It goes like this. The protagonist is a strong, independent woman who is, by some people’s definition, a little uptight. Then, about halfway to three quarters through the movie, she gets drunk. This is played for laughs and is a way of “humanizing” her. See? She’s not a frigid bitch after all! This ploy is used in Two Weeks Notice, 27 Dresses, and 10 Things I Hate About You, among others.
Here’s my problem with it. Why do strong women need to be “humanized” when strong men do not? When men get drunk in comedies, it isn’t to “humanize” them. It’s just another day in the life of the typical man-child comedy character. But by rom-com conventions, women who are strong must be made vulnerable to be attractive to the man (so he can take care of her), and this is usually achieved by overindulgence in alcohol. Wouldn’t it be great to see a rom-com where the woman is independent and the guy loves her for it? (And she loves him because he can do his own laundry and isn’t a disaster in the kitchen) Where she doesn’t have to be taken care of by him, nor he by her, but they realize they have a mutual respect and admiration for each other and thus decide to be together?
The other problem I have with this trend is the drunkenness itself. I hate when comedies portray alcohol and drug use as funny. Every experience I’ve had with drunk people has been the opposite of funny. From sexual and physical assault to drunk driving, we all know the extreme ills of drunkenness. But on a smaller scale, drunk people are just annoying. They think they’re funny when they’re not. They’re loud and obnoxious, and whenever I’m around one I want to punch them in the face. Or, if I know them personally, I worry about them and end up being put in a mothering position, like when I'm worried they're going to fall out a five story window or that they've been slipped the date rape drug.
When I was in Australia, I shared a hostel room with some girls in Sydney. Two of them were friends of friends who I hadn’t met. One night, I went to bed early while the others went clubbing. I woke up the next morning to discover one of the friends of a friend had brought some guy back with her that she’d met at the bar. He was sleeping not ten feet away from me. It was the most pissed off I had ever been up to that point in my life. I had to leave the room so I wouldn’t get violent.
If you want to make bad decisions like getting wasted and bringing a strange man back to your hostel room, go for it. Become a statistic. But not when you’re sharing the room with other people. He could have been a killer or rapist or thief. And even if he was a nice guy, so what? It was the epitome of disrespect. And she did it because she was drunk. (At least, I hope she would have had better judgment sober.)
I’m not a teetotaler. There’s nothing inherently wrong with alcohol and I enjoy a shot of Bailey’s as much as the next person, but losing control is not funny and it’s not attractive in either sex. Unfortunately there’s a vein of pseudo-feminism that suggests taking on the bad habits that were once “male” tendencies is a feminist thing to do. Some things that are traditionally considered “guy things” are not worth taking up in the name of feminism. Getting shitfaced is one of them. Be an interesting enough woman that you’re funny sober, and be strong enough to do what you want without “liquid courage.” That’s true feminism.