Girls Trip My Thoughts and Review

Lisa Marbly-Warir

7/24/2017

Starring Queen Latifah, Jada Pickett, Regina Hall and Tiffany Haddish.

When four lifelong friends travel to New Orleans for the annual Essence Festival, sisterhoods are rekindled, wild sides are rediscovered, and there's enough dancing, drinking, brawling, and romancing to make the Big Easy blush.  Credit IMDB

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Before seeing this movie I read on a social media site about a YouTube video by Boyce Watkins and a forum where Black men were talking despairingly about this movie. (According to them—showing Black women in a negative, stereotypical light)
The majority of women who took exception to their words were upset because they felt it was just a blow against Black women trying to be happy, carefree and living life on their terms—and men being upset because they weren’t the center of attention etc. (don’t know how true that is, that’s just an example of what I read online)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXNJqzSCqvE Boyce Watkins video

I listened to what Boyce Watkins had to say—but wasn’t going to let it be a deterrent. I still wanted to see and support this movie. I enjoyed the movie, it was well done, it was LOL funny and it had some touching moments—pretty predictable.

~~Possible Spoilers~~

Now, as much as I liked this movie, Boyce Watkins does have a point—the over-sexualization of the characters in this movie and the subliminal message of what it is sending to young Black girls and young Black ladies in general—a demographic that is already high risk for STD’s and adding to the OOW epidemic.

At the same time, part of me says, it’s just a movie and we are damned if we do and damned if we don’t. At the end of the day this is a movie Black women wanted to see and didn’t we come out and support this movie? We sure did. 30.4 million opening day.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I feel that we as Black women are almost starved for a movie that shows us as something other than a slave, asexual, the Black *man-less token friend or the struggling downtrodden Black woman trope that I am so tired of. This movie was a breath of fresh air to me but I do see the pros and cons of the movie.

*Speaking of man-less, ironically all of the women were man-less in this movie except for Regina Hall’s character and even then her husband was a cheating so-and-so. But that is another point for another day.

Pros—funny, seeing 4 beautiful Black, educated, successful women, living life on their terms, sisterhood, a throwback to the 90’s—did I mention funny?

Cons—for me it was age appropriation, some of the antics showcased in this movie would have been better suited for younger women (even still it was a bit much at times)
Having 40-something, educated women acting irresponsible over sex and drinking wasn’t cute. As a matter of fact some of the lingo was definitely of a younger generation.
The swearing, I know people swear. But I was never a swearer and neither is my family. However, I know its common place for many homes.

I give the movie ★★★★☆
Get your girlfriends and support this movie
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