I love that this was made and is a hit. Maybe, just maybe, it will contribute to getting past the idea that women are a special interest group, and that a women as leads can't bring in the same revenue.

I really liked the movie, I think I wouldn't enjoy so much if they chose other actors, because the plot is pretty generic, what makes the movie fun and entertaining is the dialog and the behavior of the two lead characters, it was fun from beginning to end. I think that was the whole point, a fun movie. They did it well.

I have to agree with O'Hehir because our culture has yet to unchain what is feminine or even explore it. I watched a very popular TED talk last night on how easy it is to be happy, including a nifty little checklist of things one can do each day to ensure happiness and well-being. TED. Speaker a leader in his field. Audience in the palm of his hand. Tweeted and posted to FB hundreds of times. But this time around, I heard something different in his presentation. He began with a story about playing war with his little sister (war was his choice, she acquiesced) and belittling her My Pretty Ponies pitted against his "real" soldiers and artillery. The story then moves on to how he made a move that caused her to break her leg and he helped her reframe the incident into something positive, just as he'd done two years earlier when he broke her arm. It was an entertaining story and I was laughing right along with all the educated and exalted audience until I thought, Hey wait a minute. I'm laughing at a five-year-old little girl who has been belittled, over-powered, and endured broken bones by an older brother who got away with that stuff because he was a boy. I'm laughing at a little girl who learned to frame the events of her life and happiness within the mindset of a little boy entitled by the patriarchy. I'd watched that TED talk previously but never caught how the presentation began until thinking about women in film, and in particular this movie. Our problem is not women in film and the roles they play. Our problem is not the banality of chick flicks. Our problem is women coming *to* film, both as creators and audience, without ever having had the opportunity to explore the power and uniquely startling experience of life through a feminine perspective. Women come to the arena of film with over 50% of the human experience discounted, discarded, disrespected, and kept in secrecy. Until that is part of our awareness, women in film will continue to fill traditional male roles...and all of us will lose.

Cyd, thanks for that thoughtful observation. I agree with your sentiment. I think, however, we're talking from two different time-frames, if you will, re change in Hollywood. Your assessment is more long term and really speaks to a paradigm shift that needs to take place from top to bottom re gender and diversity in general. With The Heat, I'm literally talking about right now, and how it represents a tiny baby step forward in the process. Some perspective: Before Bridesmaids, the conventional wisdom was women weren't big fans of R-rated comedies, so the very idea of making one starring women and being about women was completely off Hwood's radar screen. Then $288M later... huh, maybe the CW ain't right? Now along comes The Heat. Similar thing: Women in an R-rated buddy cop movie? Who would see that? But my guess is the success of Bridesmaids actually helped the studio muster up the courage to green light this project. I will grant you these are two 'successes' based on a conceptual premise: Let's put women in R-rated movies which would typically be targeted toward men. So the idea that women doing things on screen men do in these type of comedies (flatulence, diarrhea, cursing, roughing people up) may seem like a small thing, but when we are talking about deeply entrenched CW, it does, in fact, represent a tiny shift in what I would argue is the right direction. We cannot forget, Hollywood's movie business is built on the premise of 'similar but different.' And when times are chaotic, like they are now with the collapse of the DVD market, the increased importance of the international market, the rise of original scripted programming on cable TV, and a whole host of other factors, the suits will tend to rely more on 'similar,' less on 'different.' So change is and will continue to be incremental. This is one major reason why we must continue to and grow our support of independent films because as has always been the case, different movies have emerged to find a wide audience and caused Hollywood to take notice. Films like Easy Rider, Taxi Driver, Sex, Lies & Videotape, Pulp Fiction, Little Miss Sunshine. Each of those movies created an opening for movies of the same ilk. Right now there could be a film in production or a script being written or even an idea being formed that could become such a movie: Conceived by women, written by women, starring women, directed by women, that embraces the spirit of your eloquent vision. Let's hope so. But here on the front lines of the harsh reality of the Movie Biz, it's my view we need to celebrate victories, no matter how small they are. And I see The Heat as just such a victory.