Week 7 Project
I feel Pretty
I chose Topic #4 for blog project #2. With the help of my fifteen year old niece we decided on "I feel Pretty." This was actually my second time watching it because I had previously seen it in theaters with my best friend. My best friend was the one who originally told me about the movie and wanted to go and after I saw a few commercials and trailers I was down to see it. It seemed like a movie I could really relate to in multiple ways which I'll touch more on in later sections.
Some Info & Background
- Marc Silverstein. One of the directors of the film. Coincidentally he's married to Busy Phillips who played one of Schumers best friends. He's a producer, writer, and director. A few of the movies he was a writer for were: Never Been Kissed, He's just not that into you, and The Vow. I feel Pretty is the first feature length film he has directed.
- Abby Kohn. One of the directors of the film. What's funny is when I looked her up after Marc I realized that they pretty much always work on the exact same films. Their resumes are practically identical according to IMDB.com. So she is also a writer, producer, and director.
- Amy Schumer is a pretty well-known actress, but she is also a writer. She is from New York and recently got married this year in February to her husband Chris Fischer. She wrote and starred in Train Wreck, and also wrote, starred in and created the show, Inside Amy Schumer which was aired on Comedy Central. She is also a stand-up comedian, which I think is what primarily led her to the bigger roles.
- "I feel Pretty." It is focused on the life of Renee Bennett (Schumer) who works in a hidden away office for a giant luxury makeup brand, Lily LeClaire, while struggling with her body image and low self-esteem. Something happens and now Renee is seeing exactly what she has been dreaming of, a perfect face and body. She gains an incredible unbreakable new self-confidence and is having fun, enjoying life, dating, but...So, what happens? Well, I cannot reveal any more of the movie without giving the story away.
I have noticed Amy Schumer is frequently somewhat vulgar, curses a lot, and is probably considered offensive to some people. Makes for a perfect stand-up comedian :P. This movie was a bit different from clips I have seen or her show on Comedy central. I felt it showed a sort of more relatable regular everyday women and a real side of her. But, still remained hilarious. I have never actually seen the movie "Train Wreck," but I did watch two trailers, one which I included below. From watching these two trailers I would say there are some similarities between the two like female comedians who play her friends, and the whole love/happy ending, and maybe a few other little things.
Here's a trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_KP9x80Z9Q
Here's a trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_KP9x80Z9Q
As for the genre, it was in the comedy genre and a movie that came to mind even though it is very different was "13 going on 30" (2004). It reminded me of "13 going on 30" because they both see and experience "a new world" for themselves both partially based on what they had wished for. She gets that awesome body she wanted, an amazing boyfriend, and her dream job. So, I see many similarities in that way.
It also reminded me of the movie "Shallow Hal" (2001). In "Shallow Hal," Hal gets trapped in an elevator with Tony Robbins and Tony makes it so Hal can only see people's inner beauty due to how disgustingly shallow Hal is. Hal falls for Rosemary who is actually a 300 lb. woman and wouldn't normally be his type, but he doesn't/can't see that. When he finally is able to see the real Rosemary he is admittedly shocked, but he loves her for who she is and he's truly happy with her. So, this movie had that same strange instance of seeing and perceiving things that in a sense were not what they seemed. But finding happiness in the end.
It also reminded me of the movie "Shallow Hal" (2001). In "Shallow Hal," Hal gets trapped in an elevator with Tony Robbins and Tony makes it so Hal can only see people's inner beauty due to how disgustingly shallow Hal is. Hal falls for Rosemary who is actually a 300 lb. woman and wouldn't normally be his type, but he doesn't/can't see that. When he finally is able to see the real Rosemary he is admittedly shocked, but he loves her for who she is and he's truly happy with her. So, this movie had that same strange instance of seeing and perceiving things that in a sense were not what they seemed. But finding happiness in the end.
Interpretation
I think films like this are important for multiple reasons. After learning how few female directed movies there are, not to mention female led movies, I was happy to see that at least one half of the director/writing team was a woman. So, with the cast and director being primarily female that's a step in the right direction. It is important that we make films to appeal to the other half of the population, it's important that their ideas and creativity are heard, it's important that women be seen as not just extras, hoes, and bitches in movies. But as leaders, innovators, comedians, teachers, scientists, nurturers and so, so much more. It's also important that women are able to see that they don't need to live by these bullshit standards that are set all around us, more and more everyday. That we can just be ourselves and be confident and be happy; that we make mistakes, are goofy and embarrassing, or clumsy. Films like this help remind people we're all human. Sure there's some silliness to the movie, but that's okay. It's okay for it to be playful and satirical too.
There are many trends from our culture reflected in this movie, mostly negative ones, like the way some of the people react when they see Renee working as the receptionist. They are nasty to her, look her up and down, and question why she is even there to begin with just because of the way she looks and the way they look. There's a scene somewhere near the beginning where Renee is shopping in a store and the sales associate comes up and says "are you shopping for a gift?" Renee says no, so the sales associate says "So sizing is a little limited in the store, but you could probably find your size online." The fact that stores don't even practically sell clothes that are made for anyone over a size 2...while I am exaggerating, it is not by much. Honestly there was so much realness and truths from our culture, when I was relating to this movie, half the time I was in tears. Heres a quote from Amys character that is spot on: "I have a crazy idea, lets be honest for a minute. No matter how many times we hear, "it's whats on the inside that matters," women know deep down it's whats on the outside that the whole world judges." She couldn't be more right.
I would say the target audience was primarily women. I would figure the age range it would appeal to would most likely be mid 20's to early 40's. But as I have mentioned my fifteen year old niece was also very eager to see it as well.
I suppose it does include a few stereotypes such as that skinny modelesque girls are rude, that rich people are ignorant, that rich attractive men think they can have whoever they want, and when someone does become popular they tend to ditch their old friends for their new crowd. While none of its messages I perceived as offensive, I didn't really see hardly any reviews that claimed it was. Such as someone I mention below, Peter Travers, he seems to think people will be offended by the plus-size jokes or that it is not okay to joke about it. Either way of course someone or some group was offended by this movie. Everything is offensive to someone, especially these days.
Evaluation
One of the strengths of this movie is that people see her as more beautiful when she is more confident, enforcing the saying about confidence being a very attractive attribute. Another strength is the way it related to regular everyday women. Whether in a big way or even if it was just in small ways such as what might be considered her awkward personality or being different, not just that perfect personality with the answer to everything that we are used to from movies. There's the fact that shes not stick thin, she will curse, she eats regular food, and she's realistic. Even when she's mentioning women buying the cheaper makeup and explaining that we expect a brush with a compact if we pay $8 bucks. Her friends were realistic, her soon to be boyfriend was realistic, just her dialogue was relatable! I can relate to so much of this movie, I am going to be honest in saying I used to be about 60 lbs heavier and still struggle now, so I really get where she's coming from. I am also poor (haha) so I can also relate to buying cheap makeup, having not finished my laundry and stuck wearing swimming bottoms. I can relate to the challenges of online dating and just dating in your late 20's and onward. I can relate to the struggles with insecurity and seeing everyone else around you as so much better, so much more beautiful...
I enjoyed watching this movie, even enough to watch it again with my niece. It's not the best movie I have ever seen, but I could heavily relate to some scenes, it was funny, and I had a good time watching it. I haven't seen too many episodes of "Inside Amy Schumer," I haven't seen "Trainwreck," and I haven't seen much of her other work either honestly therefore I can't say if it's her best work or not. However, after watching the trailer for Trainwreck I feel like this movie was probably quite a bit better, but that's just my opinion. So many movies are released every month of every year I feel it can be somewhat easy to forget a film especially if you watch a lot of movies, which I do. I feel it will be somewhat memorable for a few years depending on how her acting career goes and what roles she chooses.
The reviews for this movie were a bit mixed I would say. On Facebook the movie is rated a 4.5 out of 5 stars. According to Rotten Tomatoes the audience average rated score was 33% which is "liked it." The movie scored a 34% on their Tomatometer which was an average of all the critics scores, but a lot of their Top Critics didn't seem to think it was very good. One example is from Christopher Orr of The Atlantic, "This movie, premised on the idea that self-esteem trumps physical beauty, doesn't even believe in the product it's selling." Or Peter Travers from Rolling Stone magazine who said "Amy Schumer is always fun company. But who the hell thought that making plus-size jokes then simply tacking on a moralizing ending was hilarious? Or acceptable?"
There were some pretty good positive reviews as well such as this one written by Erin Jensen of USA Today: https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2018/04/18/feel-pretty-movie-backlash-amy-schumer/523040002/.
"The truth is, I feel pretty confident and capable after seeing Amy Schumer's new film in spite of early criticism," said Jensen.
Here's one more positive review written by Amy Nicholson for Rolling Stone magazine:
https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-news/why-amy-schumers-i-feel-pretty-is-quietly-revolutionary-627801/
"Critics have attacked the comedy as "shameful"- but what the movie is saying about beauty standards (and self image) is subversive as hell," wrote Nicholson. I really liked this part written at the bottom of that review "Maybe Schumer will go on to make the films people seem to want her to make, where a regular girl gets a regular rom-com happy arc. That would be revolutionary too. But shes brave enough to show us her scars. Wanting her to cover them up is just another demand for a woman to show her best face."
Engaging
Well, Amy Schumer is on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AmySchumer/ she has 2.6 million followers. On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amyschumer/?hl=en she has 7.1 million followers and on Twitter: https://twitter.com/amyschumer where she has 4.7 million followers.
As for the two directors and writers of the film, Marc Silverstein and Abby Kohn I could not find any social media accounts for them. As for their other works, I have seen "Never Been Kissed" and "He's just not that into you."
I did not go out and buy any other works from these artists currently, but I'd definitely be willing to see her next movie and possibly one of the directors as well if they make another. My sister actually purchased this film on Amazon Prime Video so they can watch it anytime, that's actually how I watched it the second time, as the first was in theaters. My best friend who originally wanted me to go with her to see it in theaters is a huge fan of Amy Schumer's and loved the movie just as much as me and related just as much too according to her. My niece and sister both enjoyed it as well and are also both fans of Amy. They all agreed that they would all be willing to check out her next movie and or TV show.
Ending
I enjoyed watching this movie both times. I know not everyone is a fan of Amy Schumer, and I don't really care if you are or aren't. I was pleased to see a movie that starred a woman and her troubles. I was also pleased to see that this movies double directors team is half female. I think it would be wise for more movie producers to aim their movies at the other half of the audience instead of so one sided. There's not a lot more left to be said at this point, so I think this is where I'll end it.
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