For the record, I followed the catch-and-release protocol.

Salient quotation: “There it is, right in the DNA: women get penalized by insecure men for being too independent.” Who wants an insecure man, anyway? Surely not Dowd herself, who obviously ignores the realpolitik advice from the how-to-catch-a-husband crowd that would-be husband-catchers are sarcastic at their own peril.

The single women I know are single because they, like Dowd, probably, don’t want to settle for any old schlub who comes along. Feminism has afforded us the luxury of being picky.

Rene

I find them boring because they generally are not about women at all … they are about what women are told they should be like. Yeah, I dug Norma Rae, Coal Miner’s Daughter, and Erin … but that’s because these were stories about the REAL lives of EXTRAORDINARY women. No pretty woman bullshit, no working girl garbage. Real. Women. Thelma and Louise was fictional, but it also rocked because the characters were realistic, if twisted into high mayhem fantasy gear.

I don’t like women who are cockwhipped in my movies. Pathetic. So much better to see gals that don’t play by “The Rules”, and question the whole “gotta getta man to make the movie perfect – most important thang ya know!”

Which is exactly the problem with the MoDo article, which I did read. Nowhere is it ever questioned that one does not need a man. Want a man? Desire a man? Yearn for a fellow egalitarian traveller? Sure. Need? Not. Something I read as a young teen always stuck with me. An elderly spinster was asked why she never married. Her reply? “It takes an awfully good husband to be better than no husband at all”.

Hear Hear.

Yeah, I thought whatsername was just a little cuter a few pounds heavier, but maybe it’s just that I read the book and found the character engaging enough. I never actually saw the movie, now that you mention it. I did see her picture though – before, during, after, and again during and after. What a crazy phenomenon that is: weight as a character attribute. An ex-fashion/advertising photographer pal of mine pointed out a spread in Vogue she did after the first movie and speculated that it was simply done to prove to those in the business that the weight gain was indeed deliberate and just a temporary professional sacrifice and she was over it and could safely be considered for new roles.

Buffalo Gal: Catch and release! That’s hilarious! You can’t avoid a certain amount of inconvenience and harm, but you don’t have to kill them just because they took the bait, poor bastards. Sure it’s cruel & all, but if they’re any kind of smart, they’ll learn from the experience and maybe they won’t go for such a shallow come-on the next time.