I enjoyed the first several seasons of Entourage. Vince was boring, but at least he was likable (which, in later seasons, he wasn't). Ari was funny. Johnny Drama was the butt of every joke, so it was easier to take his odious personality. E was a straight shooter, a nice guy, until he became a Nice Guy. Turtle was an idiot, but then he slimmed down and became the one guy you actually rooted for at the end of the series. For season eight of Entourage, I have nothing negative to say about Turtle.
Entourage has always had a well-documented woman problem. There are no major female characters. Sloan comes closest, or maybe even Babs, and they're hardly "major" characters the way the five main characters are. That's fine. This is a guy's show. I genuinely don't mind a show of mostly guys. None of my favorite movies pass the Bechdel Test. That doesn't mean the story is bad or even sexist. It just means it's a mostly guy show.
The woman problem comes from, in my opinion, whether or not the story makes sense when you tell it from Her perspective. If there are giant leaps in logic that determine a woman's behavior in a Dude story, that's where the woman problem comes in.
(My favorite movies, for the record, are Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, The Big Lebowski, and Black Dynamite. In Bill & Ted, the princesses go from marrying royal ugly dudes in the middle ages to dating Bill & Ted in the 1980s and being introduced to credit cards and something called the mall. You get their perspective - that is a giant step forward any way you look at it. In Big Lebowski, Bunny Lebowski wants to have a good time and get paid. Maude wants a baby. Black Dynamite is a perfectly done spoof, and you would have to be crazy to not want some of Black Dynamite's loving. Having a male-dominated movie or TV show does not give your story a woman problem. Having stupid woman characters whose actions make no sense gives your story a woman problem.)
Let's start with Sophia. Sophia is played by Alice Eve. Below is Sophia.
Wow. Sophia is a beautiful woman. High five to Sophia.
Sophia is a renowned and respected journalist. She moves in circles with major political and economic figures. She is extremely educated. She requests multiple times, at first politely and then firmly, that Vince stop hitting on her during their interview. Vince thinks he's being cute and ignores her request. Vince is a dipshit.
Sophia finally writes down her exact experiences with Vince in an article for Vanity Fair. Vince doesn't like the idea that he has to deal with the consequences of his very real actions and asks for a second chance. Also, he continues to ask for a date, because he has learned literally nothing. Sophia, renowned and respected journalist who works with politicians and economists and world leaders, keeps giving this entitled actor the time of day for pretty much no reason.
Finally, Vince decides to go back to all his ex-girlfriends and get them to make a video of how great he is. He gives Sophia the video. She marries him.
Let's go through Sophia's thought process here.
"Oh, hello world, my name is Sophia. I am a respected journalist. Do you know how hard that is? In a dying industry of fewer and fewer movers and shakers, I emerge as brilliant. Yes, please, hold your applause, thank you. Look at me. I am a sight to behold. I am out of your league. I demand intellectual respect. I demand all your attention. I am here to do my job, damn it.
"Ugh, fluff piece. Have to interview this overexposed, overrated actor. Great. Oh, he's hitting on me. Sir, can you not? Oh, he thinks I'm joking, because he is actually used to women throwing themselves at him. Snore. Yawn. Gross. Wow, he will not stop. He cannot answer a question without flirting. This is insane. I'm not even being full of myself right now, he literally cannot help himself. That's pathetic. It's borderline sad. How is he so incapable of interacting with a female without the intention of fucking her? This is ridiculous. This is my article. I am writing about the real Vinny Chase right now.
"Oh, he doesn't like it. Duh. Maybe he shouldn't have acted that way. Oh my god, is he using this article as an excuse to get a date? Does he have a reading comprehension problem? Is this real? How else do I express my desire for him to stop hitting on me? In what way can I express that desire so that he finally says to himself, 'huh, maybe I should stop hitting on her?' Literally I am out of ideas. I have been nice about it. I have been stern about it. I have written an article about it. The man is unstoppable.
"La la la, few days to live my life without any interaction with Vincent Chase. Oh my god. What is this video. Is this real? Fine. Fine, I will watch the video. It's a bunch of his old girlfriends talking about how great he was as a boyfriend. This is important, because doesn't everyone hate their exes? Wow. He has a lot of exes. Jesus Christ. That is more exes than I expected. Can some of these even count as exes? How many of these are just one-night stands? I mean, really?
"Video keeps going. Oh, keeps going. How cute. Oh wow. The cutest. I'm in love now.
"Well, I'm convinced. Now that I know he was a good boyfriend, which is all that I needed to know, I can finally give in to his charms. We should get married. Let that be a lesson to all men hitting on women in inappropriate situations. If she says no, you just used the wrong tack. Try again."
Apparently they get divorced before the movie takes place, which is literally a week after the show ends. So that marriage, of Vincent Chase to a respected journalist he continued to hit on despite her many pleas to just let her do her job, lasted all of a few days. So that whole thing where Vincent wins in that situation, even though he has no business winning? It was to be with a girl for less than a week.
Look forward to more in this series about:
Emma Stone from Superbad
Tara from Sons of Anarchy
Sook-yin Park in The Interview
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