Jean Therapy
Not only am I secure enough with my masculinity to admit I just watched Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, I am secure enough to blog about it. To spare those of you who were planning on renting it, I offer the following Cliff's Notes version.
SOTTP is about four best gal pals, Rory Gilmore, Joan of Arcadia, Blonde Stick Figure and The Curvy Hispanic One. They've been best friends since the womb, cause you know...that's just so likely. Through a dazzling montage and voiceover we learn all we need to know about the girls first fifteen years in a matter of minutes. Rory Gilmore is the shy, quiet one, Joan of Arcadia is the one who thinks having a blue streak in her hair and a nose stud makes her rebellious. (Yeah, you and every other angry tween Joan.) Blonde Stick Figure is pretty one who is athletic and a wild child and The Curvy Hispanic One is the curvy, Hispanic one.
While shopping, the Sisterhood finds a pair of jeans that mysteriously fits them all. (Apparently they've never heard of stretch denim.) Noting the curiosity, they decide the jeans are magic and they will share them all summer while they are apart. During their last night together, they make a bizarre pact of rules to accompany the jeans WHILE SITTING IN A CIRCLE WITH CANDLES ON THE FLOOR OF THE EXERCISE STUDIO WHERE THEIR MOTHERS MET BEFORE THEY WERE BORN AND OH MY DEAR GOD I WISH I WERE JOKING ABOUT THAT.
The next day the prepubescent Ya-Yas head off to their summer destination. Rory Gilmore goes to Greece to spend the summer with her grandparents, magic jeans folded neatly in her luggage. The Curvy Hispanic One is off to the Carolinas to spend time with her absentee father, Guy From The West Wing. Blonde Stick Figure is shipped off to a Mexican soccer camp away from the bad memories of her dead mother and Joan of Arcadia is stuck at home working at Wal-Mart. Yeah, I know in the movie they call it WallMans but we all know it's fucking Wal-Mart, so let's not pretend.
While wearing the pants, Rory falls into the sea and sinks to the bottom because apparently the city of Bethesda, Maryland has no swimming lessons. The magic pants get caught under the water and OH NO Rory Gilmore might drown. Knowing The WB would never let this happen, a hot Greek stud swims to her aid and frees her. They talk but her prudish demeanor beckons her elsewhere when she starts feeling tingly down there.
Meanwhile Blonde Stick Figure finds her self the only guy in her target demographic at the camp - a student coach from Columbia - and decides she is going to fulfill every summer camp movie cliche "this is the summer I get laid" plot point with him.
Joan is at Wal-Mart putting price stickers on maxi pads. I don't know when was the last time SOTTP novelist Ann Brashares set foot in a Wal-Mart, but I'm pretty certain price stickers haven't been put on feminine hygiene products since the early eighties. But this is all there to set up a gag with Joan having a price sticker on her forehead when she comes to the aid of a little passed out girl.
The Curvy Hispanic One arrives in WASPville and is greeted by her West Wing Absentee Father and like a real asshole waits until the whitest Southern woman alive comes to greet her to tell her A) he's living with this woman, B) she has two kids and C) they are getting married this summer.
Blonde Stick Figure likes to run.
Back to The Curvy Hispanic One who feels like Conjetura Que Coming To Dinner calls home to complain about the whiteness, but is determined to spend time with her West Wing Daddy.
Rory learns her gooey crush has a consequence because no love-in-a-foreign-country story would be complete without a good Old World family feud.
Then we make way for a TRAVELING PANTS MONTAGE filled with blue skies and fluffy white clouds cause it is about the pants you know. And they travel. They are carefully left on the doorstep by the FedEx guy who doesn't even bother to ring the fucking doorbell proving that FedEx employees probably hate their jobs as much as the rest of us. Joan is in her room working on her documentary about how comical it sucks to be the working class when her doorbell rings. An annoyingly perky blonde twelve-year old has her package because the package was delivered to her house by mistake. She invites her self in and starts with the questions because she is Nermal to Joan's Garfield.
The Curvy Hispanic One is excited to get to play tennis and bond with her West Wing Daddy only to be taken to her soon-to-be step-brother's soccer game. She hears her Daddy refer to the step-blonde as his son while Stepford Step Mom shows up bitching about some wedding plans. Daddy leaves his daughter to tend to his distraught fiance and tell her to play tennis with the step. She sublimates her rage and pelts the shit out the step-blonde right in the face. Nice move CHO. I would have thrown the racket too.
Blonde Stick Figure does a slutty, obvious Flashdance move with a water bottle cause nothing impresses the boys at Columbia quite like a wet sports bra.
Rory runs into her hot Greek stallion and he flirts but she thwarts his advances out of loyalty to her grandparents. Later she gives into her tingly feeling and stalks the boy. Eventually she becomes tired of being such a fucking prude, so she strips to her undies and dives into the ocean where the Greek Stallion joins her.
Back in Bethesda, Joan has a conversation with her Wal-Mart assistant manager that OH MY GOD gave me a post-traumatic flashback from my time employed there. Nermal shows up with her video equipment and they go to shoot some footage. While editing the footage, Nermal finds the pants. She tries them one, but they don't fit. When Joan leaves, Nermal records something on her camera that you know you are going to get to see later at the end of the movie. Joan packs up the pants and ships them to CHO. She later finds out Nermal has leukemia.
Blonde Stick Figure sneaks into a bar to dance with and inappropriately touch the dude.
CHO, wearing the jeans, goes to try on bridesmaids dresses only to be made to feel like a Gordita because apparently there are no fatties in Charleston and they've never seen Real Women Have Curves. CHO loses it and tells the WASPs off and runs away. When she eventually does come back, she is PISSED to find West Wing Daddy is NOT EVEN LOOKING FOR HER and is have his Stepford dinner with his new family. She picks up a rock and hurls it at the window. I am starting to like this girl more and more. She makes it to the bus station and calls Joan who is out having a deep discussion under the stars with Nermal. Once home, she ships the pants to the Blonde Stick Figure.
It's time to start Reader's Digesting this shit.
Rory sneaks off to meet her Stallion and gets caught, of course. CHO and Joan get into a fight cause CHO's problems are minor when Nermal is dying but Joan's too afraid to go see her. CHO eventually calls her dad and unleashes all the pent up anger she's held for years and he just sit there and says "I'm sorry," cause when it comes down to it, he really just is a pussy.
Wearing the jeans, Blonde Stick Figure gets laid but feels bad about it since she doesn't have a Mommy to share it with.
The pants make another go around to Greece where they give Rory the "strength" to stand up to her grandparents in the name of first-love, however The Blond Stick Figure's "I just got laid and I'm sad" letter falls under the bed. Joan thinks the pants will cure Nermal but they don't and Nermal dies. Rory finds the letter and tells Joan and CHO to get to BSF's house STAT for some pajama party post-cherry popping bonding. The next morning BSF finds Columbia Dude in her neighborhood to check on her. He's apparently not heard of email or the phone. The talk enough so you know she'll be okay but I secretly hope she got an STD.
The last act of The Pants is to reunite CHO with her West Wing Daddy at his wedding. And it's just all to fucking perfect that his WASP bride and kids accept her, in the wedding, with open arms, blazingly Puerto Rican, wearing JEANS, during the ceremony.
Sure.
So with that I think I've learned my lesson to stick to Netflixing television shows. NOT ones from The WB.
Okay, I lie. I Netflixed Popular. Sue me.
