‘Neighbors 2’– The Feminist Bromance We All Needed

While it plays off of farcical stereotypes the characters are actually fresh and the film is just as thought-provoking as it is hilarious.

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The first Neighbors movie passed the Bechdel test, but it’s still very much a guys’ movie. The plot is centered primarily around male characters, and the women are all introduced into the story as the spouses, significant others, or sexual partners of the various male characters. Most notably, the very bright & very attractive Rose Byrne plays the wife of an overweight pot-smoker, portrayed by Seth Rogen.

It could have been a starting point in discussing how Hollywood movies promote rape culture and male sexual entitlement, but instead, it halted the discussion by making Rogen the victim.

Washington Post critic Ann Hornady took note of this and blamed the movie Neighbors (released on May 9, 2014) for the UC Santa Barbara shootings, which occurred only 14 days later. In a reflective Op-Ed piece, Hornady mused, “How many students watch outsized frat-boy fantasies like and feel, as Rodger did, unjustly shut out of college life that should be full of ‘sex and fun and pleasure’? How many men, raised on a steady diet of Judd Apatow comedies in which the shlubby arrested adolescent always gets the girl, find that those happy endings constantly elude them and conclude, ‘It’s not fair’?”

Predictably, Seth Rogen was not pleased. He called Hornady out on Twitter, and his fans piled on. The column backfired. It could have been a starting point in discussing how Hollywood movies promote rape culture and male sexual entitlement, but instead, it halted the discussion by making Rogen the victim.

…or so it seemed.

Last month, Rogen released the follow-up, Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, which he co-wrote with four other writers, all of them male. The lead villain is now an 18-year-old college freshman named Shelby (Chloë Grace Moretz), who wants to start an independent sorority where girls can throw their own parties, free from sleazy frat boys.

Despite being a villainess created by male writers, Shelby is a relatable and likeable character. Though she embodies many obnoxious teen stereotypes (loud music, incessant texting, never taking other people’s advice, etc.), we still enjoy seeing her take matters into her own hands. She is a young entrepreneur in the making, and the sorority is her first business endeavor.

Best of all, none of Shelby’s character motives have anything to do with getting a boyfriend. After four years of being a loser in high school, she’s now trying to start a friend group of like-minded women. Those are her only motives: friendship and family. The sorority throws feminist-themed parties, including one where all the sisters dress up as iconic female leaders from Joan of Arc to Hillary Clinton.

Universal Pictures used female sexuality to promote the film, but the film itself is far from degrading to women. Yes, the first teaser poster featured red thong hanging from a picket fence. Yes, every trailer of the film included a clip of Rose Byrne hosing down twenty bikini-clad sisters. But in the film itself, it’s Zac Efron’s half-naked body that we get to ogle over. I won’t spoil anything, but I will say his character shows more skin than any of the women.

I’ve seen all of the female-driven hit comedies of the past few years (Bridesmaids, Heat, Trainwreck, and How to Be Single), but what makes Neighbors 2 unique is that it has a female-driven cast and a male pro-feminist perspective. Shelby’s neighbor and nemesis, Mac, constantly wonders what it means to be a father to a girl in today’s world. Mac has one daughter already, and his wife is pregnant with a second. He believes in equality and sex-positivism, but in one scene, his friend challenges him on those views by asking him what he will do when his daughter grows up and becomes sexually active. Will he respect her right to make her own choices with her own body, or will he shelter her because he’s uncomfortable and scared? This is a question that all “feminist” fathers of girls will have to answer when their daughters reach a certain age, making the scenario relatable to men and to women.

Mac constantly wonders whether other people’s conventional worldviews, including his own, are “sexist.” He does so partly because he loves his daughter, partly because he’s conflicted about how to deal with Shelby, and partly because that’s just what all of us progressive men are doing nowadays.

The UCSB shooter reminded us that no man is entitled to sex, but Shelby reassures us that we are all entitled to some form of love, not necessarily from a significant other, but from people who understand and value us.

Meanwhile, Shelby constantly wonders whether her inner feelings of self-restraint are really just society telling her she must act a certain way because of her gender. At one point, she wonders if she’s being too ruthless in her revenge pranks against Mac and his wife, but her friends cheer her on, reminding her that no man would ever worry about “going too far.”

Seth Rogen was not responsible for the shootings at UC Santa Barbara, nor was any one specific actor or filmmaker, but by creating a character like Shelby and a movie like Neighbors 2, Rogen has shown us that he wants to be on the right side of the conversation. The UCSB shooter believed that because he was a loser in high school, the women he met in college owed him sex and deserved to die for not giving it to him. Well, Shelby was also a loser in high school, and she didn’t kill anyone: she just went out and found like-minded college friends. The UCSB shooter reminded us that no man is entitled to sex, but Shelby reassures us that we are all entitled to some form of love, not necessarily from a significant other, but from people who understand and value us.

Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising is filled with toilet humor and farce, but it’s just as thought-provoking as it is hilarious. The characters all sound like stereotypes: a feminist father, an anti-frat-party sorority girl, a gay frat bro & his straight best friend. But then you realize you’ve never seen these alleged stereotypes on screen before. They are unique to this film, as is the message they convey. The movie perfectly fuses the genres of Bromantic Comedy (Wedding Crashers, Superbad, I Love You Man) and Female-Driven Comedy (Bridesmaids, Heat, How to Be Single). It is the first Female-Driven Bromantic Comedy, proving that a feminist film can truly have something for everyone.