Miss Congeniality is about as toxic as mainstream films can be

• First, the entire movie is a thinly veiled strawman assault on “modern women” and constantly sells the idea that submitting to (older) men will lead you to happiness.

• The main character (“MC”) is admittedly a virgin/next to 0 experience.

• The man she falls for is an older male colleague that just became her direct superior (“Sexy Boss”) and…

  • he repeatedly shoulders off her requests to (1) not be chosen for the assignment, (2) be allowed to leave, (3) be allowed to leave and (4) be allowed to leave

  • Instead, he relentlessly pressures her, pushes responsibility on her and exploits her crush on him

  • And when she needs him to back her, he bails

• The other FBI agents are worse: they’re voyeuristic, predatory and sexually harass the MC. There is no comeuppance or punishment for this behavior. They get mildly chastised once by Sexy Boss. Which was done out of his growing territorial interest in the MC; he exhibits no genuine distaste for his agents’ behavior.2

  • Are they selling the idea that all men are pigs, and some of them just pretend to not be when advantageous?

  • And therefore piggishness is an inherently acceptable trait in men?

• The MC’s tough shell and defensiveness immediately give way to a meek and mousy woman. While she continues being witty and caustic (the repartee is amazing), all she does is toss her verbal bombs and then fold.

• And then complies with some extremely invasive requests, like having her hair and facial presentation radically altered, have her body waxed, letting an old man shove cup enhancers onto her breasts, etc. #grooming (literally)

• Basically she becomes a Barbie doll for her macho boss and a gay, femininity-obsessed pageant trainer (you know the type) (brilliantly portrayed by Michael Caine, he’s the true star of the movie).

• She’s constantly denied food by everyone. Which is absurd because five days of calorie restriction is gonna lose you like, 2 pounds at most. And, obviously, this sells a wildly unhealthy view on how women should treat their appetite and bodies.

  • reminder; she’s already in fantastic shape and can kick Sexy Boss’ ass

  • so I guess the message is “keep starving yourself no matter what?”

• None of the girls in the pageant are shown to have a brain, and, more often, are clearly stupid, ditzy, selfish and catty. Cheryl, the MC’s new best friend, is such a dolt that when she’s asked what her “ideal date” would be, she says April 28. The other girls are constantly quarreling and talking smack about each other.

  • This is what older men genuinely think women groups are like; nonstop cattiness and back stabbing, little genuine friendship

    • because male writers have assumed for decades that adult women are essentially identical to the teenagers depicted in Mean Girls

    • if you’re a man and you believe this trope, you’re an idiot that’s never spent time around adult women. sorry not sorry

• In fact, no woman, except sometimes the MC, is shown to have any executive functions or planning abilities.

• And at the end of the day, the MC has no true volition. Her only real motivation is “duty”. She has to be the woman they insert into the pageant, there’s no one else. She has to let them radically alter her appearance; there’s no one else. This and that and this and that; it’s her duty as an FBI agent to do whatever they want.

• OH! And then she tosses her career with the FBI out of “duty” to the other girls in the pageant. Duty, peer pressure and hunger are her only real motivations.

• Which is the point of the movie. She’s a “modern woman” who doesn’t “take care” of herself (despite being athletic enough to kick Sexy Boss’ ass in sparring). She doesn’t care about her appearance, and people constantly attack her for it. She has no clue what she wants in life, she has no man and, therefore, she needs to be fixed and led by men.

This is a horror show of a movie.