If you didn’t get a chance to see Bad Moms this weekend, you are missing out on another movie filled with rich, straight, white women, who are sick and tired of doing it all while their husbands jerk off to porn on the internet. Amy (Mila Kunis), Carla (Kathryn Hahn) and Kiki (Kristen Bell) decide that they have had enough of the PTA, doing everything for their children, picking up after their husbands and the snotty women at the school who pretend to have it all together while judging other mothers parenting skills, so they turn into “bad moms” who make their kids pack their own lunches (gasp!), take a day off of work and get drunk in the middle of the afternoon. PTA president Gwendolyn (Christina Applegate) and her crew of two, Stacy (Jada Pinkett Smith) and Vicky (Annie Mumolo), aren’t helping matters and are constantly sticking their nose in other mothers business, making life impossible for the moms to make a mistake, which we all do.
As a woman whose children once went to a Catholic school in the suburbs of Detroit, I’m here to tell you, that this shit is real you guys. Yes, there are stuck up mothers who think their kids are God’s saving grace. Yes, there are mothers who literally do everything while their husbands/wives sit on their ass all day. And yes, there are mothers who literally need a fucking break. This movie will definitely give them a break they deserve, which I support.
The film had many “mom” moments I could relate to. I went with my wife and two lesbian friends who are not yet mothers, so I am not sure they understood the power of cliquey moms who think they are better than all the others. I’m also not sure they quite grasped the times when moms just want to feel young again even for a day, long enough to get drunk with their friends and go grocery shopping alone. So the movie is most certainly geared towards mothers. (Duh.) Specifically, straight mothers as the only queer one is Carla, a hypersexual single mom who makes out with other moms at a PTA party at Amy’s house. Later that night Carla tells her friends, “I made out with so many women tonight you guys,” which gathered a small applause from the audience-mainly from my row. Amy and Kiki smile and tell her “We know!”
The scene from the party at Amy’s house was probably my favorite moment because moms spend so much time putting on a front for other mothers, they just can’t let off any steam and in this scene, they are certainly letting off that steam. I remember when the other mothers from my kids school asked me to be a part of their book club and I was thrilled, but a little skeptical about how much fun this was actually going to be, considering I am a very young mother who was at least 10 years younger than all of them and, also, not straight. Turns out, heterosexual moms get fucked up at a book club gathering on a Tuesday night and two of them spent the entire evening in the bathroom taking turns vomiting up their chardonnay.
Jada Pinkett Smith is the only WOC character in the film, and she’s a secondary character as part of Christine Applegate’s mean mommy clique. Bad Moms makes references to “divorced black lesbian moms” without ever actually showing them. In fact, we only meet one other queer mom who announces, during a PTA meeting, she prefers her nanny to her husband. Thankfully, they either removed or didn’t include a transphobic Boys Don’t Cry reference made in the original redband trailer.
Wanda Sykes makes a scene-stealing cameo as Dr. Karl, Amy’s couples therapist. She was on screen for maybe five minutes, and I was happy to have her, ever so briefly.
Not only is Bad Moms mainly white women, but the jokes were hit or miss, and Kathryn Hahn was behind most of the laughs-probably because she was the only mom from the beginning who just did not give a fuck what anyone else thought of her. The movie doesn’t hint at her being sexually suggestive with just about everyone making her a “bad mom,” and luckily, no one slut shames her, either.
Bad Moms is a cute movie that mainly mothers will get a kick out of.The women they picked to play the roles are such great actresses, it was unfortunate that some of the jokes written for them fell flat. I would suggest that a few drinks beforehand and hell, even during, will enhance your movie watching experience and give you almost two whole hours of being a “bad mom.”
Bad Moms is in theaters now.
