Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
It’s no secret that women have had to fight their way to the front lines of comedy; growing up, I remember constantly seeing male-led flicks left and right, and wondering where us females might fit into all of this. There’d been rom-coms, sure, but what about a buddy comedy fronted by broads? My freshman year of high school, I finally found what I’d been looking for. Baby Mama, starring Amy Poehler and Tina Fey, became something of a sensation among the girls in my class. We quoted it constantly, rewatched it on a seemingly endless loop for the remainder of our time in school. Baby Mama is by no means the first female-led comedy ever (or the best), but it remains seared in my mind as an introduction to the singular delight of the funny female duo. And for that reason, I’ll always love it.
With an all-star cast including Fey, Poehler, Sigourney Weaver, Steve Martin, Dax Shepard, Greg Kinnear, and, briefly, a baby-faced Jason Mantzoukas, Baby Mama is seemingly set up for success – but the film really belongs to our leading ladies. We have a meet-cute of female friends, though the initial affection quickly wears off and we soon see the true colors of both Kate and Angie, the rigid executive and the immature surrogate – and it’s so much fun to watch. Baby Mama is at its best when the two are engaged in a playful back-and-forth (it hurts to watch them fight), but there’s so much about the highs and lows of it all that rings true. Until that point, I’d only ever seen guys afforded the opportunity to run the show, throw around raunchy jokes, and fall into moral grey areas. Watching women do it was an eye-opening thrill that still gets me.
This isn’t really about how great or flawed the movie is, but about what it meant for me to see that this kind of comedy led by women. It’s earnest, it’s crass, it’s contentious, it’s unapologetic about the desire for a family and the desire for sex. Here, women get the chance to be weird, unpredictable messes, uptight, neurotic, and ambitious. There’s delightfully shameless vulgarity (“I think she wants me to rub olive oil on your taint”, “I’m sorry I farted in your purse”), hilariously cringeworthy moments of bonding (“Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” karaoke), and the sincere, moving moment of reconciliation in the end we come to expect with these kinds of comedies.
We’ve now entered something of a golden age of comedies about female friendship, what with Bridesmaids, Girls Trip, and even Pitch Perfect, and it seems like we’re only going to get more of the like. Babies and mamas aside, there’s something inherently female about Baby Mama, some elusive quality the film boasts that other comedies led by men haven’t necessarily been able to crack. Fey and Poehler’s electric chemistry obviously has something to do with why the movie succeeds, even at its weakest moments, but the general conceit – that women benefit in unexpected ways from being around each other – is one worth celebrating.
