Trainwreck and Mad Max feature strong female leads
Not a rom-com · Trainwreck, starring Amy Schumer, rejects the typical boy-meets-girl romantic comedy storyline. Schumer’s character is against monogamy until she meet’s Bill Hader’s character Adam. – Photo courtesy of Universal Studios
Going back to school means looking forward to the fall, but sometimes we can’t — or more appropriately, shouldn’t — look toward the future until we take a moment to reflect on what has happened in the past. This summer has been filled with plenty of hits and misses in the cinematic landscape, but the issue of progress in film for women is still left unanswered.
Comedian Amy Schumer’s Trainwreck was a definite summer hit to take into consideration; Schumer’s spin on the romantic comedy is a noteworthy example of a modern application of the genre. It’s no secret that the classic rom-com has long since come and gone — what little attempt studios make in following the boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-gets-girl-backundoubtedly ends in disaster (case in point: 2015’s The Rewrite starring Hugh Grant or 2014’s That Awkward Moment with Zac Efron). Trainwreck, written by Schumer and directed by Hollywood funnyman and USC alumnist Judd Apatow, however, has paved a new way in the genre by using an extremely radicalized and liberated female lead. Schumer’s character not only rejects “classic love” (her father teaches her “monogamy isn’t realistic” from a very young age ) but also continually subverts it. Though she is dating a strong, meaty guy — the type who’d seemingly have a dozen other girls in his proverbial little black book — Amy is the one who ends up breaking up the relationship by way of infidelity. Furthermore, Amy is confused when the guy states he’s upset that she’s seeing other people but feels little remorse when the relationship is over.
The ease with which her character moves on from her breakup illustrates a female lead who is not obsessive post-breakup — as so many women are often depicted on-screen — but rather, ok with independence. Later, when Amy begins to date Bill Hader’s sports doctor character Aaron, she finds herself increasingly paranoid that the women Aaron treats — beautiful, athletic and short-skirted Knicks City Dancers — are a threat to their relationship. But in a final Thelma and Louise-esque “we’re all in this together” progressive feminist twist, Amy asks for help from the dancers to choreograph a number that will hopefully reunite her and Aaron at the end of the film. Therefore, not only does the fact that Schumer stars in a film that she herself has written — female leads and female screenwriters in big-budget studio films are not only rare individually, but almost unheard of paired together — but she’s also created a plot that revolutionizes what can be expected from romantic comedies and women alike.
Mad Max: Fury Road — an earlier summer blockbuster — was a similarly feminist beacon of light this year. What appeared to be a male-oriented, high-octane, turbo-driven, Tom Hardy-led action blockbuster actually turned out to be a wildly surprising and progressive action flick headed by a startlingly strong and fierce Charlize Theron. Upon the first few minutes, the movie seems to be about Tom Hardy’s masked, shackled and illiterate Mad Max character, but as soon as Charlize’s Furiosa enters the frame, it’s clear that she is the main event. Not only does she save Max from being captured by the brutal Warlord and his henchmen several times throughout the film, but she also saves the Warlord’s enslaved five wives and declares the only way to freedom is to find and seek refuge in the “Green Place” — a land occupied entirely by women.
On top of all that, she does all this with only one arm.
Fury Road was a shining example of a big budget studio film with all the makings of being a testosterone filled slammer that actually turned into a beautiful and jarring tour de force of female action and definite assertion of power. Though director George Miller, who is now 70 years old and four films into the franchise, may seem too old-school, he’s proven with the latest Mad Max that he is anything but that.
These two films were examples of strikingly progressive cinema releases that startled audiences and delighted critics alike. They should be regarded as positive influences within the film industry for female empowerment and general equality.
Of course, no summer is without its low moments of marginalization (think Pitch Perfect 2 and Aloha), so it doesn’t mean we are in the clear yet. With time, however, comes even more progress, and now that we’ve done a cursory look behind us, it’s time to prepare for an exciting fall lineup of films. Brit Marling in The Keeping Room is a notable film to watch, as is Sundance Film Festival hit The Bronze — an apparently raunchy female comedy, like Schumer’s Trainwreck, written by and starring a woman. There’s potential for some great material, and we have Trainwreck and Mad Max to thank.
Minnie Schedeen is a junior majoring in critical studies. Her column, “Film Fatale,” runs every other Tuesday.