Love Actually Is Sexist Junk, Actually

Been channel-surfing this holiday season? Then you've had the chance to watch Love Actually, a Hugh Grant favorite that's stuffed with romantic plot lines and a rosy view of London life. But Mary Elizabeth Williams is making a plea at Salon: Don't watch it. It's a dumbed-down, sexist view of British men who apparently just want babes who make them tea. Culprit No.1 is Colin Firth's character, who loses his cheating girlfriend and instead takes up with his Portuguese housekeeper. "So pretty! So uncommunicative!" scoffs Williams. "And she has hot beverages!"

Then there's Hugh Grant's storyline, about the prime minister getting googly-eyed over his tea-making assistant: "Seriously, what is it with you dudes?" asks Williams. "Do you know know how to boil water?" Add to that Alan Rickman's story, about a man tempted by his secretary, and Liam Neeson's, about a widower soothed by a relationship with Claudia Schiffer, and Williams is about to lose it. How on Earth can this be called a chick flick? "I don’t mind lighthearted holiday twaddle," she writes. "I just don’t like demoralizing, misogynistic holiday twaddle." Click for Williams' full column. (More film stories.)