There is little that actually makes me groan with laughter in the same way as the idea, repeated on cue by the sort of creaking men who answer their phones with the word "Yes?", that women aren't funny. It's an idea that, much as it tries its hardest to offend, fails miserably (if you find yourself offended by an old man saying you're not funny, as Sarah Silverman once wisely said, then babes, you're probably not funny), and it's an idea due to be debated once more next month, when the film Bridesmaids (described by critics as "the female Hangover") explodes into our cinemas, scattering fart jokes and pieces of tulle. Written by and starring Saturday Night Live's Kristen Wiig, whose elastic face stretches across the screen like chewing gum stuck to a heel, it's the chick flick that's set to redefine the chick flick.
Bridesmaids, with its ensemble cast of women is a female bromance (a somance? Sismance? Needs some work) where the friendships are more important than the marriages. Plus, "I just took a shit in the middle of the street" is one stand-out line that, until now, we've yet to hear a female lead say in a glossy romcom. The poo is just a moussey icing on the cake though – the true revolution comes with the film's portrayal of female friendships as competitive, silly, rude and refreshingly hilarious. Rather than being the straight pillars of cuddles and stability as seen on screens until now, friendships, in my experience, are far more like the curved penises regularly unsheathed in the Embarrassing Bodies studio – problematic, angular, but ultimately a bit of a cheeky laugh.
Bridesmaids is a film that confidently passes the Bechdel Test (popularised by comic artist Alison Bechdel in 1985), which names the following three criteria: 1) It has to have at least two women in it, who (2) talk to each other, about (3) something besides a man. Rather than neatly reducing the roles in Bridesmaids to "bitch", "bride" and "babe", Wiig has written her character as neurotic, competitive, lonely and entirely lovable, while Melissa McCarthy's Megan is less burpy-fat-chick and more sensible-sister than the trailer suggests.
Is this the film to end both the twee portrayal of women's relationships in cinema and the impossible friendship standards set for audiences by films like Sex and the City? Is this the film to remind us that between girls' sugar and spice, there are a thousand layers of caramel brittle?
THE THIN BLUE LINE
Online magazine Slate recently explored the world of WombTube – the growing phenomenon of women reading their pregnancy test results on YouTube, and the growing audience for this wee-play and squealing. The narrative of the videos (there are around 1,000 on the site) is a sweet, simple arc of suspense and sentiment, but the real story is in the fact that these women are broadcasting it at all. It's common pregnancy etiquette to keep their conception a secret for three months, the period during which miscarriage is most common, but these women are not only sharing their news, but sharing the moment they discover it.
Ignoring the issue of the "overshare", I find something in the idea of the WombTube channel pleasing. Women shouldn't be encouraged to feel, as I think many do, superstitious about revealing their pregnancies too early, nor should they be expected to deal with the consequences of a miscarriage alone if they don't want to. The morning sickness, the blues if something goes wrong – for many this frustration will be compounded by the pressure of keeping it to yourself, something bloody and shameful to be dealt with alone in the disabled toilets while your phone goes to voicemail. And for those who don't welcome the sympathy of their real life co-workers, Wombtube's online community is available for message-board moaning. It's the future of pregnancy, gestating in YouTube.
Email Eva at e.wiseman@observer.co.uk or visit theguardian.com/profile/evawiseman for all her articles in one place
