I paid money to see The House Bunny. Yes, I admit it. But it was all in the name of research, as I so vainly tried to remind myself as I handed over my $15.
"So that's one to The House Bunny," the cinema employee shouted gleefully. Jeez, you want to scream it any louder, buddy?
"Anything from the candy bar? Chocolate bunny ears? How about some edible underwear?"
"What?" I said sharply.
"Anything from the candy bar, ma’am? Maltesers or snakes?"
"No. No thank you."
He gave me an odd look. But I swear as I walked away I heard him quietly snigger, "Or can we interest you in some carrots, Bugs Bunny?"
The usher at the door also seemed to think it was pretty funny stuff. "Cinema six, the rabbit hole second on your right" he said.
I stared at him.
"Cinema six, the cinema second on your right," he said.
He gave me my second odd look for the day.
In the cinema it was worse. I could hardly pretend I was off to see a Disney family romp about the travails of Fluffy the bunny being captured by an evil furrier when surrounded by girls in pink Playboy jumpsuits.
I wish I could say I knew nothing about the plot, but I knew. Oh, I knew. I had even "researched" it beforehand.
When Playboy bunny Shelley Darlington (Anna Farris) is kicked out of the Playboy Mansion, she is forced to find a job as the "house mother" of the Zeta Alpha Zeta sorority.
But unless they can sign a new pledge class, the seven socially clueless women will lose their house to the scheming girls of Phi Iota Mu (who are pretty scary with their dazzling white teeth and pastel-coloured Lacoste T-shirts).
This is where Shelly steps in to save the day, teaching the girls how to become popular: just wear less clothes and more makeup ("The eyes are the nipples of the face," she instructs), and forget about being smart.
Of course it is pretty silly stuff and even a cute ending in which the girls discover the error of their vapid ways cannot save it from some pretty awful sexism.
I know, for example, that I should have been jumping up and down in my seat in protest when the girls hold a fundraising carwash and a bikini-clad Shelley splashes a hose around provocatively.
And I know that the "Aztec party" Shelley has to "sacrifice" virginal Natalie (Emma Stone) is about as ridiculous as the fake volcanoes spewing molten lava.
But there's something reassuring knowing that even as America faces economic recession, Hollywood is still capable of producing pretty silly movies. And if I am to 'fess up, The House Bunny wasn’t research for this blog.
When life becomes too complicated, I secretly enjoy the occasional silly Hollywood movie. Life is simple in these movies, otherwise complex human beings neatly sorted into stereotypes: the cheerleaders, the jocks, all brawn and no brains, the geeks who, despite their off-the-charts IQs, have no idea that wearing socks with sandals is something only Germans are allowed to do because they invented Birkenstocks.
My liking for silly Hollywood films began in high school. I suppose if I had been a stereotype, I would have been the short girl from an unspecified ethnic minority, who hangs out with other short girls from unspecified ethnic minorities.
But I desperately wanted to go to America so I could become that other stereotype of the bubbly cheerleader. After all, the cheerleaders in the movies were always beautiful and popular and didn't seem to have any problems, other than mastering the "touchdown cheer" and deciding which boy to take to the dance.
When you’re 13 and unsure of your place in the world, stereotypes can be deceptively reassuring.
I never did get to America but years later I did become a cheerleader. As the girls in The House Bunny are transformed, maybe I still wanted to be transformed into the girl I had always wanted to become in America.
Of course, the dream ended with a thud – the thud of me being squashed by the 50kg girl I had just thrown into the air as she came back to earth. I didn't start dating the star quarterback. And my hair didn't magically turn blonde.
Don't get me wrong. Cheerleading is F-U-N (if you think of fun as doing 200 sit-ups) but I became annoyed at the cheers (we are obviously there for the team so why do I have to lose my voice in the process?) and short skirts (why does wearing "scungies" somehow excuse flashing innocent spectators?).
In the end I gave it up. I took up soccer. And French. And collecting old Polaroid cameras. If we are still talking in high school terms, I embraced the quirky kid I had always been. You know, the one who laughs at their own jokes and starts a Famous Five Club that meets on weekends to solve local mysteries. Missing cat? We're all over it. And I think I have now said too much.
The problem with stereotypes is that they are static and unchanging. The other problem, of course, is that Hollywood movies like The House Bunny tend to be produced and directed by men, reinforcing the stereotypes.
Or maybe there just are't enough women out there telling their stories. No female director has ever won an Academy Award for Best Director and only three have ever been nominated – Sofia Coppola for Lost In Translation, Lina Wertmüller for Seven Beauties and Jane Campion for The Piano.
Now if Jane Campion had directed The House Bunny, Shelly would have been a mute Playboy bunny who expresses herself through (you guessed it) playing the piano.
But when Hugh Hefner sells her piano to the Zeta Apha Zeta sorority girls, Shelley must earn her piano back by giving them lessons in makeup and clothing.
Now that would be a movie I would be proud to see. And yes, I will have some chocolate bunny ears and carrots to go with that.
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