Nice Is Just a Place In Paris

Over the course of the summer I began to read a book called, “Nice is just a Place in France.” While I definitely do not support a majority of the book, as the authors (called “The Betches”), can be extremely degrading towards females, I began to debate whether these “Betches” have a valid perception towards feminism.  This book serves as a guide to women on “how to win at basically everything.” The author states, “While we definitely believe in being equal if not more powerful than men, we know you’re definitely not going to achieve that by burning your bra and writing a gender studies thesis. These whiny women are only hurting themselves. Our book is about winning in a man’s world, first by accepting that as reality and then using that information to make the man’s world your bitch.” At first I was startled by the bluntness of the quote, but than as I kept reading more I began to question if these “betches” had a point. They give an example, of when they were in class and the professor stated that it will take 200 years in order for there to be an equal amount of female and male CEOs. As this statement was made, a female in the class burst into tears. They then state, “this story demonstrates the very essence of why two hundred years is too soon. Granted, the girl was probably on her period, but the fact that she was moved to tears by data she didn’t like is the precise reason why it will take at least two centuries for an equal number of woman to finally get the chance to write on of those cut little IPO letters.”  I want to reiterate the fact that I do not agree with the values that this author expresses throughout this book, but I started to think that she has a point. Rather than females crying in class about the harsh realities of this male dominated society, we need to be bold, strong, and force changes onto our society. 

            The authors of this book use humor in order to express their views on the way females should act in society. Similarly, Oxenberg uses humor and comedy in order to express, celebrate and validate the lesbian experience.  The films use comedy in order to “analyze politically and critique homosexual and heterosexual cultural stereotypes.” While to me it seemed difficult to add humor to such a controversial topic, after reading the plot synopsis of Home Movies, it seems humor is the perfect tool to convey the ideas and themes of this film, i.e females struggling to fit in, as well as struggling to be viewed with “true femininity.”