The House Bunny
Rated PG-13 for sex-related humor, partial nudity and brief strong language.
reviewed by Christopher Lyon
It's not hard to imagine how this movie got made. "It's comedy about a Playboy bunny who teaches a bunch of sorority girls how to be sexy! It's 'Revenge of the Nerds' with girls and Hugh Hefner. How could it miss?"
It misses.
The Story
Shelley (Anna Faris) grew up as a lonely orphan until she "developed as a woman." Then, instant popularity. Before long, she even found a home -- in the Playboy Mansion. Now 27 and on the verge of realizing her dream of becoming a centerfold, she is instead unceremoniously kicked out of the mansion while "Hef" is away.
Homeless, Shelley wanders onto a college campus and recognizes that sororities are not that different from the Playboy Mansion. Lots of sisterhood and parties. She finds a gig as a house mother in the Zeta sorority, a house with just 7 members on the brink of losing its charter. In exchange for a place to stay, she offers to sex up the cartoonishly frumpy girls a little in order to attract the 30 pledges they need to stay afloat.
At first resistant, the girls eventually agree to sign on to Shelley's campaign to attract boys and, thus, other girls who want to attract boys. She also begins to fall for a sensitive guy (Collin Hanks) who works at a nursing home. Cue the extreme makeovers, wild party, and a few unconvincing "it's what's on the inside that counts" speeches.
The Verdict
What we thought of the movie on its own terms
What Works: Mostly, "The House Bunny" does not work (see below), but it does play in the fields of a lot of big questions about what it means to be a young woman these days (see further below). Anna Faris is a funny actress with the ability to convey wide-eyed, dumb blonde innocence -- even while dressed like a porn model and talking about crude stuff...
What Doesn't Work: But her act goes on too long. It's just not enough to carry a whole film about a porn model who teaches a bunch of smart/schluby college girls how to succeed by being sexier to college guys (and then learning together that there's more to being a girl than being fun and sexy...maybe).
Its crudeness is not surprising when you realize its brought to you by Adam Sandler's production company. The poster also mentions some connection to "Legally Blonde," and while you can see the genetic connection, this sister comedy is several flights down from that film.
The plot is an obvious rip-off of a dozen dumb Greek life comedies (including one that I'm almost positive included a sensitive boyfriend who worked in nursing home). The dialogue is often painful, and the acting from everyone besides Faris is awkward (especially in the case of creepy Hugh Hefner playing himself). Collin Hanks is an otherwise talented actor who seems to be unhappy to be playing the straight man/love interest here.
Content: In addition to all the cleavage, short skirts, harsh language, and crude sexual talk, Faris is seen nude from behind.
Worldview
How the film's take on life compares to a biblical perspective
In sorting which films to review this month, we almost skipped this one. Isn't it just another crude comedy? Would we have anything to say about it beyond the obvious?
And the film is built on a "porn is normal" worldview. It's the newish pop culture perspective that Hugh Hefner's Playboy empire is just good, clean, sexy fun. Instead of being a creepy old guy in a bathrobe who pays three blond centerfolds to be his girlfriends, Hef is a crinkly old teddy bear who hosts fun, sexy parties for celebs and otherwise "sophisticated" guys.
Hef and the Bible do agree on one thing: Almost all guys want to look at sexy, naked women. Hef thinks that's great, and he built a successful company and a slick reputation delivering exactly that for half a century. The Bible teaches guys, instead, to channel their sexual desire into a married relationship with just one woman while refusing to look lustfully at anyone else. (See Jesus Matthew 5:28
But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart., DavidPsalm 119:37
Turn my eyes away from worthless things;
preserve my life according to your word., and JobJob 31:1
"I made a covenant with my eyes
not to look lustfully at a girl..)
As a guy, I can tell you that's really hard to do in our hyper-sexual culture. (If you haven't seen it, yet, check out one guy's plea to Christian girls to help him out.)
But "The House Bunny" also kind of wonders in its giggly little head if the Playboy worldview is really okay. Should girls use sexiness to get guys' attention? At first, Shelley and the movie say, "Of course!" And they pretty much say the same thing at the end. Along the way, though, Shelley feels dumb and empty for not being more than just a sex object. And the girls eventually decide to mostly be themselves, but just hotter versions of themselves.
I can't imagine anything more confusing to figure out than how to "be myself" as a high school/college aged woman in the "porn is normal" era, especially as a Jesus follower. (Maybe that's why I'm a guy.) The questions make my head hurt: How should girls present themselves? Should they spend a lot of energy trying to be hot? What does "hot" even mean? Should they worry that dressing in a certain way might attract guys to lust? Should they ignore how they look and just worry about being smart and "a good person"? Does God even care about any of this?
I can answer the last question. God cares deeply that we care more about pleasing Him than anyone else, including guys (who are too easy to please) or other girls (who judge each other so harshly). At the end of the film, Shelley gives a kind of stock Hollywood "It's what's inside that counts" speech.
Proverbs 31 said it much better a couple of thousand years ago: "Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised." Peter wrote that the truest beauty a woman can have springs from "the inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight." (1 Peter 3:4)
Whatever she decides about all those other questions, if a woman starts by putting her highest priority on pleasing God she won't go far wrong. And He says she'll develop a lasting beauty that will attract people worth attracting.
Questions:
- Should Christians even watch movies like "The House Bunny"? Why or why not? Does it matter if you're a girl or a guy?
- How do you think the "porn is normal" attitude of our culture impacts the way people dress in your school? How do you think it impacts the way guys and girls look at and think about each other?
- What does it mean in a practical way for you to make pleasing God your highest priority in the way you dress or wear your hair or wear make-up?
- What is the deal with movies about Greek life?
