Fiona's Blog: Top Five Reasons to See "Bridesmaids"

1. The unconventional plot. Don’t see Bridesmaids if you’re looking for two hours of Bridezilla drama. It is not a horror movie about the transformation women supposedly go through when they get married. No one turns into a massive control freak overnight and pulls out her best friend's extensions on wedding day. Sorry to disappoint you, avid WEtv watchers.Instead, Bridesmaids follows a different, more unconventional mold. It’s the story of a really funny bride-to-be and her really funny friend and her ridiculous group of bridesmaids, who include a middle-aged jaded mother and a fight-club loving, sexually adventurous nuclear engineer. That brings me to reason two:2. The characters. They are weird. So weird. I’m definitely partial to Megan, the sister-in-law of the bride-to-be, who suggests a fight club-themed bridal shower and ferociously hits on the plane’s air marshal when the group heads to Vegas, but all the characters are great. The bride-to-be (Maya Rudolph) is funny and relatable and torn between her childhood best friend (Kristen Wiig) and her husband’s boss’s glamorous trophy wife (Rose Byrne). These two character figure centrally in the plot, and are both done perfectly. Helen, the bride’s new friend, is a ridiculous caricature of an effortlessly beautiful woman. She wears exceedingly over-the-top gowns and outfits in nearly every scene and sends out invitations to the bridal shower that have live butterflies in them. In contrast, Annie, the bride’s childhood friend, is a train wreck with a failed cake business and a relationship with a guy who refers to her as his “number three.” Both characters take their parts to the limit and beyond, making the movie.3. The pooping. There is a major poop scene in Bridesmaids, which may or may not involve pooping in a sink and in the middle of the street. For all of you out there gasping, “What? Girls don’t poop!” rumor has it that the scene is actually based on reality, and that women, do in fact defecate. I’ll give you a minute to take that in.4. The body positive humor.

Megan, the nuclear engineer sister-in-law, is a character made to laugh at. She’s loud, sexually provocative, incredibly awkward, and has an insane perception of the world. She’s also fat. It would have been very easy for the writers of Bridesmaids to focus much of the Megan humor on her weight, but most of the humor surrounding Megan is not based on the shape of her body.

Yes, making Megan heavy was obviously a deliberate choice, but Megan’s weight does not define her character. She is in no way, just the fat girl. When Megan propositions the air marshal sitting next to her, you can’t help but laugh because of the ridiculous way she uses her body. Looking back on the scene, I know realize I wasn’t laughing because she is fat, I was laughing because she is funny. If anyone is laughed at for their appearance in the movie, it is Helen, the thin, ethereal, over-the-top glamorous trophy wife, who is often made fun of for looking perfect and being beautiful.5. The Kristen Wiig-ness of it all. I’ve got to be honest. I love Kristen Whig. The woman is talented. And, there’s nothing I like more than some good Kristen Wiig dancing. Bridesmaids has got it all: some funky dancing, some wrestling, some more funky dancing, some topless driving, a little singing, and a maid-of-honor speech in fake Spanish.Go see Bridesmaids!Fiona Lowenstein is a high school junior, weekly guest blogger and Girls Leadership Institute alumna. Read more of her work here.