A friend of mine and I are having a bit of a debate over something…He has hypothocized the following: The male driven “Friendship” movie always features 2 men while the same vehicle for women will inevitable require 3 women.

Men get the “Buddy Cop” movie, but when women team up their movies will almost always comes in triangles. Think about it…9 to 5, First Wives Club, Boys on the Side, Bad Moms they all come in three’s. Ok so far so good, I get the argument here, he has a point. All four of these movies will make some sort of ‘top whatever list’ for me on any level. (9 to 5 holds a special place in my heart if for no other reason than I wanted to BE Lily Tomlin when I was growing up, had all of her lines in that movie memorized, still quote them on a daily basis and I would name my first born Violet if that were to ever be in the cards for me)

And conversely my friend has a point at the other end of the debate. Google [Buddy Cop] movies and there are literally no end to the titles: From the plain old Tango and Cashes to the Lethal Weapons, to the ones where the guys are friends like Running Scared and Bad Boys, from the strange and the horrifying like M.I.B, Seven and Training Day to the numerous ‘guys start out hating each other but grow to grudgingly respect/like each other in the end’ stories like The Heat of the Night, The Rock, 48 Hours, Rush Hour, The Guard, heck even Toy Story follows this story arc!

Yep! No doubt about it, the guys get the Buddy Cop movie hands down. With the very recent, and altogether brilliant, exception of The Heat in all of its gender bending glory, and perhaps the possible exception of Disney’s Zooptopia which features a refreshing female leading lady in the cop role, I can’t find fault with this half of my friend’s argument.

However… his -‘women’s friendship movies always come in three’s’ -part of the debate, I can pick some holes in.

Its actually a interesting point, and at first listen, he had me. As I said at the top, right away we named a solid 4 movies that made his side of the argument seem perfectly sound. First Wives Club is probably everyone’s favorite. It isn’t even the best of the lot by a long shot. You will probably be surprised to note that it only currently hovers at a 48% on Rotten Tomatoes. Don’t fret fans of Diane, Bette and Goldie! Most of the reviewers agreed, the thin plot never really mattered anyway. It was the 3 leading ladies that made this film, and that is what my friend and I are debating here anyways. After-all, go back and check out the scores for half of the buddy cop comedies mentioned above and I am betting most of those don’t fare much better. We aren’t debating substance here after all. Just the numbers…specifically 2’s vs. 3’s.

Here is the problem though…I did several exhaustive searches. I spent a lot of time on this, and other then the aforementioned few (Let’s toss in Hocus Pocus, Mystic Pizza and The Witches of Eastwick for good measure) I can’t actually find all THAT many triplet led movies. Feel free to add to my list please.

I can’t actually squish my friend’s argument completely because on the one end he is almost exclusively correct: Women are woefully under-represented in the buddy comedy area. Rolling Stone published a list in 2014 of the top 25 best buddy comedies of all time. Only 2 of them featured women. https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-lists/it-takes-two-top-25-best-buddy-comedies-27172/artists-and-models-1955-168551/

Which seems utterly ridiculous honestly because when you really buckle down, we really have a whole host of honest to goodness damned descent FEMALE buddy movies out there! I mean if you didn’t watch Beaches and Thelma and Louise as a kid what are you doing on this blog in the first place?

And let’s add these to our list: Fried Green Tomatoes, Bend it Like Beckham, Passion Fish, Julia, Ghostworld, Romy and Michelle, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, …I don’t know if Clueless counts here…I will argue that it doesn’t because Cher narrates the movie herself but many others would argue that Miss Dion is by and large Cher’s counterpart thereby making this an official Buddy Movie fair and square so I am willing to let this one slide in.

Once you venture past the magical 2’s company 3’s a crowd number argument my friend is making however, a whole world of wonderful opens up. Thank god for our group comedy movies! Heathers and Mean Girls, Pitch Perfect and Bridesmaids, Waiting to Exhale, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants! How long has it been since you quoted something from Bring it On or A League of Their Own? Is there a single week that goes by when you can’t squeeze in something about ‘spirit fingers’ or ‘NO CRYING!?’ And let’s not forget the grand dames of them all…M’Lynn, Shelby, Truvy, Annelle, Clairree and Ouiser.

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I mean these four aren’t even at the top of my every day quoting list! Three of them are Miss Clairee’s alone! My friend Joey and I used to perfect Ouiser and Miss Clairee’s walk home after the wedding reception, you know…the part where the two of them are arguing about who is going to walk who, and who has the flashlight? Joey was always Clairee of course. Long before I ever knew this movie was a play originally, I loved this movie and to be honest, most of my favorite lines and moments are not even in the play anyway! I am sure I was quoting movies before this one, but this movie got me into character! This one made me realize there were whole generations of ladies out there for me to emulate!

And circling back to the original debate: Men definitely have cornered the market on the buddy cop movie for sure. But women definitely prove time and again that not only isn’t three a crowd – 4, 5 and sometimes even 6 more actresses are the best thing that can happen to any movie!