Over on Twitter I started a conversation about bad girlfriends in movies, by noting that Bruce Willis’s gal pal in Pulp Fiction is simply awful and deserves to be on any top-ten list of worst movie girlfriends. She forgets his watch. Cries at the drop of a hat. Goes off to a lavish breakfast while Willis is risking his life. Etc. This sparked other suggestions and a short-lived hashtag game #WorstMovieGirlfriends. Among the nominees Rosie Perez in White Men Can’t Jump, Mary Louise Parker in Grand Canyon and Gretchen Moll in Rounders are all consensus picks. The key criterion, I think, has to be their unintentional awfulness. Otherwise, you’re just listing unmarried female villains — Sarah Silverman in School of Rock, Glen Close in Fatal Attraction and so on. Also, the character needs to not only be annoying, but annoying in her capacity as girlfriend (a fuzzy distinction, I concede).
I mention this here for two reasons. First, I think these sorts of conversations need to return to the Corner where God intended them.
Second, I would like to nominate Kate Winslet from Titanic and Jeanne Triplehorn in Fatal Attraction Basic Instinct. I look forward to your comments.
UPDATE: An earlier version of this post idiotically said “Fatal Attraction” instead of “Basic Instinct”