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Spring is in the air, and that means along with the raging influx of ragweed comes the beginning of the dreaded wedding season. Now before I go any further, I fully admit that I'm hopelessly jaded when it comes to all matters of love, so when May and June roll around and my mailbox begins to overflow with wedding invitations, it takes everything I have inside me not to cryogenically freeze myself for three months or move to Mongolia to become a yak herder.
To make matters worse, this year not only do I have to deal with my friends making important decisions about their futures together (like whether or not they should put the Majestic Yellow KitchenAid mixer on their registry), I also have to contend with the relentless advertising campaign for the new film Made of Honor.
The comedy -- which Joel McHale and the other geniuses at E!'s The Soup point out looks like every other wedding movie ever made (see clip below) -- centers around Patrick Dempsey and his quest to fulfill his duty as his female best friend's MOH (which stands for "maid of honor" and should not be confused with "'mo," which is me and most likely you). As Dempsey tries to behave like a good, little MOH, he is simultaneously attempting to prove to said best friend that she should marry him, not the goober who proposed to her in the first place.
Trust me, it's not that I have a problem watching Dempsey light up the screen for 101 minutes (he isn't known as McDreamy for nothing, gang). But the movie's marketing campaign makes me want to break an entire shop full of Precious Moments figurines with a crowbar.
If it's not the tag line "It takes a real man to become a maid of honor" affronting me from every bus shelter and dilapidated building covered in the film's posters, it's the trailer playing every third minute on television. I cannot handle being exposed to even one more bit of "Oh, my God, you're a bridesmaid?! But you're a man!? And stop eating the potpourri, you big, butch thing! It's not Chex Mix -- it's for the bridal shower gift bags!" Sheer hilarity.
What it really comes down to is not the fact that I hate weddings, or begrudge people finding others they really care about and want to spend their lives with. I actually love that. It's the idea that men do this, and women do that, and whenever we decide to transgress those lines, not only is it comical, it's dangerous. The laughs for a movie like this stem from our collective inability to understand that just because men and women have done things a certain way for a really long time doesn't mean that it has to stay that way, or that it's the right way to do it. It's one more instance where we see -- even in 2008 -- not acting like a man is something to make fun of and fear, and when all is said and done, is only OK if it results in -- or can only be remedied by -- scoring some snatch. Moreover, ideas like this leave gays out in the cold. How are we supposed to get where we fit in when the entire affair is built on a pile of sexist, homophobic traditions?
I love a good romantic (straight even!) comedy as much as the next fag. Give me a ridiculous setup, throw in a few outlandish obstacles, and wrap it up with an incredibly implausible yet totally satisfying ending, and I'm there. Just please don't make me choke down the same old tired, disappointing dogma with my milk duds.
And if the above ranting and raving hasn't scared you off weddings all together, head over to CineQueer and check out their timeline of gay weddings on TV. It's all there, from Roseanne's boss Leon marrying his partner, Scott, to Patty getting hitched to her girlfriend, Veronica, on The Simpsons.
-- NOAH MICHELSON
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