TV sitcoms – The Bridesmaids effect

The raunchy female-oriented movie BRIDESMAIDS was one of the surprise smash hits of the summer. And its success may be having a ripple effect on TV.

BRIDESMAIDS has made almost 170 million dollars domestically, a whopping 284 million worldwide. The R-rated movie with its famously raunchy and somewhat vulgar sense of humor was seen as a test case for women-centric comedies, a test it passed easily.

As to whether BRIDESMAIDS has had a trickle-down effect on this season’s new TV shows, there’s one obvious and direct connection. In the new show UP ALL NIGHT, about first-time parents, the writers have been scurrying to give the new mom’s boss a much more prominent role. Why? Because she’s played by Maya Rudolph, who just happened to be THE bride in BRIDESMAIDS. In the new posters for the show, she shares equal billing with Will Arnett and Christina Applegate. The network is clearly trying to cash in on the connection.

Perhaps more significantly, there are three new sitcoms, all premiering this week, that star women – 2 BROKE GIRLS, THE NEW GIRL, and WHITNEY.

The trailblazing Tina Fey, the creator of 30 Rock and once the head writer for Saturday Night Live, has talked about how hard it was to get female-oriented jokes on the air. Jokes about menstrual pads or mom jeans were considered in questionable taste.

That no longer may be the problem. 2 BROKE GIRLS is about a couple of down-on-their-luck waitresses, In the very opening scene of the very first episode, our female lead Kat Dennings tells a leering cook to stop staring at her chest, tells off a grumpy customer that his finger-snapping dries up her female parts, and the scene ends with a joke about another waitress’s sexual release. More jokes about home pregnancy tests and various stains on waitresses’ uniforms follow shortly after. I wonder what Tina Fey would have to say now. And oh, by the way, 2 Broke Girls drew 19.2 million viewers for CBS. It may be a hit.

Interestingly, the co-writer of 2 BROKE GIRLS is Whitney Cummings, who is also starring in her own sitcom, WHITNEY, which premieres tonight. In it, she plays a version of herself – a cocky, non-traditional woman who, for starters, is deeply suspicious of the institution of marriage. Whitney, the character, also happens to love sex, a characteristic Whitney, the person, thinks is under-represented on TV. Too often, she says, women on sitcoms would rather complain about the men in their lives than bed them.

The third sitcom is THE NEW GIRL which stars Zooey Deschanel. It has a somewhat different vibe but is definitely female-centric. Unlike the other two comedies, Deschanel’s character is not a sassy, know-it-all but more of a lovable nerd. But even so, there are plenty of jokes about Tiger boobs, tampons, and shaving your legs, both front and back.

It’s definitely a brave new world out there and the women may be taking charge.