Besties Michele Weinberger and Romy White; image courtesy of infoplease.com
Tonight’s post is in honor of girlfriends. Here’s to the ladies who are supportive, give us perspective, and make us laugh. I intend to have some quality time with one of my close ladyfriends this weekend. Kristen and I are gonna boycott New Moon and catch a matinee showing of Precious instead.
So, when we think about Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time” in conjunction with Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, the daffy blonde buddy comedy starring actresses who went to Harvard and Vassar, most people are probably imagining this scene.
Admittedly I find this scene, wherein the nerdy millionaire Sandy Frink (played by Alan Cumming) finally gets his high school crush Michele Weinberger (played by Lisa Kudrow) to dance with him at their ten-year reunion, to be silly and charming. And I also appreciate that Michelle won’t dance without her BFF and roomie Romy White (played by Mira Sorvino). But there’s a bit of heterosexual recouperation in this configuration. While the boy has to share the girl with another girl, he still gets the girl. If only Janeane Garofalo’s outcast Heather Mooney got to dance with them instead. She’s clearly my favorite character.
Man, I never thought I’d argue that a romantic assemblage that involved Alan Cumming resulted in heterosexual recouperation. The proudly bisexual actor seems to delight in queering everything around him. I am usually delighted as well.
Alan Cumming's cologne -- pun intended; image courtesy of mirror.co.uk
But I’m referring to this scene.
Apart from the obvious, at-times hilarious age disparity between the thirtysomething actors and the teenaged versions of their characters, I find this scene to be really sweet and moving. For me it captures how hard it is to be the weird girl and how sometimes having a like-minded ally is as essential as air or water. Also, I think it’s hella queer, even if lesbianism is something the girls claim to have ruled out (at least if they’re still single at 30). To review.
1. Rather than match their corsages with some dudes’ cumberbands, they chose to go as each other’s dates and have coordinated their outfits accordingly. In doing so, they are announcing themselves as a pair instead of as two high school girls who couldn’t get boys to take them to the prom.
2. Just as they served as each other’s date, I have no reason to believe that they didn’t make the outfits themselves. It is well-established that Romy and Michele make their own clothes, eventually opening their own boutique at the end of the movie (with, ugh, Sandy’s money).
3. Romy and Michelle are both dressed as Madonna. Romy is representing the Material Girl’s be-Gaultier‘ed Blonde Ambition period and Michelle staying true to her early Boy Toy heyday. Each girl is an individual, but complements the other.
4. By aligning themselves with the Material Girl, they are connecting themselves to girl fandom and gay iconography.
5. By dancing to Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time,” they link up with another 80s pop star with a memorable look, a notable girl fan base, and a big LGBTQI following.
6. And by accepting Michelle’s offer to dance after being stood up by her lunkhead crush Billy Christiansen, I think it’s pretty clear who Romy really loves.
