Girls on Film: Girls, Guys, and Grossness

A week ago, Variety threw up an editorial called "Can girls out-gross guys at box office?" I felt naive thinking: "Is that really a question anymore?" The mere fact that this is being asked shows that it still holds relevance. But it shouldn't. If women have proved one thing over the years, it's that comedy doesn't require a penis and testosterone.

Whether women get the chance to prove their gross-out talents, however, is another story.

But first: What is this thing called "gross-out comedy"? Isn't it when gross or shocking things come into play? The sweaty, hairy wrassling match from Borat, the spermy hair gel from There's Something About Mary, the arse-tacular baseball from Squeeze Play -- these are scenes that make you squirm, gasp, gape, and laugh. Now, however,"gross-out" is becoming a catch-all phrase for any comedy that gets an R. CBS News even used Sex and the City in its "Rise of the Gross-Out Comedy" because it includes sex humor and an R rating.

Isn't there a big difference between frank and humorous references of sex and the shock factor? Alyson Hannigan didn't become the Band Dork Queen by talking about slipping into a boy's sleeping bag after dark. She reigned for taking it to the over-the-top and illogical step of using a flute in a new way.

To equate all R-rated comedies with gross-out fare confuses the issue. Of course, there are lines that become blurred. What was gross 20 or 30 years ago might seem like nothing now. And then there are moments where earnestness and discussion dull the impact. Had Alyssa's description of lesbian sex in Chasing Amy been a punch-line, it would've been a definite moment of gross-out humor. But its earnest delivery made it more naturally funny (in contrast to, say, the end of Clerks 2).

So, what about women and grossness?

They've been proving their raunch and gross-out abilities for years. Does anyone think Betty White just woke up one day and got saucy? She's more raunchy than gross-out, but she tows the line when one thinks of a grandma-type saying things like: "If I had a dick, this is the part where I'd tell you to go suck it." Meanwhile, Amy Heckerling brought us the classic Fast Times at Ridgemont High in 1982; Sarah Silverman has broken through the barriers of accepted "decency" innumerable times; and as I mentioned above: Hannigan held her gross own in the American Pie series. ... just to mention a few.

The talent has been proven, so what's the hold-up? Kirsten Smith (The Ugly Truth) told Variety that there's an issue behind the scenes: "A few years ago, after a studio executive asked them to 'go crazy' and 'be as raunchy as you can be' in a script, [Karen McCullah] Lutz and Smith took him at his word, only to have the 'appalled' executive tell them they'd gone too far, Smith recalls."

I would say that's directly related to what many consider women's gross-out fare.

There can never be equal footing when faulty comparisons are used. Sex and the City, The Ugly Truth, Juno -- these are not gross-out films like the Farrelly brothers have become famous for. To consider them equal sets them up to fail because lining a naked body with sushi or wearing a French tickler is not the same as semen in the hair or Jeff Daniels' urgent need to hit the toilet. This perpetuates a guise of female daintiness rather than pitting the right scenes and performances against each other.

What's most interesting about this whole conundrum is the fact that gross-out humor revels in the shock, yet few employ the shock-value of having women get crude. It's right there on a silver-platter -- laughs waiting for those not expecting women to get gross.

Can women out-gross men? Certainly, if given the chance. But it will never happen if romcoms with R ratings are used to gauge the possibility.

What do you think about this whole question, and which moments of female crudeness do you remember most?