Romantic Comedy Sidekicks

Sidekicks are an integral part of any romantic comedy. In part three of their rom com series, Cristen and Caroline examine the ways these sometimes neurotic, sometimes wise secondary characters trade on stereotypes to shape the protagonists' world.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:20):
Google Play, Spotify, and anywhere you get your podcast. Welcome
to Stuff Mob Never Told You From how stup works
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen

(00:40):
and I'm Caroline. And this is part three of our
summer series on romantic comedies. That right, And this one
is dedicated to the Sidekick Yes, and I'm dedicating it
personally and specifically to Judy Greer. Oh, she's the Queen
of the Sidekicks. She is the Sidekick Queen. And there
was this great article that we read about her um

(01:04):
It was published right after she wrote her book I
Don't Know Where You Know Me from? Yes, And and
that the title is derived from her actual life because
people are always coming up to her saying I know
you from something, And she's gotten so adept at being
able to judge based on the person's age and other
factors what movie you know her from, because she's been

(01:27):
in a million romantic comedies in addition to some things
that are just ROMs or just calms or some DRAMs
even um. But she's fascinating and her career perspective is
refreshing when especially coming from someone in Hollywood, because she's
really focused on just furthering and building her career steadily

(01:49):
rather than the meteoric rise of some huge blockbuster celebrity.
And that's translated into a really relatively for Hollywood anyway,
long career. Yeah, I mean, and she has starred in
some films like The Descendants. She I don't know if
it's still on the air, but she was starring on

(02:10):
f X is Married, which is a sitcom where she
does play more of a straight man to the husband's character. Um.
But in one of those interviews I was reading with her,
she was joking about how she has been a sidekick
to all the Jennifers and at one point it was
just her plan to see if she could work her

(02:30):
way through like all of the Kates and Rachel's. And
then when she's basically just gotten all of the the
names out of the way, she could retire because she's
made a really profitable career for herself as every single
rom coms sidekick. Yeah, and I don't know, I don't
know what it is. I think she's she's able to

(02:52):
play sensitive and vulnerable, She's able to play caddie and snarky.
She's able to play just about anything, includeing the character
on Arrested Development with the cross sided nipples Kitty. Yeah,
she's able to play completely off the wall. Um. And
before we came in the studio, Caroline, I was googling

(03:12):
around for a few final sidekick thoughts and ran across
a Hello Giggles slide show about sidekicks who deserve their
own movies, and Judy Greer characters were in three of them.
So it was Judy Greer in the Wedding Planner, Judy
Greer in thirteen going on thirty, and Judy Greer in Dresses,

(03:35):
which I think really the editors should have seen that
and said, hey, writer, why don't you just write a
longer essay about how much Judy Greer just needs her
own movie. Yeah? Well, you know what. I came into
the living room the other night. I had been working,
and uh, my boyfriend was watching What Women Want. I

(04:00):
didn't make him watch it. I didn't turn it on.
I didn't suggest we watch romantic comedies as research for
this series. Kristen, I walked into the living room and
he was just watching Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt Duke
get out screwball style in What Women Want? And Judy
Greer is in it. And Judy Greer is in doesn't

(04:20):
she play an assistant of some sort? She plays Aaron,
the nervous and mousie file assistant who Mel Gibson, after
being able to read women's minds, is really concerned that
she's going to hurt herself, so he like busts into
her apartment and they end up having like a really
emotional conversation and Aaron slash Judy feels like really validated. Finally, Um, yeah,

(04:42):
that's not a good movie. No, it's it's a morble movie.
And I have a feeling, because Judy Greer seems like
a really red lady. I have a feeling that if
she were just chatting with us, maybe off Mike, she
would also agree. Yeah, um. But there was an interview
with her from a few years back in Finery Twine
where they asked her her favorite rom com sidekick, and

(05:05):
you want to take a guess. Oh, oh, I feel
like a new No, I don't know, She said Kit
from Pretty Woman, because she liked her her favorite. I
thought you met her own character. Oh kids, pretty spunky. Yeah,
she liked Kit and also Sandy and Tutsie, which she
said was a bit of a stretch. And I sadly

(05:28):
have tried to watch Tutsie a kid, you know, three times.
What happens? I fell asleep every single time. I was
determined to watch it because deep cut. There is a
now deceased sadly podcast called Professor blast Off, and one
of the hosts on their Kyle Dunn again, what do

(05:49):
you knew? This? This funny Tutsie impression and loves the
movie Tutsi. And so one cabin weekend, I rented Tutsie
from the library. Ladies. It was like two years ago, okay,
And I tried to watch TITSI and fall asleep every

(06:10):
single time. It was like right after Dustin Hoffman would
walk out as Tutsie boom asleep. It just has this
effect on me. That's no. My college roommate and I
tried to watch um Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy about
three times before we finally stayed awake for it. We
like drink coffee. I mean, we were prepped. That's a
cute movie. Um, and I haven't read the books, I'm sorry.

(06:32):
But speaking of Titsie, though, there's another sidekick in that
movie who's always in this top sidekick list, which is
Bill Murray's character in that movie. And in the moment
when he calls Dustin Hoffman slash the lady character a
slut for being kissed by a dude. So you can
follow up on that, Caroline, But I was probably asleep

(06:55):
when it happened. It's been a long time since I've
seen TUTSI, so I can't add too much to that.
I will say one of my favorite sidekick couples um
is Just and Marie from When Harry Met Sally. In fact,
I at some points when I'm when I'm watching that
movie and really just more invested in Bruno Kirby and

(07:15):
Carrie Fisher, who start out as a sidekicks, but then
they get together and I really love their relationship. Because
of course Harry and Salary able to kind of play
off of them. But I find them such a more
believable couple than Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan. Yes, and
but that is the curse slash blessing of the sidekicks

(07:36):
plural uh. They are often allowed to be way more
human and flawed and believable and snarky and have a
diverse array of I don't know, ethnic backgrounds, weights, heights, personalities,
whatever than the leading couples tend to do. But then
the fact that a lot of times they aren't as

(07:58):
normatively attract especially if they're women, or maybe they're more overweight,
like a Jack Black in High Fidelity, Or then you
get into the territory of oh are we doing the
token black sidekick, token black friend who has bits of
knowledge knowledge to drop every now and then. Um, it's
a lot of times those differentiating factors that the film

(08:22):
subtly communicates are the reasons why they're not the leading
manner lady right like Janine Garofoli's character in Reality bites
like she's too sexual, she's too out there, she doesn't
have enough ambition, she works at the gap, so she
that character relegated to the sidekick role. I love that sentence.
She has too much ambition, she works at the gap.
Not enough ambition, Not enough ambition. I think such just

(08:45):
too much ambition, because if you were telling my fourteen
year old self would be like, heck, yeah, no, I
cannot fold sweater to save my life, so I could
not get a job at the Gap. Um. Who else?
What are some what are who are some of your
other favorites? Well, speaking of Janine Garofolo, I wanted to
know your thoughts about sidekick turned romantic lead in The

(09:07):
Truth About Cats and Dogs, because we walk into the
movie with obviously you know Janine Garofolo being more of
the sidekick, because she is more of a sidekick when
you size her up next to literally in figuratively, next
to and with Thurman, who's this model. She's a little
bit dumber in the film, and of course she has

(09:29):
to use her to get to the handsome guy with
the dog. Um, so what do you think about how
that sort of do you think it flips the whole
sidekick thing on its head a little bit? Yeah? I
mean there's also there's also so much of that typical
romantic comedy deception, so much of that Shakespearean deception um

(09:53):
where she does have to pretend that she is Zuma
Thurman and vice versa. Uh, but yeah, I think it's
as I think it's an interesting twist on putting the
sidekick as the main main role. In high school, one
of my favorite sidekicks was Lily Sobieski and Never Been Kissed.
She was Drew Barrymore's nerdy friend, and there's this line that,

(10:18):
for some reason my best friend and I thought was
so funny when she and Drew Barrymore go for a
fro yo or something like that for the first time,
and she gets really excited when Drew Barrymore asks or
what she wants to because she just has this laundry
list of things that starts off, I want to be
a painter, I want to be a potter, I want
to see the world like Drew Barrymore just falls in

(10:41):
love with her in that moment, and it's actually like
this really sweet moment of bonding because for Lily Sobieski's character,
she feels seen and accepted for the first time, which
may may or may not have been able to kind
of personally relate to when I was watching that myself.
In high school. Um, that's a movie whose rom com

(11:01):
deception I do not approve of at all. I think
it's super gross and creepy because, Okay said basically, if
you've never seen Never Been Kissed Drew Barrymore, you know
she had her own her character had her own nerdy
high school experience, and she grows up. She's a journalist
and she goes undercover in high school as a student
to get a story. I can't remember what the story was,

(11:23):
something about baseball. Her brother went back for baseball. I
don't know who's to say, but anyway, so she's playing
a student, but the whole movie is setting her up
to be the romantic interest and vice versa of Michael Vartan.
And then at the end, you know, Never Been Kissed,
they finally kissed, and it's like, you, Michael Vartan, you've

(11:45):
been a teacher this whole time and assuming that she's
a student, and now you're like, but he knew Caroline,
you know, when he thought she was a student, that
it couldn't work. Yeah, of course factors for sure. Don't
try to defend that. But it's like clueless, because I
think the clueless contains two of the very best lady
sidekicks one could ask for, with Dionne who it's hard

(12:07):
to say that she's even a sidekick because she's really
her own woman. But tie Griven with the homies come
on and r I p Brittany Murphy while we're at it, like,
she's so good because you have a magical makeover. She's
a sidekick, she's so loyal, But then she comes into
her own She does come into her own, yes, and
then she becomes a snide kick, yeah, telling Share that

(12:31):
you're nothing but a virgin who can't drive. Burn what
a burn? Well, and speaking of sidekick burns, I love
the meta moment in Roman and Michelle's high school reunion when,
which I did see from start to finish finally for
the first time in preparation for this series, Caroline, my

(12:53):
movie watching, I really caught up to, like, at least
I think now pop culture wise. Oh well, and you know,
the people, the people who follow us on Facebook are
demanding that we do a mystery science theater three thousand
style rom com watching. Yes, Yes, And I was like,
at first, I was skeptical that anyone would like stay
with us through that experience because it's a lot. I

(13:15):
mean the whole movie. It's like an hour and a half.
But but you know, if they'll do it, I'll do it.
We could try. We can always try. Have some cocktails.
But I love that moment where Romeo Michelle You'll pull
off on the side of the road and get in
a fight, all because of the sidekick burn where I
don't know if it's Lisa Kudro who says it first,

(13:38):
or Mia Sorvino who says I'm the Mary and you're
the road at you know, because they've been equals for
so long and they're like, no, I'm not. I can't
even do the accent. I wish I could have such
a perfect accent. But that's that's the moment. That's what
splits them up, one of them calling the other a sidekick.

(14:01):
You know, want your friend to call you a sidekick.
It's so hurtful, especially for two two ladies who are
just really you know, one and the same. I know
they haven't posted together together. Um So let's talk about though,
the purpose of the sidekick, because obviously there's such a

(14:22):
staple of the rom com formula that there must be
a reason they're there. Yeah, well, I mean you could again,
you could almost look back to Shakespeare or the whole
or even the Greek chorus part of Greek tragedies, you know,
having the characters there who provide the commentary, who provide

(14:44):
the context to help the audience understand how to feel.
I mean, that's essentially what a rom com sidekick is. Well,
there was that hilarious piece from mc sweeney's that you
sent me, a written from the perspective of a sidekick,
and one part of it says, even though of us
we've known each other since childbirth, I love taking those
long walks with you in the park where I ask

(15:06):
you to tell me in detail about you know, all
of these moments of your life that I was there
right alongside you and of course know all about. But
I just like it when you repeat them to me.
Oh and yeah, don't let me talk about myself. I
only only ever want to hear about you. And the
end was just the sidekick going home to cry herself

(15:27):
to sleep. But yeah, I mean, that whole supportive, unselfish
friend thing is definitely one aspect of the sidekicks purpose.
But they might also serve as a teacher or mentor.
They might serve as the sounding board. So when mel
Gibson is doing something terrible like listening to Lady Brains,

(15:49):
he's got his buddy there who hears all of the
stuff that mel Gibson is doing. And you know we
mentioned earlier that, hey, the sidekick is so appealing because
here she gets to be a mess. And Judith Roof,
who's another one of those romcom scholars that we've cited
so often in the series, already u in her book
All about Thelma and Eve Sidekicks and third Wheels, which

(16:12):
the preview for that on Google is is tragically brief. Um.
But Judith Roof argues that because sidekicks are allowed to
be neurotic messes, they actually represent the normative because they're
enforcing through their more comic or perverse, so to speak, positions,

(16:33):
just how normative the the straight man or the protagonist is,
Like I'm cooking and crazy, and maybe I'm too tall
or too fat or too thin or whatever, but like,
look at this handsome Carrie Grant figure who's going to
be the real hero and be cemented in heteronormative unions
with the leading lady. So okay, So they have like

(16:55):
an outsize ridiculous character. Then you're probably gonna have a
pretty vanilla leading lady. She's going to be in a
card again, and she's like, oh, Sandra, you're always hosting
those random parties for holidays like Arbor Day, and that,
of course at Arbor Day is where she ends up

(17:17):
meeting Dermott mcdilmot. Now that's not his name, Please keep
that Dilmot, McDermott. What's his name? Dermott? Well, Rooney, remember
in the nineties when it was all dill's and mc donald's.
I don't know. Um, yeah, I'm Caroline. I'm just trying

(17:39):
to share with you, Caroline. I'm just trying to subtly
workshop my new rom com screenplay Arbor Day, and apparently
it's not flying now. I think you literally just wrote
some of the dialogue right there. One example of this
whole like Cookie sidekick with the straight man and woman

(17:59):
leading adian man thing is the movie Two Can Play
That Game, in which Shanta played by Vivica Fox and
Keith played by Morris Chestnut are the straight woman and
man to their best friends who are in real life comedians.
You've got Wendy Rickel, Robinson, Tamala Jones, Monique and Anthony Anderson,
all of whom are allowed to be loud, quirky, cookie, weird,

(18:23):
funny and inappropriate because the leading man and leading lady
are supposed to be shown. And this is this is
super trope city with rom coms across the board. The
you know, the two leading characters are supposed to have
an unimpeded path to find each other. They're not supposed
to be having the same kind of kookiness. But yeah,
they can't be having as good of a time, you know,

(18:45):
because you gotta have a little dram with your rom
So the sidekicks give you some calm. That's right, right, um,
one show that you've recently gotten me into that is
a great example of rom coms. And yes, we are
talking about sitcoms for a moment, but how strong rom

(19:06):
coms also have strong sidekicks because like I think, the
best sidekicks, like you know something more about them. They're
not just you know, they're only in order to propel
the protagonists along. And you're the worst. Has Lindsay and Edgar,
who are the two sidekicks, but they both get fully
developed stories. Oh god, that show, I I feel so

(19:32):
warm and squishy about that show, like, I love it
so much, and those characters Lindsay and Edgar, I mean
new Phone who did like that show is so good.
And you've got the two leading characters who are terrible people,
and you've got Lindsay who's like, she's terrible but so
sweet in her heart somewhere, and then Edgar who's just

(19:53):
like nothing but sweet and has a dash of PTSD
from being a veteran. But oh god, I think it's
such a great example. And yes, it is a show,
a TV show, and it's not a movie. It's not
a romantic comedy movie, but it is it fits in
with everything we're talking about so well. So how do
you think in that example then, that Lindsay and Edgar
being so well rounded like improves the whole thing, aside

(20:18):
from them just being like enjoyable characters and really funny actors.
But what do you think it is about, like the
strong sidekick that strengthens a rom com altogether. I don't know.
I mean I think they I mean they do serve
a purpose of plugging in puzzle pieces when the lead
characters are falling to bits. It does provide a little

(20:38):
bit of comic relief. To the drama. For instance, of
Gretchen's depression that she battled this last season. Um, but
I don't know. I think it's it's nothing is writing
on Lindsay and Edgar getting together. Uh, so there's no
pressure there, So they're allowed to have these winding, loopy

(20:59):
storyline that go in all sorts of different angles and directions,
whereas you know that the leading characters are supposed to
be constantly heading towards each other. I don't know it
it it spices things up, and because their characters are
so great and fleshed out, you get to go on
those crazy rides with them. Well. And that's an example

(21:20):
I would say of the trend that we're likelier to
see in more modern rom coms where the protagonist and
possibly the sidekick, but definitely the protagonist is more of
a train wreck than she used to be. Don't necessarily
need a wild card sidekick to you know, at least

(21:41):
spice up plane Jane because she a mess already. I mean,
think about Kristen Wig and Bridesmaids. Of course, there's train
Wreck the film. Yeah, and her, I mean, could you
argue that her sidekick is her sister? Like this and
she's way more of a straight character. Yeah, yeah, Um,

(22:02):
I was actually looking to see if I could find
a list of sibling and child sidekicks because um. A
couple of those that also came to mind were, um,
Joseph Gordon Levitt's sister in Five Hundred Days of Summer,
played by Chloe Marenz. And then also for a kid,

(22:23):
you have, um, Abigail Breslin as Ryan Reynolds's daughter, and
Definitely Maybe, who's kind of sidekicky in a way of
propelling the narrative and is the you know, kind of
the sounding board for the main character and sort of
challenges them to think about things. Um. And of course
in the case of Definitely Maybe and Five Days of Summer,

(22:46):
it's interesting to see where you have like these two
male protagonists being led by these younger characters, you know,
like the wisdom of children, right right, right right, Um,
and I mean you've also got leading the charge. I
feel like, uh in this whole slacker sidekick turned leading
man or woman is Judd Apatow for men anyway, A

(23:08):
lot of his as we talked in a previous talked
about in a previous episode, a lot of his female
characters are still more of the serious straight character. But
his dudes, they're all I mean, like, look at Seth
Rogan in Knocked Up, Like his totally goofy, slacker, stoner
character would have been, would have made a great sidekick

(23:29):
to some guy who's out searching for Katherine Heigel to
be his soul mate. Well, and he was doing exactly
that in a forty year old Virgin, But he wasn't
a nice sidekick to Dave Garrel. Steve Gurrel, excuse me,
I don't know Dave Carrell meanwhile, um, but he played
almost the same character but was just far more rude

(23:51):
and yeah, a lot more facial hair, more facial hair, yes, yes,
But speaking of dudes, Lee being the charge in romantic comedies.
You know, going through all of our rom com scholarship
that we've been flipping through for weeks now, don't you
love Rom's com Scholarship? I really do. I really honestly

(24:13):
find myself just reading I mean just reading it instead
of paging through looking for just the details to put
in the notes. I just Caroline just just takes a
book and puts it up to to her years speak
to her that way. I hear the ocean. Yeah, I
hear the ocean when I listened to books up, I
actually like to sleep with them open. Just on that.

(24:35):
That's smart. Yeah, multitasker, smell the smell of the pages. Yeah. Anyway,
what's interesting when you look at not just the top
ten lists of great sidekicks and things like that, but
when you get into these academic takes on rom comms
when they're discussing sidekicks. Yes, they talk about women, but

(24:57):
so much of it focuses on men, masculinity and toying
with sexuality, especially when it comes to those sex comedies
of the fifties and sixties. And this is coming from
a couple of great sources. We looked at Jenna Wineman's
chapter in Reading the Bromance Home of Social Relationships and

(25:17):
Film and Television, and John Albertie's Masculinity in the Contemporary
Romantic Comedy Gender as Genre. But basically, Wineman writes that
these queer, straight male pairings between a fetching male lead
and a neurotic sidekick are super prevalent as a narrative

(25:38):
fixture in those fifties and sixties Hollywood sex comedies, And
there's even an industry term for these dude sidekicks the
Second Banana, which I really enjoy. But so you know,
we talked in our earlier episodes about how a lot
of the tension in these movies, particularly those fifties and
sixties sex comedies that were happening during the Hayese Code

(25:59):
during since Ship, a lot of the tension came from
that conflict between the dapper playboy who wants to avoid
marriage and the British career woman who is not going
to put out without a ring. And so the role
that these sidekicks filth, especially for the male character, is
to give us more insight into their true character, their

(26:20):
true wishes, and to let them blow off steam. And
so the actors whose names are frequently dropped when these
rom com scholars are discussing this trend are Gig Young
and Tony Randall. Wyman writes about how these guys basically
played sexually ambiguous sidekick characters during this period, as the

(26:42):
Second Banana to the Carry Grant or the Rock Hudson,
and well sin sexually ambiguous is kind of ironic to
because Tony Randall was indeed gay, um as was Rock Hudson.
But I think because a lot of those sex comedies
involved so much deception, as do so many rom coms.
These second bananas were really important for the audience to

(27:05):
really know what the playboy was up to, because otherwise
he would be completely unlikable. He would just be a
super duper creep. I mean in a lot of ways
watching them now as a thirty two year old feminist,
they're super duper creeps. Um, but they are always emasculated too.

(27:26):
Like on the one hand, they they're kind of the
whole package. Like gig Young from the movies I've seen
of his that I can remember, is a little bit
more interesting because unlike Tony Randall, gig Young is a
little more conventionally attractive, but he is still like more

(27:47):
vanilla than the playboys, so you can tell he's not
quite as dangerous. And there's something about him that Doris
Day just doesn't feel like it is quite good enough
for her. But obviously she can't go for the playboy
because he too dangerous. Um. So a lot of times
with those playboy kinds of movies, the character, like a

(28:08):
rock Hudson, has to soften his sexuality in order to
court a Doris Day. He'll put on a pair of glasses,
he'll lower his voice and pretend that he really doesn't
actually want to have sex with her as soon as possible,
and so I be I believe it's Alberti, one of
our romcom scholars, who suggests that these kinds of second bananas,

(28:31):
the gig Youngs and the Tony Randall's still prop up
rock Hudson at All's virility, even while they're kind of
having to downplay it because it's like, oh, well, we
know that that he's still you know, he's still sexy
even though he's he's pretending not to be quite as much.
But the interesting thing with gig Young is in the

(28:55):
movie Desk Set, which is one of my favorites, starring
Katherine Hepburn and spend Sir Tracy, he is. Gig Young
plays Katherine Hepburn's fiancee, and he is way more attractive
than Spencer Tracy. I've never really gotten Spencer Tracy thing.
I mean, he's like kind of charming, but like seriously, uh.
And the moment though where things finally flip, where Katherine

(29:19):
Hepburn is done with gig Young and it's like, I'm
not going to marry you is not because he is
not as interesting as the very charming and what he
Spencer Tracy. But because he give Young's character ends up
slutge shaming Katherine Hepburn. Yeah, and Spencer Tracy is like

(29:40):
and so it was with that like his his masculinity
became like too threatened, which was kind of a flip
of more of the emasculated Tony Randall character, who's like,
I'm so nervous about everything, I gotta see my analyst. Yeah,
And so it does provide that comparison for ADDI ins
is to look at you and say, Okay, well you're

(30:02):
too neurotic, weird, strange, nervous in the case of Tony Randall,
and so look at how handsome and capable that playboy,
especially when he's masquerading as a more sensitive guy is well.
And because of the time too, with these sex comedies,
you're still dancing around sex. It's all all has to
be hinted at. And you're also dancing around sexual orientation too. Yes,

(30:26):
that's something that Albertie writes about as far as the
emasculated sidekick uh displaying a collapse of masculinity that he
says enables queer possibilities. And then Alberti goes on to
write about how the sidekick can actually serve in addition
to all of the other purposes of helping further the

(30:47):
storyline get at the leading man's true motivations. He also
might introduce a little bit of tension or conflict with
the leading lady in competing with her for the needs attention.
Oh yeah, as soon as like uh, Rock Hudson sees
a gig Young on Doris Day's arm, He's like, oh, well,

(31:08):
now I want to put some effort into it. Let
me put on my glasses and soften my voice a
little bit. Yeah. One example is gig Young's character Roger
in the film That Touch of Make He is often
mistaken by the heroine's friends as the playboy hero who's
actually played by Carrie Grant this guy Philip. But tempering

(31:31):
that potential mistake is the fact that gig Young's analyst
believes that his character is gay. Ha ha. Can you
imagine slap stick? Another example is in the movie Artists
and Models from nineteen fifty three. You've got Dean Martin's

(31:53):
character who wants to move out of the apartment in
the bedroom that he shares with Eugene full Stack played
by Jerry Lewis is the sounding like a total burden
ernie situation. Uh, and so well they really hand it
up because Eugene is standing in the doorway wearing an apron.
He's crying because Rick is leaving. Rick's packing his suitcase
saying that divorce is the only way out, but Rick

(32:15):
ends up not going through with it. He takes all
of his clothes out of the suitcase and Eugene is
shown smiling gratefully through his tears. And it, I mean
it's exactly a play on like a more domestic man
and woman marriage situation. Yeah, the whole series of Dean
Martin and Jerry Lewis films would be way more homo
erotic if Jerry Lewis weren't such a second banana where

(32:37):
it's like there's no, no, no, there's no way that
Dean Martin is into that. Um. But you do see
this turned on its head a little bit with Annie Hall,
where Woody Allen's character Alvi is of course the neurotic
mess as the leading man, while you have his sidekick
Rob played by Tony Roberts, of being the suave, handsome,

(32:59):
level headed masculine man who kind of reflects Alvi's idealized dude. Yeah,
and I love that they were such a pair. Roberts
went on to hold similar roles in Play It Again,
Sam Hannah and Her Sisters and Star Dust Memories. He
was basically the the alpha handsome man dude in all

(33:21):
of uh Woody Allen's neurotic love comedies. I hope that
that's what his Hollywood business cards some of the time,
alpha handsome man dude service for higher He did have
a good beard all that. You know. His hair was curly,
so it's just like a ring of curls around his
entire head. It's gonna who's the gentle painting bob Ra

(33:42):
has got a very bob Ra look. Gentle painting. Well,
we're going to get into more gentlemen, uh, namely in
the slacker dude comedy genre. When we come right back
from a quick break, Caroline, why go to the store

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(35:36):
dot com and inter promo code mom Stuff. So when
it comes to the relationships between the leading guy and
his second banana, one of the most recent developments would
be the bromance between the two because thankfully there is

(35:57):
not as much you know, homophobia at work behind the
scenes as there would have been in those sex comedies
of the fifties and sixties. Um, and there's more room
now for these men to have actual relationships with each other. Yeah,
and I do think that there's something you know, we
talked about this way back when Kristin in our romance episode,

(36:21):
But there seems to be more of an acceptance of
dudes loving each other, hanging out, snuggling, having a little
snuggle parties. And that comes through in movies like I
Love You Man, where two men telling each other they
loved each other would have been unthinkable in a Rock
Hudson movie. And I'm also gonna say it again, Magic Mike,

(36:46):
I think is a rom com, but it's totally a
brom com. Those guys just love each other. They'll oil
each other up and it is not awkward. They wrestle,
they hug, they love. Um. There's also You Me and
Dupri that fits into that as well. With um Luke
Wilson Nope, Owen Wilson always getting mixed up and like
which one has the crooked nose? Oh yes, Owen right,

(37:10):
Owen Wilson where he is not so much in love
with Kate Hudson. He doesn't show up for her but
for uh the fella. And no matter how much more
comfortable we and these male characters are getting with expressing
bro love and having these homosocial relationships, uh, they still

(37:32):
have in common with the sex comedies. The immaturity. Uh. Granted,
with Rock Hudson or Carrie Grant, it was not so
much immatureity as we think about it. It was more
like marriage is death, and I don't want to give
up my bachelor lifestyle, whereas now it's like immaturity is
more likely to reflect Uh, you know, I smoke pot

(37:55):
and maybe I don't have a full time job or
you know, I'm I'm just a cookie I who's never
been in a serious relationship. Yeah, And the whole thing
of you don't want to become boring and you don't
want to become one of those people with kids, which
I think isn't that even a movie? People with kids?
I have no idea you're listening so many movies that
now I haven't seen. Wow. I really think that this

(38:18):
series has helped my pop cultural knowledge just escalate. I know,
we can have so many conversations at parties now if
people would just invite us. So, who wants to talk
about sex comedies of the nineteen fifties? Muriel? You know, okay?
Is it Muriel Muriel's wedding? And then Rachel Griffith's is

(38:39):
the sidekick in that movie? I don't know, See, I've
got so much random stuff rat Ratlin around up there now. Um.
But yeah, basically, if we if we go to romcom
scholar Jenna Wineman, she says that what the sex comedies
and the bromances have in common is the quote narrative
privileging of the immature maile, his homosocial bonds and his

(39:00):
strange trajectory into proper adulthood. But there's not as much
focus on fixing the immature dude. Nobody's like telling him
necessarily to stop smoking pot or like get married or whatever.
But you still have the focus on the relationship, obviously
because it's a rom com. But you also don't lose

(39:23):
the second banana. The immature guy gets to keep his
second banana and his bond and have the lady. Yeah,
because I think there's also just more generally a focus
on the importance of our friendships. It's like who who
wants to know? Just like the couple who only knows
each other, you know what I mean. It's kind of

(39:43):
like an old school when Will Ferrell's character is married
and he's like, oh, yeah, I've got a big Saturday planned,
going to a bed bath and beyond it's gonna be
gonna be pretty wild. It's like, it's like that is
the nightmare these days. Although for the record older that
I've gotten yes, and early weekend morning trip to a

(40:05):
home depots rather nice. Yeah. No, boyfriend and I are
the same, minus the early like we can't get out
about the same our lives, and then we have to
sit around drinking coffee and then it's like two o'clock
and it's like, you want to go to home depot,
and then we're enraged because there's traffic and a million
people at home depot. Also, I shouldn't stay home depot.
I should say your local gardening supply store exactly. And

(40:28):
speaking of small Kristen, I like this transition. I've got
a subset, which means a smaller portion of a of
a set. I'm following. Yeah here, I am uh rom
com scholar Billy Murnett, who has a rom com blog
which I highly recommend you look at. Um what's it called?
Uh well, oh, it's called Living the Romantic Comedy. I

(40:50):
love it, So there you go. You can do the google.
But he talks about the snide kick. We mentioned the
nine kick earlier, but he talks about people like Nick
Frost's carer ed in Shaun of the Dead, Bill Murray's
character and TITSI, Jason Lee as Banky and chasing Amy,
and Brittany Murphy who we talked about turns into a
snide kick once she finds herself. And these are people

(41:13):
who they go beyond just supporting the leading woman or
leading man, going beyond being a sounding board into highlighting
the lead character's decisions or mistakes or whatever by being
a complete snarky jerk. And you know, Murder at one
point in this blog post argues that you know, sarcasm

(41:36):
is their primary function, and maybe they don't have as
big a role as other sidekicks. They're not as much
of a driving plot device. I would say that I disagree,
especially for Nick Frost's character in Shaun of the Dead,
who is a massive, massive plot driver, especially at the end. Anyway,

(41:56):
I don't want to spoil Shaun of the Dead face
romcomb dude, totally. I mean it's a total bromance. But
the whole time Sean is trying to save his lady
love and get with her, and like the whole movie
as like zombies are attacking them, He's doing everything he
can to like save her and charm her and show
that he's the hero. I had never thought of it

(42:16):
that way. Oh, totally a rom com. I love me
some Simon Peg And also I just love the scene
in that movie where they're in the pub and Queen
is playing into the beat of the Queen song they're
beating up the zombie. Any who. Uh yeah, I think
Shaun of the Dead is an excellent example of the
bromance with the slacker second banana and also being a

(42:38):
traditional rom com and a snidekick and ed Ed is
a snide kick, yes, But then of course, beyond the
subset of snyde kick, you've also got what is unfortunately
a subset of a best friend who is a person
of color. Yeah, the old token black friend. Yeah, token
black friend, token John Show. Because people aren't put that

(43:00):
many Asian characters in films either. As the leading person.
Ashley Rees Overett Girl, I wrote a lot about this
and pointed out that you've got like, oh, I don't know,
like a Cadeem Hardison who plays Felix and Maid of Honor,
or to make a Fraser in Head over Heels who
plays Holly. But they basically serve I mean, we're not

(43:21):
telling you anything you don't know, but they're a way
to introduce diversity without having to invest too much into
a character. Yeah. So it's like Dave Chappelle in You've
Got Mail is Tom Hanks's sidekick, and from what I
can remember, he was the only person of color with
a speaking role in the whole film. But more recently,

(43:43):
you've got Lebron James and train Wreck, who is really funny.
I gotta say he's one of the funniest athlete comedians
that I've seen lately. Um. And maybe because the film
is so intention knowl in a lot of the tropes
that it's playing on and busting up, perhaps that was

(44:04):
a deliberate choice. Um, But Lebron definitely felt like it
in some ways because it's not like Amy Schumer has
a diverse cast of friends, right, yeah, exactly, No, I loved, Yeah,
I love Lebron's character in that movie. But you know
that relying on the sidekick, the second banana to be
a person of color, it's just a way of like

(44:26):
checking off a box and not having to to think
about it much more, because there is that tipping point
that so many people in Hollywood talk about of uh,
you know, like one black friend is fine, but like
you can't have a second black friend, and you certainly
can't have a black protagonist and like a second black
person in a leading role because if you look at Hitch,
there's so much written about Hitch for instance, And we're

(44:48):
going to talk about this, all of this these racial
issues in our next episode, but like, ah, the leading
man is black. We can't have a black leading lady
because it's a black movie. But if you have a
white leading lady, then it's an interracial romance, which is
even more taboo for Hollywood. Again, we're just spoiling the
next installment of our romcom series. But yeah, I mean

(45:11):
so if you look at it according to gender, though,
I mean like you've got black men playing the super
chill spirit guide basically to the nervous white man leading man. Uh.
But of course, black women who are in the best
friend role so many times have to play that sassy
black woman or angry black woman sidekick character, which sucks

(45:34):
because actually, Reese points out like this can so easily
veer off into playing off of stereotypes about the angry
black woman and the character ending up being treated as
nothing more than a caricature. Well and I think, uh,
for me at least, one of the most cringe worthy
examples of that is Jennifer Hudson in the first Sex
in the City movie, where there was almost a record

(45:57):
scratch when she you know, walks on screen because it's like, we, ah,
really are we going to do that? Like nothing against
Jennifer Hudson's acting capabilities, but the way that she was
played and the bits of wisdom that she would, you know,
drop for Carrie Bradshaw here and there. I was like, oh,

(46:18):
come on, oh yeah, yeah. Yeah. So if whether they're
forced to be the sassy sidekick or not, they often
have to help the white ladies transformation, and so yeah,
you do have Jennifer Hudson straightening Carrie Bradshaw's life out.
You also have Carrie Washington's character and save the Last Dance, uh,

(46:39):
straightening out Julia stiles Is life and her fashion choices
so that Julius Styles can go to the club and
be a successful dancer, although maybe slightly to redeem sex
in the City. Carrie bradshawd does help Jennifer Hudson's character
work out her life, love life and get back with
her I think ex fiance. So at least at least

(47:01):
she gets something sort of of a backstory that's true.
She gets like a bit of a story. Yeah, good,
well that's good. Um, And I love though that. Tina
Fey mocked this in that episode of thirty Rock where
she's on the airplane and she's taken so many anti
anxiety pills that she hallucinates that she's sitting next to

(47:21):
Oprah and spills all of her life problems, all of
her white lady life problems to Guru Oprah, only to
then be revealed that actually she's just high and it's
a teen girl sitting next to her. Tina so perfect,
you know. Uh. One thing that I really love about

(47:41):
Kimmi Schmidt, which again to go to TV, off the
big screen to the small screen, is that Titus Andromedon
could be a sidekick if the writers were not as
smart as they are. He yes, because he gets his
own fabulous, amazing, wonder whole hilarious stories. Yeah, I love

(48:02):
him so much. Otherwise he would totally fall into the
token gay guy, because that's come up so many times.
Hello Rupert Everett in My best Friend's Wedding. Yes, I
did have a crush on Okay, I did, oh god, Yeah,
because he he was starring with with Dermott mill ding
Dong in that movie, right, yes, Delmont with Dilmot mcdodley. Yes,

(48:27):
I mean, and there's a whole movie about that though,
with Jennifer Anderson and Paul Read the Object of my affection. Yeah,
which is it's a toughie to watch awkward because again
it's like, well, if Paul Red were my roommate, that
I need to move out because he's so handsome. He's

(48:50):
aunt man. But you know not not every gay sidekick
can be aunt man. But the gay sidekick is typically
in the in the exact same way that the token
black friend is. The way to check off the diversity
box the gay best friend or gay sidekick. Uh. And

(49:10):
do we have a whole episode about this too? Yeah? Yeah, yeah,
they gave best friend totally. Um. And they're a way
to like introduce or deal with LGBT issues without having
to make it the central theme of the film, like,
oh god, we don't want to make a gay rom com.
Who's gonna watch that? But it also makes the protagonist
interesting because look, she has diverse friends. Um. And I

(49:33):
would think that both Stanley Tucci and the devil Wares
product and Elijah Wood and Celeste and Jesse Forever play
similar kinds of not necessarily gay best friend roles, but
more of the gay guru who at some point like
grabs protagonists by the shoulders figuratively and it's like, listen,

(49:56):
I'm going to like tell you what you're doing right now,
and you're going to listen to me because there is
no sexual tension between us, and you know that what
I'm telling you is like purely motivated. Yeah. And so
I mean by having a gay best friend and having
like a gay spirit guide, that's that definitely feels exploitive,

(50:21):
saying with having like a token black sidekick who's some
kind of magical spirit guide. But that's also one of
the roles that the sidekick trope is supposed to fulfill,
no matter the background. Yeah, I mean, and I didn't.
I didn't feel like Tucci or Woods roles were exploited necessarily.

(50:41):
It's just it seems like they're that that um sexuality
or sexual orientation I should say, is played with in
a way that like they that's the conduit, like you know,
because they're the ones who are able to call bs
on things, because it's like, listen, I have I have
no ulterior motives in any of this, Like you're you're

(51:04):
just being ridiculous right now. Yeah, And I think I
think where some of the discomfort comes from. It's just
the history, honestly, just the history of the way that
black sidekicks and gay side or you know, ambiguous like
Tony Randall's. Yeah, the way that these people were portrayed

(51:25):
as sidekicks in throughout history in cinema has not always
been very pure. And so like it's great that you know,
a leading man can have a gay best friend and
it's not even an issue. It's like literally not even
a plot device at all. It's just it just is uh.
But some of those tropes origins are not so great well,

(51:48):
and that's why I'm glad that the final two episodes
of our romcom series are going to focus on people
of color and romcoms and also LGBT raw comms. Um
to see what happens when those characters become less of
tropes and more like fully fleshed out characters. But before

(52:09):
we bid a faun farewell to our sidekicks, Caroline, I
want to get your thoughts on a theory of mind
that I just came up with right before we came
into the studio that the most successful sidekick in Hollywood
to make the transition from sidekick to quirky leading lady

(52:30):
is none other than zoe Edi Chanel. Oh. I thought
you were gonna say Melissa McCarthy, but ah, yes, but
not as much for Melissa McCarthy, because Zoey d was
the quirky sidekick in Failure to Launch. Oh God, yes
I didn't. I refused to see that movie, so I
didn't know that. Google told me, um, but now of

(52:52):
course Google, uh here he's single. Um. But she was
even able to parlay her quirky sidekick persona into a
successful romantic lead, although of course she had to get
a little bit edgier um for five hundred days of
Summer Um. But if you look at her again going

(53:14):
to the small screen on New Girl, I mean it's
like a sidekick starring in her own show. Adorable, so adorable.
So I wonder if we are now entering the era
of the sidekick. Oh sure, I say we are. You
know that sounds good about that. I think it's true.

(53:34):
I think that's a think piece that the Atlantic could
chew on. But now, listeners, who are your favorite sidekicks?
And what sidekicks did we leave out? I mean, we
didn't even mention Ducky from sixteen Candles, Poor Ducky Ducky,
we didn't even. We also didn't mention Rosie O'donnald and

(53:55):
uh Sleepless in Seattle, which is kind of sad because
she just gets left behind. He's in Pretty and Pink
and any Potts is the fellow sidekick and Pretty and
Pink and I just love her in that movie. Yeah. Well,
now I want to hear from you listeners, what are
all of your sidekick theories and who are all your
sidekick faves and which sidekicks do you think deserve their

(54:18):
own movies. Mom Stuff at house stuffworks dot Com is
our email address. You can also tweet us at mom stuff,
podcasts or messages on Facebook, and we've got a couple
of messages to share with you when we come right
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(55:22):
and now back to the show, all right. I have
a letter here from Anna about our STD testing episode.
She says, I was inspired to share my story relating
to sledge shaming, proud shaming, in the stigma of having
an STD. When I was a freshman in college, had
developed a bumpy rash on my labia. It was extremely painful,

(55:43):
and my mom told me to go to an urgent
care center like a doctor's office, where no appointments needed.
She came with me and the nurses tested my yearn
for a u t I, which came out positive. At
that time in my life, I had never experienced any
sexual contact, so the idea of having an STD was
out of the question. But it seemed weird for a
u t I to cause a rash. I began to
experience a weird mix of both slut shaming and prude shaming.

(56:06):
The nurses and the doctors didn't believe what I told
them about my lack of sexual contact, but also judged
me for never visiting a gynecologist. I was barely eighteen.
The nurse told me the doctor wanted to perform a
pelvic exam, and I felt very much pressured into agreeing it.
Was my first exam ever. I was never told that
I was going to be tested until the doctor began
testing me for herpes, chlamydia, and GNA rhea. After the exam,

(56:29):
the doctor spoke to me alone and told me it
takes two weeks for the herpes test to come back,
but I've seen herpes before and you have it. He
shrugged off all my protests, not once believing what I
told him. I cried the whole night through and felt
like the scum of the earth for the next two weeks.
When the tests all came back negative, I was left
with a mystery that still hasn't been solved four years later.

(56:50):
While my story has a happy ending, I very much
want to encourage people with STDs and s t i
S to remember that you were worth being loved, respected
and appreciated. I told a select few people during the
ordeal and was overwhelmed at the support I received. It
wasn't until after it was all over that I realized
how wrong the whole thing was. As women, I think
we're usually very hesitant to be assertive at the doctor's office,

(57:12):
But don't be afraid. I will never again leave a
doctor's office more confused than I was entering. Now that
I'm in a long term monogamous relationship, I never thought
that getting tested again would be important, but after my experience,
I will definitely be using my lab box because not
only is getting tested important for personal health, but for
increasing aware and it's an understanding to reduce the stigma

(57:32):
about something that is so so common. I'm sorry this
was so long, but I feel like it's an important
story to tell because women tend to face lower quality
healthcare as it is, and adding the stigma of an
STD can make it even worse. Because of this, my
lab box sounds like a genius idea. And if you
go to a doctor, speak up and make sure your
doctor understands your questions. Well, So, thank you very much. Anna.

(57:54):
So I've got a letter here from Hannah about our
episode on the Mothers of Gynecology, and Hannah writes, I'm
a student at the University of South Carolina, where Sims
is a name I've definitely heard many times, and for
listeners who haven't heard that episode, the Sims she refers
to is Mary and Jasons, who's referred to as the
father of gynecology. The main building in the women's squad

(58:17):
on campus is named after him, which if which I
find I roll worthy at best and gag worthy at worst.
There's also a large monument to him on the State
House Crowns just down from campus, where many times I've
stopped while walking around the park there. The first time
I saw it and saw Father of Gynecology, I couldn't
believe there was a Father of gynecology. I have no

(58:38):
idea how one goes about getting a statue erected, but
I am all for it. I can already see how
those three women could be incorporated into this monument at
the State House. Having something be done about it in
the name of the women's quad building would make me
so happy as well, But I know when it comes
to naming buildings it's all about money, which, let's face it,
I'm a college junior. Also, if I've and one thing

(59:00):
in my attempts at activist work in various fields my
last two years at USC, it's that it's complicated, in
an overwhelming mess. It's easy for me to get fired
up and say I want to make a change, to
see these Sims monuments, but I realize the likelihood of
these things isn't great. On my own. I am, however,
a sort of member of the feminist collective at USC,

(59:21):
and I'm almost positive that if y'all seriously looked into
getting these women some recognition at any of the monuments
in South Carolina, they would be interested. Keep being amazing, well, listeners, Uh,
we've got one person here, Hannah, who agrees that there
should be some mothers of Gynecology monuments to counter Jay

(59:43):
Marian Sims father of Gynecology monuments that are all over
South Carolina. So if anyone knows how to make that happen,
let us know. Mom Stuff at how stuff works dot
com is our email address and for links to all
of our social media as well as all of our blogs, videos,
and podcasts with our source says. So you can learn
more about rom com sidekicks. Head on over to stuff

(01:00:05):
Mom Never Told You dot com for more on this
and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff Works
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