“AbFab: The Movie” is a Vacation from the Suck
“Welcome to the Republican National Convention!” yelled legendary drag queen Lady Bunny, introducing Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley at the New York premiere of “Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie” earlier this week. We all had a big, cathartic laugh: An audience heavy on women, gays, and drag queens, we were collectively the GOP’s worst nightmare.
The big-screen version of the British sitcom couldn’t have arrived at a more perfect moment. If you’re anything like me, you spend part of your time reading the latest news stories with a creeping sense of horror, and part of it actively avoiding media because you just can’t take any more awfulness. The torrent has reached a new high-water mark this week via the RNC, where the ever-expanding war on women and minorities is being codified and celebrated by a convention hall full of angry white men (and a few various others who inexplicably stick around).
It’s all very dark, darling. Which is why the 90 minutes I spent watching the “AbFab” movie, out Friday, were such a blissful relief. The candy-colored, slapstick world in which best friends Edina Monsoon (Saunders), PR agent and fashion victim, and Patsy Stone (Lumley), a fashion editor with a Keith Richards-level tolerance, exist is one where men matter very little. They’re sources of sex and general objectification and occasionally money, but that’s about it.
Women rule here, and not just any women: OLDER women. Hard-drinking women. Women — daffy as they are — who wield withering put-downs and ulterior motives and senses of humor. Briefly, I entertained a fantasy of Patsy and Edina stomping around the RNC, swilling Champagne and scaring the senators.
For the uninitiated, here’s a primer on the tone of the show, which ran for three seasons, and a few returning specials, on the BBC from 1992–2012:
The title both is and isn’t a joke: While Eddie and Pats are often a complete, unmitigated disaster, they maintain a firm belief in their fundamental coolness. The movie sums this up nicely in the scene where Edina wails at her reflection about looking fat: “You don’t need that. I am your mirror,” says Patsy. “How do I look?” she says. You know it before you hear it: “Fabulous,” says Patsy, before walking straight into a door.
The scene sums up everything I love about these characters: The physical comedy; the unwavering faith in the power of affirming each other; the fact that both of their faces actually have makeup smeared all the hell over the place; the friendship itself, an iconic female pairing that predated “Sex and the City,” not to mention “Broad City,” whose weed-fiend leads are definite spiritual sisters to “AbFab,” if way less acerbic.
I’ve been so confounded by some reviews that misconstrue the characters, like this one, which suggests that “AbFab” “invited us to laugh at female failure” and is ultimately “a comedy about women being useless.” I couldn’t disagree more. Yes, Pats and Eddie often end up making spectacles of themselves, but the enduring friendship — and unflappable delusion — is the point. Not their humiliation. (Apparently, this critic’s not alone, though; the show rubbed people the wrong way right out of the gate. “I don’t think women being drunk is funny” was the comment from the BBC’s head of comedy at the time.)
Furthermore - do I really need to point this out? We LOVE men who party as hard as Patsy and Edina. I submit to you “The Hangover,” “Animal House,” “Trainspotting,” “The Big Lebowski,” and “Arthur.”
I think the real hangup for some is the fact that there are no serious consequences for these women behaving badly — nor is there really any remorse. In the movie, there’s one moment of Edina being penitent towards her straight-arrow daughter, Saffy (Julia Sawalha) — but you can see the way her eyes go flat as she does it, half-assing all the way. She doesn’t actually think she’s in the wrong, she just knows how you’re supposed to sound when you do.
In a culture that thrives on female subjugation and suffering — I’m looking at you, Cleveland — characters like this present a big middle finger to the status quo. And on that note, it’s also one of the only mainstream movies this summer with a female director — Mandie Fletcher, who has directed several episodes of the show.
I don’t doubt this movie will elicit the same old criticisms this time around — Too crass! Not funny! Too mean! Not LADYLIKE — but it won’t matter to “AbFab” loyalists, whom I am hoping will turn out in droves that make the box office big enough to merit a sequel.
There’s a famous quote that’s been making the social media rounds lately, for good reason — “Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” Humor is pretty good at it too, though. And on Monday night in Chelsea, for a couple of hours, it was nice to live in a world where all this tedious American misogyny was kicked to the curb by a couple of badass British babes.
