It’s not completely clear, but I’m assuming The Hollywood Reporter’s announcement that Bridesmaids is the highest grossing female comedy of all time means female-lead or female-focused comedy of all time. Female-centric? Either way, on Sunday Bridesmaids reached $152.9 million, surpassing Sex and the City’s $152.6 million, despite having approximately the same number of diarrhea gags.
Universal heralds Bridesmaids as their biggest rom-com ever, as well as the seventh best romantic comedy of all time, calling into question how much actual on-screen romance a movie needs to fit into the “rom-com†category rather than “comedy original flavor.†Says director Paul Feig, who is currently working on rumored Melissa McCarthy-Jon Hamm film Dumb Jock, “There should never be again where comedy is looked at like, ‘Oh, you can’t do that because that skews toward women.’ I hope the outcome of this is for people to make the funniest, most emotionally moving comedies they can, and it doesn’t matter if men or women are starring in it. And there’ll be no more filter of like, ‘But it can’t be women!’†About beating out Sex and The City, Feig says, “I’m dancing in the streets about that one.†And so the pendulum of popular female-centric comedy began its slow yet steady swing away from puns. Lawrence of My Labia, we hardly knew ye.