What do Mel Gibson and Steve Carell have in common? Imagine them having their hair waxed off. Oh wait, they actually do wax themselves on screen: but which scene is funnier?
Picture this wax-off: Mel Gibson who plays a womanizer, in the old school comedy from 2000, ‘What Women Want’, versus a modern Steve Carell in ‘The 40 Year Old Virgin’. Mel Gibson “only knows how to get into a woman’s pants but not her psyche” versus Steve Carell, who has the opposite problem. Steve Carrell’s character doesn’t know the first thing about approaching a woman and his colleagues take it upon themselves to change this.
Mel Gibson, in one of the funniest scenes of ‘What Women Want’ paints his nails a feisty red, pokes his eyes out with a mascara wand, dons pantyhose and a push-up bra, and waxes his leg…all in order to understand the products women use to look good. Something his character used to take for granted.
Steve Carell on the other hand wants to find out what women want in a man, and is coerced into waxing his chest hair by his colleagues while they watch, trying to stifle their laughter. Poor Steve Carell…but at least part of him is smiling, right?
So, what exactly do they have in common aside from the hysteric on screen yelling? In the end, they waxed themselves for different reasons, but they both learnt about what women want. Whereas Steve Carell figured out that being himself was enough to get the girl, we see that Mel Gibson needed a bit more help in order to be more sympathetic to women’s feelings and desires.
