Why is Judd Apatow so obsessed with demonstrating the profound idea that average joes deserve love? First, we met the loveable virgin Andy in 40-Year-Old Virgin. Then it was slacker stoner Ben in Knocked Up. Then Evan and Seth in Superbad. And finally some dude in Forgetting Sarah Marshal. At this point, I feel like I’ve heard the story enough; do I really want to shell out the $10 for a movie ticket? Each storyline includes some confused average guy that ends up finding some gorgeous, smart, sexy, wonderful woman to fall in love with him and show him the way. And the world rejoices because normal people deserve love, too.

Oh wait – normal, straight white males deserve love. Love with gorgeous straight white women. And once they find this love, it’s as if they found their way. As if these women somehow saved them and helped them become functioning, adult men.



I appreciate Apatow’s rose-colored view of women; they are all smart, beautiful, perfect, gorgeous, together, pretty and able to look past physical normalcy. Did I mention beautiful? Sure, there were flawed female supporting characters, but they didn’t get nearly as much screen time as the many normal-because-of-their-flaws men.

In Apatow’s world, the men are allowed to be flawed, and by flawed I mean average and normal. They say stupid things. They play with action figures. They smoke pot. They wander around town carrying beer in empty detergent bottles in hopes of getting in to the cool party with the cool girls. They are able to act like “guys” until the perfect woman comes along and shows them how to be grown-ups.

At first, I thought it was nice that Apatow portrayed women in such a flattering light, especially compared to the normalcy of his male characters. These women were smart, confident and could see beyond their partner’s shortcomings and accept their men for who they are. They had successful careers as small business owners or entertainment news reporters (and I understand this Sarah Marshall character is a movie star?), whereas their guys were salesmen or unemployed.

But then I started to feel inadequate. Men in Apatow’s world are able to be insecure, dopey, lacking goals, etc. But not the women. They were perfect. If they were normal, who would be the strong figure to save Apatow’s men?

Perhaps Apatow too will grow tired of this same storyline, and turn the tables and write movies where normal guys fall in love with normal girls. Wouldn’t that be crazy? Or where gay people exist outside of the blunt end of jokes that reveal troubling and unresolved aspects of a character’s insecurity.

What gives me even more pause isn’t just these perfect-women-and-their-flawed-men, but the fact that I have not come across a single column or criticism pointing out this weird gender bias. Maybe I haven’t been looking hard enough, or maybe we all secretly wish we lived in a world with perfect women. But either way, I’m starting to feel like I don’t measure up. Whereas if I were a guy, I would.