What Men Want is a remake of the Mel Gibson movie, What Women Want, but instead of a man reading women’s minds, it is a woman reading men’s minds starring Taraji P. Henson, who is a wonderful person and talented actor. The protagonist is a sports agent trying to get a promotion, but cannot quite break that glass ceiling.
I started watching What Men Want in the living room and tried giving it my undivided attention, but soon realized that it was a complete mistake and moved to my room to multitask while watching it. Maybe it is like Little where you need to be surrounded by an audience to be buoyed by others laughter when things get too dumb. I remember very little about the movie, but recall thinking that it was a great comedic cast: Tracy Morgan, Max Greenfield, Jason Jones, Phoebe Robinson. I appreciated for once that Hollywood decided that the group of friends would be majority black with one white woman, which literally reflected the demographic of my rooming group in college. Aldis Hodge, Richard Roundtree and Brian Bosworth played reliable straight guys.
The real revelation in What Men Want was Erykah Badu as a party psychic who acts as the catalyst for all the mind reading shenanigans. Her depiction was equal parts creepy and hilarious that I could not believe that anyone would drink anything that she offered, but then there would be no movie. Also one character says, “I am high on Christ. I don’t need that anymore.” Then why did you hire a psychic? Badu’s character, Sister, could have easily worked in a horror movie, especially with those eyes. Shudder. Stay for the credits.
My main issue with What Men Want was that I could never go along with the absurd situations that the protagonist gets in. If you have worked somewhere long enough to be a partner, people would eventually figure out if you had a family or not and undermine you further if you tried to pretend otherwise. Have you noticed that these films have women deeply ensconced in their careers, but they are still going to baby and wedding showers? At some point, those events begin to evaporate from the calendar. Women can get together for reasons other than big events. The time devoted to depicting the protagonist trying to get a man is always longer than the time spent with friends, which may be realistic, but my eternally single self does not believe it. Also I know that people find humiliation amusing, but I just suffer from virtual mortification especially during the scene with the football. Why do single women protagonists generally have to suddenly befriend a child? Did someone do a study and show that audiences must have a child in every movie that centers women, especially if it is a comedy? If she was a mother or aunt or one of her friends had a kid and she was already deeply involved in a child’s life, I would not have an issue with that storyline, but it once again makes it seem as if in order to be a good person worthy of a promotion, if you are a woman protagonist, you need to like a kid, and unless your job involves children, it seems like a sexist requirement for women to constantly meet.
I am completely operating on (memory) fumes, but What Women Want made the protagonist a better employee and coworker, love interest and father. In What Men Want, the protagonist just does things that women have been doing for centuries to gain favor with men: deliberately lose in competition, adhering to gender norms about women being mothers and wives (although when has that ever gotten women ahead at work), doing exactly what a man likes during sex, etc. She did not need to become telepathic. She could just read Cosmo.
I expected What Men Want to be similar to Gibson’s film in the way that the protagonist’s newfound powers would gradually make her a better person. In a sense, it ultimately does because her priorities change, but the journey does not fundamentally change the way that the protagonist interacts with the world—moving from stereotypical ways that women negatively act in their interactions with men to something that is more rooted in the reality of her work and personal relationships that leads to a fuller, individual exchanges. If anything, she is more fake than when she did not have powers, and her problems are rooted in men being the problem. I am not saying that there is no such thing as a glass ceiling, and that men are not necessarily the problem in the ways that they are depicted in this film, but it would have been nice if there was at least one scene with the protagonist overthinking what a man was thinking, then she read his mind and realized that whatever she was worried about was not even a concern for him, which frees her from trying so hard because so many men have told me that there are tons of things that women think that they care about that they just don’t. We could still keep the sexism at the workplace, but also showed some positive changes spurred by reading men’s thoughts. Instead reading men’s thoughts just made her regress.
I could be wrong for not enjoying What Men Want more. After all, I am a sports atheist so maybe a part of me checked out from investing in the film because of the protagonist’s career. Was Morgan’s character based on Lavar Ball? How do you represent Serena Williams and not get a promotion or at least a cameo?
I love Adam Shankman as a human being after watching him as a judge on So You Think You Can Dance, and I am happy that he has a successful career as a director, but I am not into his movies: The Wedding Planner, Bringing Down the House, Rock of Ages and now What Men Want. I go in completely excited to see it then disappointed by the actual product. I am just relieved that I did not see it in theaters otherwise it would have been a waste of time and money.
What Men Want was not a good movie although I really wanted it to be. I hope that I am completely wrong because I adore everyone behind and in front of the camera, but other than Sister and the final hospital scene, it did nothing for me. Skip it!