Comments on: Ricky Gervais likes Girls and Girls Like Status http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2009/11/06/ricky-gervais-likes-girls-and-girls-like-status/ Responses to Media and Culture Fri, 12 Feb 2016 19:35:04 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.7.5 By: Matt Sienkiewicz http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2009/11/06/ricky-gervais-likes-girls-and-girls-like-status/comment-page-1/#comment-53 Sun, 15 Nov 2009 08:12:32 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=71#comment-53 Part of this is the films incredibly messy premise I suppose. Her awfulness is supposed to be explained by having to be ‘honest’ although it’s not clear why this compels people to say every horrible notion that crosses their minds.

This discussion is missing the other side of this genre’s romantic formulas though: The BAD Boyfriend who is always very handsome and a total jerk, ala Rob Lowe here.

The overall message seems to be something along the lines of: Super Hot Girls would know that Pudgy Guys are best if they weren’t corrupted by Super Hot Guys who, deep down, really are unredeemable jerks. In some ways this is the most dismissive aspect of the whole thing, although I guess nobody feels too bad about good looking men getting a hard time in The Wedding Singer or whatever.

]]> By: Rebecca Bley http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2009/11/06/ricky-gervais-likes-girls-and-girls-like-status/comment-page-1/#comment-49 Sat, 14 Nov 2009 21:18:56 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=71#comment-49 I had similar complaints about this movie. At one point, Gervais’ character says something along the lines of, “She’s the kindest person on Earth” – which is basically the opposite of anything we’ve seen thus far in the film. He has fallen in love with her based on her looks, before really knowing her, and is dismayed when she judges him based on his looks.

]]> By: Jonathan Gray http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2009/11/06/ricky-gervais-likes-girls-and-girls-like-status/comment-page-1/#comment-4 Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:43:32 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=71#comment-4 I haven’t seem the film, but these types of narratives always seem to suffer from a fatal flaw — if the message is that pudgy guys can still get the beautiful girl, if the girl is so shallow that his pudginess is a barrier in the first place, it doesn’t say much for the “conquest”: good for you, pudgy guy, you got a shallow person to fall in love with you. Or perhaps it’s the dream of re-education: pudgy guys are invited to imagine their success at re-educating “hot girls” to look beyond looks; yet, as you point out, how convenient that the re-education is for the women, not the pudgy guys who think they’re too cool for pudgy girls.

]]>