Episode 79 - Private Benjamin

"Private Benjamin" pretends the make and model of this
1980 Goldie Hawn vehicle will bring you the new-car smell of
female empowerment by having a put-upon housewife change gears
via enlisting in the Army, but when you pop open the hood and
look at the engine, you'll find the same old misogynist
faux-feminist lemon Nancy Meyers always smarmily tries to get you
to drive off the lot.


This is the first film Nancy Meyers was ever involved with, and
it gained her her only Oscar nomination (she wrote it with her
then-husband and future long-time collaborator Charles Shyer).


It stars Goldie Hawn as Judy Benjamin, a woman whose second
husband (played by Albert Brooks) dies on their wedding night, so
out of loneliness (and blatant stupidity) she believes
the obvious chicanery of an opportunistic Army recruiter
(played by Harry Dean Stanton) who makes her think joining up
with be the equivalent of a lavish European vacation.


Of course it isn't; and, she is ridiculed by her mean parents and
her tough-as-nails female Army superior Capt. Lewis (played by
Eileen Brennan). But Private Benjamin eventually shapes up and
takes to boot camp, and after an unneeded attempted rape scene,
she parlays this act into being stationed in Europe just so she
can be closer to a dickish Jewish Communist French-ish
gynecologist (no, seriously) that she had a one-night stand with
at a bar randomly. She ends up quitting the Army to marry him,
but then she realizes he sucks and pulls a runaway bride at the
altar. 


What did she learn? Nothing. What did we get out of this comedy?
Not much laughter. Has Nancy Meyers been doing this same routine
since the beginning? Most definitely. 


Join us as we dive deeper into our attending the fictitious
Nancy Meyers convention known as "Nancy-Con," tell some stories
about pranking teachers, and how this movie about the Army barely
has any Army-ing in it. 


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This episode is sponsored by Sign of Our Times.


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