The finely tuned bullshit detector that keeps writer-director Andrew Bujalski's ego in check, nudging him to sprinkle his conversations with self-deprecating demurrals and constant reminders of his own blind spots and vulnerabilities, is part of what makes him such an excellent chronicler of our inner lives and times. The New York Times's A.O. Scott called Bujalski's first feature, Funny Ha Ha, “one of the most influential films of the '00s.” Each of his subsequent films has been very different from the others—and from nearly every film imaginable. His work seems to exist outside genre and screenwriting dogmas, featuring characters who feel like people you'd encounter only in life, and plots so subtle they barely register as such.
Bujalski's films also share a slyly comic humanism that finds both pathos and humor—often at once—in everything from the most banal of conversation to the profoundest of emotions. His latest, Support the Girls, is about a Hooters-like sports bar called Double Whammies and the women who work there. And at the center of the film is Regina Hall as Lisa, the harried, insanely competent, and warmly caring manager who protects and defends the waitresses whose prominently showcased breasts are the sports bar's main attraction by making sure it lives up to its promise of being “a family place.” I talked to Bujalski about what places like Double Whammies tell us about American culture, finding the essence of the film in the editing room, and filmmaking as a balancing act between order and chaos.
This is a very female story, from the setting to the way it centers female solidarity to the classically female dilemma that Lisa is grappling with. She has so much responsibility and so little power on the job, and she takes care of everyone else so much better than she takes care of herself, both at work at in her personal life. What is it about those issues that drew you in?
It's hard to account for one's own interests and enthusiasms, obsessions, whatever they are. I was just trying to listen to the characters and be true to who I thought they were. I guess the last two movies that I've made—they have women characters that I love, but there's a lot of male energy in them, so I'm sure some part of me thought it would be great to do something with a lot of female actors and energy. But that was one idea among many.
I find these places [like Double Whammies] so interesting and so weird, so uniquely American. I couldn't imagine any other culture that would produce a demand for the product they're selling. It was a puzzle I couldn't solve that was interesting enough to me that I wanted to play with it. I couldn't figure out my own feelings about those places. I'm not the target market. That was where a lot of the character of Lisa came from. I couldn't help bringing a kind of outsider perspective to it, and she was basically an outsider too, someone who would never been in this place if she didn't work there. I also had fun with her insisting on seeing the best in it. I'm always attracted to the incurable optimist character. That's a personality type that I seem to come back to a lot. Anyone can imagine the nasty side of that place, but I think there's a lot more to it than that. That's what attracted me to [places like Double Whammies], the idea that they have this kind of kernel of nastiness that they wrap in so much comfort, inviting people in to feel normal and feel like they belong. I needed that character to see that for what it was and work from there.
You were saying that a place like this could only exist in America. What do you think that tells us about American culture?
There's something about these places that's about simultaneously provoking desire but also controlling it, that weird American combination of puritanism and race-to-the-bottom hedonism. They're both so integral to our culture. It produces this very peculiar place where you're asked to go in and ogle the waitresses, but you're asked to do it kind of covertly as they walk away. I think 99% of what goes on in those places is pretty controlled, pleasant, and polite. It's very different than even a strip club. That's not to say that things don't mostly stay on the rails in strip clubs too, but I think it's a very different fantasy that's being sold. When you go into a strip club as a man, you're being sold the idea that you're a badass and that you're doing something transgressive. These places aren't about being transgressive. It's kind of the opposite. It's like, it's okay if you want to ogle these people. You can bring grandma and you can bring the kids and it's all normal, and you can watch sports and drink beer and eat French fries and all these things go together. Read the rest in Slant Magazine
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