27 Dresses focuses on Jane's (Katherine Heigl) adoration for weddings and the planning process which goes into them. Throughout the beginning of the film, Jane longs to be romantically involved with her boss. Unfortunately, he falls in love with her younger, slender, and chicer sister. The film portrays Heigl as a lunatic manically obsessing over other peoples' weddings because of a lack of romantic prospects in her own life. The misconception that all women aspire to marriage is hauntingly present in most modern romantic comedies. It perpetuates the notion that women who are not married by a certain age are probably defunct and deserve to be alone. Jane represents the every woman, who is committed to her work and her friends, waiting for her fairy tale romance. It is necessary for movies to start including female protagonists who yearn for both love and success instead of merely a man.
I think this is a really great example of stereotyping women into this category of people who want nothing other than to be taken care of by an attractive and successful male. I also think it is interesting to note that Katherine Heigl, who is being depicted as the "everyday woman" who strives for love and looses her dream man to her "more attractive" sister is played by one of Hollywood's most stereotypically beautiful actresses. If Katherine Heigl is the "everyday woman" is makes me wonder what the creators of 27 Dresses think of the actual average bodied American woman.
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