When I was a kid, The Truth About Cats and Dogs was one of my favorite movies. The movie, which starred Uma Thurman, Janeane Garofalo and Ben Chaplin, is a play on Cyrano de Bergerac, featuring one leading lady as the brains and the other as the body. Re-watching the film, I was surprised by the anti-feminist undertones, and the premise of the film, which relied on Janeane Garofalo being unattractive. In what universe can someone as beautiful as Janeane Garofalo not reel in a man?

If you haven't seen the film, it follows veterinarian Abby Barnes (Garofalo) who hosts the talk show "The Truth About Cats and Dogs," on which she answers questions about callers' pets. One caller, Brian, needs help calming down a rescue dog he's put in roller skates for a photo shoot. When Abby helps him, Brian asks her out. Insecure with her own appearance, she tells Brian that she looks like her model neighbor, Noelle (Thurman). Abby begs Noelle to go out with Brian, and she does. Brian loves the beautiful Noelle, but also continues speaking to Abby on the phone in her "radio voice." Brian thinks he loves the package, but really he loves Abby's brain and Noelle's body.

The premise, of course, is inherently offensive and way, way too simplistic. Noelle is beautiful, so she's supposed to be stupid, and she is. Abby is smart, so she's obviously ugly. Except she's not. I don't know if the film's intention is to give hope to average-looking women the world over, but I wouldn't pick Janeane Garofalo for our smart-but-woefully-plain role model.

This simple premise could have been improved if it wasn't quite so forcefully bashed into viewers' heads. Throughout the movie, Abby is called ugly--both by Noel's ex-boyfriend, and, in not quite so many words, Brian. Plenty of very attractive women don't find themselves attractive because they don't look like Noelle-esque models, but that doesn't mean that society sees them that way. The movie could have much better--and much less offensive--it hadn't relied quite so heavily on society's perception of Garofalo's unattractiveness, but rather on Abby's belief in her own plainness.

Since the film came out in 1996, Garofalo has heavily criticized it for being anti-feminist and simplistic. Certainly the film has a number of conceits that make it anti-feminist, but its saving grace may be that the two women are--and remain--best friends. In classic cat fight fashion, Noelle would have thrown Abby over or vice versa. But that doesn't happen. If they really wanted to make the movie about female friendship, however, Abby would have thrown Brian over in the end.