmaids (2011), which is surprisingly one of my favorite recently made films.  This was about the sixth or seventh time I have seen it, but I never thought I would be watching it for a philosophy class.  Marketed as “the female version of The Hangover,” Bridesmaids follows Annie (Kristen Wiig), a single woman and former owner of a bakery who is asked to be the Maid of Honor for her newly engaged best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph).  Along with the other bridesmaids, Rita (Wendi McLendon-Covey), Becca (Ellie Kemper), Megan (Melissa McCarthy), and Helen (Rose Byrne), Annie and Lillian take part in typical pre-wedding situations, such as picking dresses, the bachelorette party, and the bridal shower.  However, the constant competition between Annie and the wealthy perfectionist Helen, as well as the issues in Annie’s relationship life, lead to disastrous and humorous results at each event.

            I remember being quite apprehensive before the first time I saw Bridesmaids because at first glance it looked a little too “Sex and the City” and I’m not generally a huge fan of romantic-comedy.  However, I found it to be an extremely entertaining and well-written film, almost having more in common with films of the “gross-out” genre, such as Animal House or Superbad, than it did with romantic comedy films.  I think the idea that the appearance of the film is different than the content is one of the reasons why I find Bridesmaids so successful as a comedy.  The film contains lots of bright colors, and because it is about a wedding, there is also a lot of white to create a sense of purity.  However, the unique personalities of each of the bridesmaids add a raunchy, unexpected element to a typically refined situation.  The one line that leaves me in tears every time is when the bridesmaids are discussing a theme for the bridal shower in a Brazilian restaurant while Lillian is in the bathroom.  While throwing out ideas, Annie suggests a French theme to which all the women (except Helen) seem excited about.  Megan then responds, “I’m just going to snowball off of that and suggest Fight Club.”  A bridal shower where guests beat each other to the ground is a ridiculous suggestion, but Megan treats it very similar to the French theme. 

            I find the effectiveness of this joke, as well as the appearance vs. content distinction present throughout Bridesmaids, very similar to the incongruity theory of humor that Simon Critchley discusses in On Humour.  In this theory, Critchley says that, “humour is produced by the experience of a felt incongruity between what we know or expect to be the case, and what actually takes place in the joke, gag, jest or blague.” (Critchley 3).  Another example of this in Bridesmaids is the infamous dress shop scene, which is by far the most shocking scene in the film.  The women go to a very chic, pretentious bridal shop, and they can only get in because of Helen’s influence.  The entire shop is white and every dress they try on is outrageously expensive.  However, everyone except for Helen is struck with food poisoning for the Brazilian restaurant, resulting in Rita and Becca vomiting on each other in the bathroom and Megan being forced to use the sink.  Wearing a beautiful French wedding dress, Lillian tries to dash to a gas station but can only make it halfway across the street before disaster strikes, much to the dismay of the bridal shop owners.

            While this scene is indicative of the unexpected crudity in typically refined situations that runs rampant throughout Bridesmaids, this scene also relates to Critchley’s discussion of the body as a tool for humor.  Critchley argues that what makes us laugh is “the return of the physical into the metaphysical.”  In reference to scatological humor, the type of humor utilized in the bridal shop scene and the crudest expression of bodily humor, Critchley says that the “distinction between the metaphysical and the physical is explored in the gap between our souls and arseholes.” (Critchley 44).  Critchley relates this brand of humor back to a discussion of animality, and how the very direct physicality that allows us to think of ourselves as having a body instead of being a body is what makes us laugh during these scenes.  In Bridesmaids, the fact that the characters are in such a stereotypically pretentious, refined situation makes the scatological humor that much more effective and shocking for the audience.  I find Bridesmaids to be a very unique and entertaining take on the “gross-out” genre and it also contains clever writing and strong comic acting.  I would definitely recommend it.