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Male and Female Buddy Films
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Male buddy films have played a significant role throughout the history of film. This genre is elastic enough to include everything from “Some Like It Hot” and “The Man Who Would Be King” to “Easy Rider” and “Swingers”. They are all essentially stories about male bonding and bluntly put: an all-male romantic comedy. The plot is always the same. Two extremely different men are thrown together and have their relationship tested by events until they discover an unlikely affinity. This forges a bond of friendship that replaces the customary boy-girl sexual relationship. In many ways, male buddy films serve as a necessary escape fantasy where men can openly express their feelings for each other. Here is a list of other elements used in buddy films: The relationship is either cross generational, cross racial, or both. There is an element of “rescue” where one of the heroes helps the other out, and in the process he ends up being rescued from his past as well. There is a break away from the civilizing agent where the two are “apart” from society or outside the boundaries in some obvious way. Women are clearly problematic, either posing future trouble or reasons for escape. They exist more as an impetus for action than as flesh-and-blood characters, and they are brought in and out of the plot as needed or not. There is usually some brother type bonding between the two characters that is often interestingly intimate. Buddy films have always been a man’s world or should I say had always been a man’s world. This brings me to female buddy films. For decades Hollywood has been putting out female buddy films which got very little attention comparatively.... that is until 1989’s Steel Magnolias”. In female buddy films women are brought together by traditional concerns such as men, children, and, occasionally careers. Female buddy films have remained consistent in theme over the years. Even if you go back to the Bible where women rarely went beyond their yards, you will find stories like that of Sarah and Hagar fighting over Abraham. Here are some elements I found in female buddy films: The women are brought together by a calamity that arises out of illness, not out of character.
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