In a series called Mondo Bullshittio, let’s talk about some of the most glaring hypocrisies and faux pas in pop culture… and all that it affects.
In 1997, while Jennifer Aniston was riding high on playing Rachel Green in Friends, she was still hedging her bets on what might happen after the show ended and she needed a fallback career: movie actress. Because apparently the lifelong royalties from Friends just weren’t going to be enough for her eventual skin care needs. And so, prior to Picture Perfect’s 1997 release, Aniston had built up to a starring role with supporting efforts in She’s the One, Dream for an Insomniac and ‘Til There Was You—all parts that were landed after the success of Friends [and no, regarding earlier “films” of Aniston’s, ain’t nobody trying to make a #JusticeforLeprechaun hashtag happen). Each one was ostensibly meant to prove she could carry a film on her own.
Picture Perfect, alas, didn’t seem to justify her “big screen” worth to critics in this respect, as they were quick to pan her performance and the movie itself. And yet, it was certainly no worse than anything else that came out the same month, including Excess Baggage and A Smile Like Yours. In fact, Picture Perfect ought to receive retrospective vindication for how much it captured a moment in time. Not just the “career girl” movie genre (because it was still, evidently, so “novel” for women to be focused on their careers instead of getting married and having children), but the discrimination that came with “daring” to live the sologamist’s lifestyle.
It’s no coincidence that only a year after Picture Perfect came out, Sex and the City would debut, a more ribald continuation of Kate Mosley’s (Aniston) life before she surrendered to (read: settled for) Nick—the Aidan to Sam’s (Kevin Bacon) Big. To highlight just how much she succumbed to the societal pressure—even in “free-thinking” New York City—of needing to “land a man,” Jay Mohr is the person cast in the role of Nick. Jay fucking Mohr. Arguably the least compelling leading man of the 1990s. Kate truly could have been better off had she not drunk from the capitalist Kool-Aid surrounding “love” and all that it “means” (beneath it all, the lifelong purchasing power of a married couple that spawns). What’s more, since she works in advertising, one would think Kate would be able to see past the façade of what such capitalist organizations as her own do for the sake of making the masses believe in their hooey. So much so that they could never be told otherwise at this juncture. As Kate’s co-worker and presumable best friend, Darcy (Illeana Douglas), phrases what they do, “I didn’t lie. I sold.”
Kate starts to catch on to the importance of doing this in order to get ahead in her profession. Realizing that playing it straight hasn’t gotten her very far when Darcy decides to tell a tiny white lie to land her a promotion she deserves. Before this, however, we’re given a snapshot into Kate’s everyday routine. On the bus to Midtown, she stares bitterly at an ad that reads, “Upsize your job.” Something she hasn’t been able to do despite what she feels is her underrated talent at the agency where she works. Another ad on the side of the bus emphasizes the era of Giuliani’s “cleanup” of the city, via a message that reads, “Be Bright. A well-lit ATM is a safe ATM.” Is it? ‘Cause a gun is a gun. And yes, this little snapshot does make us think just slightly about Patrick Bateman (i.e. “feed me a stray cat”), and how his yuppie ilk still possesses NYC as their playground.
“She was prepared for anything until love stormed in,” declares Picture Perfect’s tagline. Another part of the capitalist propaganda wielded by the concept of “love” and it being what happens when you’re trying to make other plans. Like “upsizing” your job. Because one presumes that’s certainly going to take a backburner to Kate’s original goals now that she can “stop pretending” because she finally has a fiancé. And a real one instead of a feigned one, which is what Nick initially starts out being.
After encountering him at a wedding where he’s both a guest and the videographer (his profession being essentially moot in the current sea of smartphones), she ends up securing some Polaroids (“picture perfect”—get it?) taken with him after he catches the garter from the groom and she catches the bouquet from the bride. Showing them to Darcy before a meeting with the head of the agency, Mr. Mercer (Kevin Dunn), they’ll come in handy after he reams her about being too “free.” Which is the real reason why he refuses to let her advance in her career. As his “logic” goes, “Look at Darcy here. Now, you two are the same age, but Darcy owns a home—a home that, in my opinion, she can’t really afford—and that pleases me no end because I know she’s showing up for work tomorrow.” He then indicates Sam, the “bad boy” Kate has a crush on yet can’t seem to get him to give her the time of day, adding, “And this guy, I cosigned the loan on his Mercedes. Happy to do it. He’s not going anywhere. Sela here…” Sela (Anne Twomey) chimes in, “Oh, yeah. I’ve got it all: the husband, the house, and the car we can’t afford.”
Mercer then continues, “Which brings us to you. Now, unlike anyone else who works for me, you’re the only person I know who lives like they’re still in college. I mean, you’re, uh, you know, you’re as free as a bird, which is fine…for you. But I’m not about to encourage you to develop a relationship with one of my largest clients when I know there’s nothing keeping you from picking up and going to work for one of my competitors and maybe taking my big client with you.” Of course, in the present day, this would be highly illegal and deemed some form of discrimination against a person who—quelle horreur!—is actually content as a sologamist. Indeed, she declares as much to Darcy at the beginning of the movie when she says, “I’m finally coming to realize I like being single, you know? Love being self-sufficient. And I truly believe that this is my nature, you know?”
But, naturally, as a viewer in the late 90s, we’re meant to take that as Kate’s “sad” attempt at deluding herself just because she hasn’t found the “right” man yet. What’s more, the sexism at play is blatant in that Sam is just as “free,” with Mercer using the co-signed Mercedes excuse as a “grasping at straws” attempt to make Sam seem more responsible than he actually is when, in fact, he’s far “worse” than Kate in his singledom, ho’ing it up with any woman he can. The disgusting need of a company to encourage a homogenous lifestyle choice in this manner—particularly if you are a woman—is a primary aspect of what makes most corporate entities so cult-like. They want you to be part of “the family” by making sure you’ll start one of your own, setting upon the capitalist life path that ensures an endless supply chain of consumers—ones that will someday consume the very products being sold by the company itself.
Running into the bathroom in a rightful fit of rage after the meeting, Kate proceeds to scream about how the world is shit. Especially as a woman who dares to relish the benefits of being single past “a certain age.” Darcy follows her in with a Cheshire cat smile to inform, “Well, Mercer told me to tell you, ‘Welcome to the team.’” This referring to the Gulden’s account that Kate conceived a well-received campaign concept for. Kate replies, “What team?… I don’t have a husband, and I don’t have a mortgage, and I don’t have a car manufactured by a goddamn Nazi.” Darcy persists, holding out the Polaroid of Kate and Nick that she had held on to, “You mean you’re not engaged to this guy?” Incredulous, Kate snaps back, “Oh, what are you talking about? Darcy, what did you do? What did you do? What did you do?!” She beams, “Me? Nothing much. I just got you a hundred-fifty more a week and a new job title.” This incites the response, “You lied?! Darcy, I earned that promotion! I deserved that promotion.” But no, based on what society—represented most succinctly by corporate culture—needs to feel safe, she did not deserve it. Because an uncaged bird is a dangerous thing. A threat to the very fabric of all that America holds dear: enslavement to capitalist ideals.
Thus, Kate is obliged to go along with the lie that’s been established, seeking out Nick and explaining the whole incongruous story to him. She invites him up to New York from Boston so they can stage a fight at a work dinner so that Kate might be able to go back to living her glorious single girl working life. Giving him a “brief” to study so that he can familiarize himself with her past (after all, there were no social media accounts to stalk back then), Nick asks why there’s no mention of her father anywhere. She then explains it’s because he left when she was so young and she has few memories of him as a result. Though one vague reminiscence, mind you, is tied to capitalism (once more proving that “love” and this system are hopelessly interlinked). For her dad took her to a department store on a rare occasion and bought her a Cinderella watch, the object she now ties to “love” for her since deceased father. Which is why she thinks she should have kept it as a souvenir of her inadequate patriarch.
Of going along with the lie and getting better at the art overall, she tells Darcy, “It gets easier once you realize that’s what everyone wants you to do.” It’s after this moment that she orders herself a bouquet of flowers (as Cher Horowitz would do) to send to the office so everyone will think it’s from Nick. And she’s right, people are more comfortable not only with the lies they tell themselves, but the ones others tell them as well. It’s just an amusing game called, “Let’s keep our blinders on until we’re inundated from all sides by reality.”
Although she can sense that something is developing between her and Nick, Kate pushes it aside because the things she wants in life do not include “partnership” unless it’s within her own advertising agency. Thus, when Nick tries to kibosh the plan and not pick a fight with her in front of her boss and colleagues, he wondrously tells her outside the restaurant when it’s all over, “I never met anyone in my life that knew what they wanted more than you do.” And yes, she does know. Or did. Until we’re meant to believe that “love” came along to derail her “cold, heartless” path.
Now that she’s finally gotten what she wanted all along, including being made the creative lead on an account, which will presently require her to come up with additional ads for Gulden’s during the Super Bowl, she decides it’s “hollow.” This revelation made clear when she unearths a Cinderella watch like the one her father had gotten her in the envelope of cash she tried to give to Nick to make their entire affair more businesslike rather than personal. And so, in front of everyone at work, she admits she lied and that Nick is actually a good person. “I asked him to make a fool of himself… and he did it to please me, and I did it to please you,” she announces. This vicious cycle of “trying to please” all being what makes the capitalist world go ‘round. Even though it will ultimately please no one to be a climate refugee.
Kate adds, “I think, that I convinced myself that whatever talent I had meant nothing unless it came in this package that everyone liked.” That package, ironically, being one that she will now choose to embody by getting together with Nick as opposed to staying her free-spirited, “college lifestyle” self.
Lying and its importance to getting ahead in a career was a major motif in ’97, at least if Liar Liar is an indication. Here, too, the film’s intent is to show that a person’s priorities ought to be with “l’amour” and nurturing a family. The underhanded lie in these types of movies, however, is that their message is a wholesome one that encourages getting one’s “correct” priorities in order—chiefly, “love.” With the audience not seeming to understand that love is the most effective propagandist tool for perpetuating the tenets of capitalism. Ergo, the “sin” of Kate Mosley living “like she’s still in college” past an expected expiration date. But who does this lifestyle choice really hurt? Apart from the machine of neoliberalism.
