‘What’s Your Number?’ and the Question of Boundaries

I spend a fair amount of my blogging time analyzing movies that, on the surface, don’t merit deep analysis. I write more blog posts about absurd comedies and romantic comedies than…well, just about anything else.

Why? What’s the point of writing about a fluffy romantic comedy that isn’t meant to be taken that seriously? Why am I not spending more time writing about more intellectual comedies, or finally watching Slings and Arrows when my dad has been recommending that to me for-approximately-ever?

I thought about this issue when I went to see What’s Your Number? last night, a movie that I featured on my “September Movies I Won’t be Seeing” post. (I originally claimed that I had no intention of seeing that movie unless a friend suggested we go see it, but it’s time for me to ‘fess up: I always planned on seeing that movie because of my Anna Faris appreciation, and was just hoping for someone else to suggest it so I could claim to be dragged into it when I wrote the blog post about it.) What’s Your Number? is a stereotypical, fluffy rom-com meant as nothing more than lighthearted entertainment, so why am I going to analyze it? What’s the point?

In some ways, I think that looking at this supposed light-hearted fare is even more valuable than looking closely at more intellectual works. The unintended messages of works of art can tell us even more about our culture and its values than the author’s intended meaning. Stephenie Meyer thinks she wrote a beautiful love story in Twilight, and what does it say about our culture that Edward Cullen’s stalking of Bella Swan is meant to be beautiful and loving instead of possessive and creepy?

Bringing up Twilight is apt when talking about What’s Your Number? since a huge plot point of that movie deals with Anna Faris’s character tracking down her ex-boyfriends – an act that some might consider stalking.

At the end of What’s Your Number?, I had a few thoughts about this movie:

1. “We would never see a movie about a man worrying about his number of sexual partners – unless he was worried about his number being too low.”

2. “Anna Faris’s act of tracking down her ex-boyfriends is portrayed as wrong and immature. If a man were the one trying to track down his ex-girlfriend, it would probably be portrayed as romantic.”

3. “Despite the way the movie treats boundary-crossing as funny, there still manages to be a lovely moment where consent is respected – and it’s rather sweet.”

The first two points are probably completely unsurprising to anyone who’s done any basic reading about feminism, but the third point will probably raise a few eyebrows.

Let me explain.

I don’t need to spend forever talking about the first point. We would never see a movie about a man who worried that he’d slept with too many people because a magazine article told him so. Men’s magazines encourage promiscuity and women’s magazines engage in a lot of double-standard messages about sexuality to the point where every reader can rest assured that she’s never good enough no matter what she does. To the movie’s credit, it seems to be criticizing and calling out women’s magazines by fueling all of these insecurities. To the movie’s discredit, however, our heroine doesn’t begin to question this double standard until – you guessed it – a man points it out to her.

(I have mixed feelings about that trope, to be honest. I like seeing a male character reassure his female friend that the right guy won’t care how many sexual partners she’s had, but I also want to see more examples of women coming to that conclusion on their own.)

Anyway, onto the second point. I watched Ally (Anna Faris) track down her ex-boyfriends and was reminded of one of my favorite articles from The Onion: Romantic-Comedy Behavior Gets Real-Life Man Arrested. So many romantic comedies equate stalking with TRUE LOVE, and I thought some of her behavior could be considered borderline stalking – finding out where her exes were and showing up to those locations “by accident.”

At the same time, she didn’t do anything incredibly inappropriate by going to her exes’ workplaces (or worse yet, homes) except in cases where it was okay to do so. One of her exes had an open house. Going to that open house and pretending to run into him by accident is disingenuous, but is it stalking?

Maybe some would consider it stalking. I’m not sure how I feel. I do, however, think that her character’s behavior that’s labeled as “wrong” and “crazy” is much less egregious than the behavior of male pursuers in romantic comedies – or heck, even the behavior of Meg Ryan’s character in Sleepless in Seattle. Male pursuers in rom-coms (and Meg Ryan) decide that they’re destined to be with someone else and follow these people to the ends of the earth, not taking no for an answer. Their relentless pursuit is deemed “romantic” instead of invasive. Ally, on the other hand, didn’t think these exes were necessarily “The One” and was only trying to meet up with them to see if something clicked. If something didn’t click, she dropped the pursuit immediately. Yet who’s the one who has to be told that her behavior is inappropriate?

Finally, to the third point. There’s a scene late in the movie where Ally and Colin (Chris Evans) have their Romantic Comedy Wacky Date (except they’re still Just Friends at this point) by playing strip HORSE on a basketball court, jumping into the Boston Harbor, and walking back to her apartment wearing very little clothing. She stands in her doorway wearing his wet button-down white shirt and teases him, and he gets this look on his face that shows he’s seeing her in a different light. He walks closer to her, starts slowly unbuttoning the shirt – very slowly – and her breath catches; she’s completely surprised by this turn of events, but also very pleased. They pause, then start kissing, then start unbuttoning each other’s clothes, fall onto the bed, and just when it looks like they’re about to take it further, she stops them – she doesn’t want her “number” to go up. He half-jokingly tries to convince her otherwise and they laugh. He sighs, a little disappointed, but clearly isn’t going to make a big thing about it. Then they spend the evening kissing and being intimate without having sex.

I have to admit, that scene got to me in a good way.

First, Anna Faris was filmed wearing nothing but a button-down men’s shirt – a wet white shirt, at that – and somehow, the scene didn’t feel at all exploitative. When he looks at her, there’s nothing douchey or sexist or “Whoa, hot naked blonde!” about that moment. It felt very natural and real and romantic. Nudity (or near-nudity) without objectification – what a novel concept!

Second, I loved that Colin listened to Ally’s objections to having sex instead of fighting her about it or acting butthurt and pouty. Ally knew – and the audience knew – that Colin thought her obsession with her “number” was pretty stupid. But despite feeling that way, he didn’t try to push the issue. Her reason for not wanting to have sex wasn’t important to him. The reason was irrelevant; the very fact that she didn’t want to do it was enough for him to calm his jets and stop. And even though he clearly wanted to have sex with her, he wasn’t going to enjoy it if she wasn’t, so he stuck to the level of intimacy that she was comfortable and happy with.

What’s Your Number? isn’t a revolutionary movie in most ways. It’s a standard, stereotypical romantic comedy that’s elevated slightly by the performances and chemistry of the two lead actors. But I really wish more movies that dealt with romance would have more scenes like the one I just described – where a difference of opinion about sex doesn’t lead to an enormous argument or hurt feelings, but instead, leads to a moment of even deeper intimacy.