What movies do you people watch? I'm an avid movie-watcher (like to think I have seen them all), and I find it relatively easy to not be influenced by everything I watch. Wowowowowowowowowowowow...........
Thank you for this wonderful article.Every word is gold and reminds me also what a void film film criticism exists in: that place where white middle class males lusts and desires are being served, digested and rehashed and how we all, all others, just take them in and process them, adjust to them. They become our loves. I really love Hitchcock's movies, but I see Alicia Huberman and the second Mrs de Winter as struggling in the gaze of the men they love, I'd say the great Hollywood actresses reach us, the "other" audeince in exactly the way you describe the wonderful Maureen O'Hara: "her palpable will" - that is what makes movies magic to mee too!
And my first book on the movies was also The Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers book by Arlene Croce.
The 1992 film “The Last of the Mohicans” has amazing portrayals in the depth of love and the strength of women (and men) acting from love. Love of family, friends, and the beloved. The strength of the frontier women: Alexandra Cameron, desperately facing the real danger to her family caught between warring groups; the constant devotion of Cora to her younger sister; the growth of both Alice and Cora as they move beyond old beliefs & become open to new love; Cora picks up and uses a weapon to defend her sister; and the breathless moment when kidnapped Alice Munro, nearly rescued by Uncas, must watch as he’s killed because he came for her, moves past her grief at his death and her fear of Magua and excercises her power to step beyond his reach forever; and— that deeply erotic kiss sequence between Hawkeye and Cora atop the wall of the fort. That power of that kiss! I’ve never seen Hollywood do a sex scene better— and show no sex! Cora and Hawkeye stay completely dressed, they just kiss—passionately and ecstatically, two people utterly exalted and consumed by each other. They absolutely nail it and swept up women ages 18 to 80 in theaters worldwide, who remember “I will find you!”
I have three young daughters. There are virtually no movies to watch with them where there is not derision, sexualization or violence against women. Even Home Alone has a few easy-to-miss affronts. These nefarious messages are literally everywhere, and they are incessant. Elf is not much better (shower scene). Even Honey, I Shrunk the Kids —tried that recently — lots of sexual innuendo. Our culture is a minefield.
1
What this article taught me: Maybe women should consider not going to the movies
legit. this article made me sad. it's no one's fault that morons think movies are synonymous with real life..... wow.
Audrey Hepburn in Charade and Grace Kelly in Rear Window taught me that women can be sexually aggressive without being vulgar. I was a teenager when Charade came out, and I subsequently moved to Paris, meeting my future husband there.
2
So disturbing that such biased, denigrating, violence-promoting views of women's roles -- real or fantasy -- in society either emanated from or were reflected in fictional films largely made by men!
2
This is a really outstanding essay, far more nuanced than many I've seen on the subject. It was a pleasure to read. Thanks!
2
Apologies Mahohla Dargis did review Camille- I thought an excellent review of a movie that deserves more praise. However she did not review "The Favourite" (A Scott did) and I would have liked her take on an essentially all female power struggle (excellent acting but a somewhat restrictive topic). The UK has had its share of powerful and influential women ( Boadicea, Elizabeth 1, Elizabeth 2, Thatcher) it would be good to see some alternatives to the relationships with women portrayed by our male leaders in the USA.
If you want to see one crazily empowered woman in noir, check out Lizbeth Scott in the B classic "Too Late for Tears," in which she manipulates every man around her until her evil deeds catch up with her. All of the men express how afraid they are of her — with reason!
I didn't see that movie, but along those lines, check out Kathleen Turner in "Body Heat." Note: Her evil deeds did NOT catch up with her.
1
Unless, of course, you confuse reality with fantasy...movies are not reality...they are fantasy, an escape....and...most of those scenes were more controversial at the time of their release than now.....
2
This article encapsulates my love/hate response to The Philadelphia Story/High Society. I adored that movie as a child, the witty banter, Hepburn's (or, to a slightly lesser degree, Kelly's) witty banter and self-confidence, the (at the time) charming relationships with Grant/Crosby and Stewart/Sinatra. It was only in college that I recoiled in horror at her father's brutal put-down of Tracy as an "Ice goddess" because she dares to criticize his philandering and, worse, her mother's insistence that the person his infidelity concerns is...the father! I was amazed at how I'd managed to overlook this for so many years. I still cringe every time I rewatch the films, yet deeply love the movies. Go figure.
1
Her dad puts her down because she's so perfected herself that she can't see the flaws in others that make her human. The movie isn't anti-feminist per se: Tracy Lords has to be brought down a notch, but everyone admits her superiority; they just want her to accept them, warts and all.
Please, leave movie kisses alone!!!
2
This article reminds me of all the reasons I still love "When Harry Met Sally." It taught me neither gender has the corner market on neurotic and that women can be driven, opinionated, controlled, funny, AND attractive. Also, Sally is the one who moves in on Harry for the first kiss. It's her face we see with a satisfied smile after their sexual encounter. Ah, Nora Ephron...you were taken from us too soon.
6
I found many of the film clips in this article to be greatly disturbing. The fact that I could ever have been subjected to any of those images growing up apalls me, but I believe that in fact my movie going experiences must have been actually quite limited. Most of the movies used as examples of male dominance I have not actually seen, thank God. Perhaps that’s why it never crossed my mind to be in a relationship with a man who would attempt to physically abuse me, manhandle me, in any way. I opted instead for liaisons with men with whom I could match wits or subject knowledge, and a few of them sought to dominate in that arena. Another kind of struggle from which I would eventually seek escape.
2
I can't think of one thing the movies "taught" me other than to never ever take anything Hollywood dishes out as fact or applicable to real life. Sometimes they do depict true human emotions and morals - good and bad - and that's when it gets interesting and sometimes even magical. But it is that way around, a depiction of life and its elements, not a source. But then again, I'm an independent thinker. On a different note, it must be exhausting and downright limiting to judge everything in the past by our "enlightened" standards of today and, as often pointed out, how we will be judged by the "enlightened" standards of tomorrow? Finally, it's alway puzzled me the way GWTW and especially Haddy McDaniel's character Mammy is viewed today. Of course she was a slave in unjust times, but the was not the point. The point of her character was a depiction of a strong, competent, sensible and loving person who succeeded despite her situation and times. In the end, Rhett Buttler pays her the ultimate compliment by saying she was one of the few people whose respect he'd like to have. A magical scene from the movies for me.
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Yes, yes, yes!! I've always maintained that Mammy is a servant, but hardly servile. She's nobody's fool, least of all Scarlett's. Deep down, Scarlett respects her, but Scarlett's thick protective shell prevents her from admitting it to herself. It's the clear-eyed, cynical Rhett who's able to express what everyone knows about Mammy.
1
Thank you for this article and articulating all those same thoughts I've had about movies. I also love The Quiet Man, regardless of it's overtly, overly masculine attitudes. For a real treat, watch Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer - a woman who is powerful, smart, skilled and not usually a victim. I've learned so much from movies, regardless of the thankless role of some poor lady who gets a grapefruit smashed in her face.
Please watch the TV series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, not the movie, if what you want is Joss Whedon's vision (which is brilliant). The movie was taken away from him and turned into a camp fest he can't stand.
1
The readers who posted comments here are hilarious, best comments and almost all of them clever if not curmudgeonly. Films bring out that in people. The point is that hardly any Hollywood writers have "gotten" women or men.. I still love old movies no matter how distorted they are, it's art.
2
Almost everything movies "teach" is preposterous. Women, men, doctors, lawyers, dogs, ... no one is portrayed in any way that is advisable to imitate or learn from. The only worse influence than actors acting is actors being themselves.
Movies are stories which share values between the people who watch them. To say that none are "right" or even have value is a mistake. Who hasn't learned something about goodness and fairness and right from a movie? I think you would be hard-pressed to find that person.
1
What the movies taught ME was that they were just movies, not real life.
1
As with MANOHLA DARGIS, The Quiet Man is one of my favorite movies and Maureen O'Hara was terrific in it. Back in 1967 my grandmother (immigrant from Ireland at age 14) and I watched the movie on a brand new color TV given to her by my Uncle Edgar. She had grown up in the area of Ireland where the movie was filmed and, of course, loved it although she said that the movie depicted the way Ireland should have been. In her Ireland she was hungry and very poor. Yet, she said, the movie depicted the culture of her Ireland accurately. And isn't that the measure of a good movie? John Ford always picked on someone in a movie = I am not sure how significant it is that O'Hara was the one in the Quiet Man except that her performance is what makes the movie work and in an Ireland that believed women to be chattels, Mary Kate Danaher made her own life with an outsider, Sean Thornton = a man who did not believe in the old ways, but loved her.
1
It's Hollywood. Anyone who thinks Hollywood movie makers, male or female, are interested in depicting life as distinct from filming what sells movie tickets is not inhabiting the real world. Hollywood shows a totally unrealistic image of men, also. George Clooney? Yeah, we all look like him.
3
Surprised to see the clip of Loy and Powell in a spanking scene--must have been in one of the later films; the writing was usually far above needing such devices.
Decades ago I came across a fluffy and funny article entitled "What Would Myrna Loy Do." A fan of Loy, and esp. of her Nora Charles, the author described how she tried to call Loy's elan to mind whenever she, the writer, was about to lose her temper or engage in any reaction she'd later regret.
Of course, it was all tongue-in-cheek because she and her readers knew that nobody could ever be as perfectly cool, witty, sexy, and put-together as Loy's Nora C. It's a fantasy worthy of Nora Ephron, and an enjoyable one--isn't that the point? (On a different part of the spectrum, I've also fantasized about what Margot Channing would do. If only.)
1
The whole point of the Thin Man series is that Nick and Nora have a relationship of perfect equality. In the scene to which Dargis refers, the spanking is SATIRICAL of such dominance in other relationships. This is the problem with the whole MeToo movement — it looks far too literally at such scenes, without any consciousness of the subtleties.
2
Movies rarely get men right either - mostly super hero cartoons of manliness.
Guess where Al Franken learned how to be a man? From the PG rated movies now shown on TCM - many likely to rate an R for strong sexual and violence against the #metoo movement. Today's films and TV shows are mostly all violence - the outrage - with half the TV shows showing the main characters entering empty rooms with their guns drawn - or reflexively draw them at any sound.
Who knew Judy Dench could give the eye-candy Bond women - and Bond himself - a run for their money!
Also a fan of Kathrine Hepburn - I don't recall a scene with her being forcibly kissed and certainly never spanked by anyone. A strong woman and not too attractive that made her even more attractive!
"sexualized violence and its threat has been beautifully directed" - hmm, like a beautifully directed war or slasher film.
As for "Thelma and Louise" I always imagine two parachutes deploying out of site of the camera.
2
When John Ashbery was asked where he turned for consolation, he replied, "Probably to a movie, something with Barbara Stanwyck."
---NYT Magazine, 1/14/2007
I'm now trying to remember a movie in which this consummate actress ever played a weak, submissive helpmate. All I can come up with are the movies in she was pretending to be one.
This was more her line.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBUP3GYHRl8
She did all her own riding in it, and when a stunt woman wouldn't do a dragging scene, she did that too.
Consolation.
3
She played a typical screaming damsel in distress in “The Two Mrs. Carrolls.” Suffice to say neither she (or Humphrey Bogart as her Heathcliff-ish mad-artist husband) thrived from such miscasting. :)
I detested “Quiet Man” from the moment I saw it as a child for just that scene. Nice try to come up with a compelling headline and stance, but this treatise in what we “learned” from the movies completely ignores the fact that we are not “tabula rasa”, to have attitudes ladled into our minds via a series of moving lictures contrived by fabulists. It ignores our individual native intelligence thst rejects all those squirmy aftitudes the writer “kearned” art the movies. I learned the movies reflected the things I saw as wrong even as a child. I didn’t buy what Hollywood fed me, so I guess I didn’t learn a damn thng except that the movies are “the stuff are dreams are made of”, and have very luttle to do with real life A trite premise done glibly. Writer owes royalties to K. Millet, who did the same thing to literature only without insulting the reader’s intelligence.
2
If Ms. Dargis ever expands this treatise to include television, I hope she'll point out the pathological intergalactic rape-y behavior of Captain Kirk.
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Almost all of the movies cited here were made in the 20th century, the first century of the movies. As a new form of mass media, the movies had an outsized influence on us, even as some commentators dismiss their importance. I too cringe at some of the films I once adored, but I rely on my selective memory to better remember the strong women in film that had such an influence on me. Rosalind Russell's Hildy in "His Girl Friday," may have re-married Cary Grant's Walter, but the film makes clear that she's a turn-on for him, not just sexually: he can't live without her--at the paper or at home. "Adam's Rib" does a great--and sometimes hilarious job--of gender-bending in the courtroom. Spencer Tracy's crying act at the end of the film complements Meg Ryan's deli orgasm--the two show their skill at faking. In "The Lady Eve" Stanwyck flips Henry Fonda off his feet. Yes, they marry at the end, but by then, it's clear they are both head over heels for each other. My biggest complaint about how women are depicted in film concerns the age disparity: I can't bear to watch Audrey Hepburn follow Gary Cooper in "Love in the Afternoon." It's too Woody Allen/Soon Yi. And Gloria Swanson as a fossil in "Sunset Boulevard"?! Give me a break! She was 5o. Jimmy Stewart in "Rear Window" and Gary Cooper were both over 20 years older than co-star Grace Kelly! The disposability of women after a certain age still needs to be addressed.It's a bad lesson to keep teaching.
4
The tragedy at the heart of "Sunset Boulevard" is that Norma ISN'T a fossil; but Hollywood thinks of her and treats her as a fossil.
1
the writer's inability to use correct grammar distracts me beyond belief. sure, i'm old school. but who/whom is NOT difficult. come on.
1
Then why not bother with beginning a sentence with a capital letter?
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The exaggerated slant of the eyes of Mulan in that still picture is very annoying. Chinese women are beautiful and their eyes are not slanted like that. Perhaps almond-shaped, but not slanted. I should know. I was married to a Chinese for 15 years and have spent a lot of time in East Asia. It's more than annoying. Who drew Mulan, anyway?
The forced kiss of The Quiet Man was echoed directly in E.T., for years the highest grossing film of all time. No one claimed Elliot kissing his classmate was sexual assault.
Not too long ago, a kid was actually arrested for "stealing a kiss" from a girl:
"PIKESVILLE, Md. - A 13-year-old boy in Maryland has been charged with assault after police say he grabbed a fellow eighth grader and kissed her." That was 2015.
I've had women so consumed with #MeToo awareness that they have said any touching that occurs with out consent is sexual assault. I often have women touch my arm or even thigh at dinner parties when they are making a point. The sexual assault "originalists" will tell me I've been victimized. No joke.
Here's the thing about movies: a lot of bad, stupid stuff happens in them. We glorify killing in ways that do real damage to this nation. Gun companies could not ask for a better ad program than many Hollywood movies. Even a Thor movie set on a different world managed to glorify an Earthly assault rifle.
We need more strong women in films who are not spanked, raped, victimized.
But I would have been happier if the article had noted that there are plenty of examples of women instigating a forced kiss on a man in Hollywood. There is a scene in the James Bond movie, You Only Live Twice, where Helga forces herself on 007 when he is tied up, for example.
Dare anyone to watch the off to the church scene in The Quiet Man and not wince!
1
Arrested? Good for the school! In 1993 my daughter was sent home from school for putting her fist in the face of a boy who'd grabbed her protesting friend around the neck and was trying to forcibly kiss her. If a kiss isn't freely given, it's sexual assault. Consent is not something that can be taken, only given.
Try watching the old (first version) of star trek. Eeek! All the women are blatantly objects and extremely young. No shortage of forced kisses and some spankings too.
1
I always suspected that too much movie escapism was unhealthy. One can learn the same misogynist lessons from books as from movies based on books, but for every movie there must be a thousand books. There is so much more to choose from in the library than the theater.
Does life imitate art or does art imitate life?
2
Movies entertainment,amusement,propaganda ...,whatever it maybe or ought to be isn’t univocal...and shouldn’t be.
Longings for egalitarianism for the time being just utopian.
Brought up by or at westerns : it was al about heroism .
It is a long way understanding that kind of fairy tales disturbing,distorting daily reality.
Fortunately my childhood comics never in need for any explanation!
Instead of using the phoniness and fantasy found in movies to learn about being a woman OR a man how about using the natural world and listening to your instincts and biological cues?
1
What did Elizabeth Taylor (in her white slip) tell us about being a woman in 1960's magnificent BUtterfield 8?
Of course being a"bad girl" she did have to die at the end.
2
It sounds like the author is griping about women being portrayed as sex objects but get over it. Women are hardwired to try to attract males. Look at the way women dress - makeup, perfume, jewelry, long hair, ridiculous shoes, etc...
That's one reason women don't do well in business / heading large organizations. Hard to take someone seriously when they dress like a clown. Men wear uniforms (dark suit) and typically have short hair so their appearance is unremarkable. I remember one campaign stop Hillary Clinton was wearing a bright yellow suit. What would you think of a man who did that? And remember Madeline Allbright. 50+ years old and overweight wearing thigh high skirts and tons of jewelry.
1
Ugh! It might surprise you to learn that women do not necessarily dress for men. Get over it and yourself.
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This brought to mind so much for me: Hepburn’s reaction when Tracy spanks her during a massage in Adam’s Rib; Dietrich in anything; Ida Lupino and how she directed. But most of all, it called to mind my sister, Nina Leibman, whose book Living Room Lectures, explored similar themes in TV and movies in the 1950s. Had she not been killed soon after I have no doubt she would have much to add to this insightful analysis by Dargis.
Since this article references mostly old and older movies I will list the last few I watched in the past week to 10 days. The Gunfighter, Crazy Heart, All is Bright, The Border, Fargo, and Shane. I didn't see any abused women or even any exploited women who weren't willing participants.
Growing up in the 1970's, our generation faced the contradictions of Charlie's Angels, Coffee, and Wonder Woman seeming to compete with the traditional stereotypes of women - primarily white - as sexualized objects. While traditional female leads were the reason the heroes fought and their worshipful support made them worthy romantic partners, the heroines I grew up with were independent. The problem was they still needed to be bikini-worthy in order to appear on the screen - big or small. To not be sexually appealing was a death sentence, even among Hollywood and Madison Avenue feminism. I remember loving and grasping for the Wonder Woman ideal in her values and deeds. All around me were boys who grasped for the weaker, sexualized damsels in distress or who merely saw Lynda Carter's Wonder Woman as a sexual fantasy.
There was an impossible battle within many of us veering between the strong or sexy. Female empowerment was supposed to point to both, but sexy was always defined through the lens of the male eye. Many of us were allowed to behave like a "tough cookie", but only if we had the sexual desirability embodied in a Farrah Fawcett, Lynda Carter or Pam Grier.
Today, male standards of acceptable strong women still dominate, restricting strength to support of our men or children. I am grateful that women can begin to create a more complete path to being celebrated just for being strong, skilled and smart for themselves alone.
2
Movies taught me that women take charge when the odds are stacked against them. Think about Diane Keaton in "Baby Boom" or Tess in "Working Girl". The latter was really my hero. She showed that even a working class girl could achieve success by going back to school, persevering in the face of sexism, and being honest and tough. She also showed the reality of how some well-meaning friends and family can hold you back because of their own small dreams.
And let's not forget the scenes with Harrison Ford's character. He takes care of the passed-out Tess, but doesn't take advantage of her. He becomes a partner in supporting her creativity and achieving her dreams. And when Tess becomes a boss, she applies her lessons learned to her new colleagues. Instead of being a back-stabber, she reaches out with real warmth and appreciation to her assistant.
Come to think of it, I still need Tess' strength in my life.
4
If Ms. Dargis learned what she knows about "Being" a woman from the Fantasy Factory that *is Hollywood, I think we may have *already discovered the basis for any problems she may have incurred resulting *from that fact.
We also have too many adolescent males learning about "Being" men from
wallowing into the swamp-depths of SuperHero comics.
What influences us as adults are often the quality of the *choices we make (for better or for worse) while we are growing up. The "problem" here is less movies and comics than just plain poor choices.
That's where solid adult guidance used to factor into the lives of the adolescent.
Here we have proof positive the the ineluctable laws of Cause And Effect are
*still working as reliably as ever.
4
"Movies teach us all sorts of things: how to aspire, who to fantasize about (all those princes will come), how to smoke, dress, walk into a room (always like Bette Davis). They teach us who to love and how, as well as the ostensible necessity of sacrificing love along with careers."
So if the movies and the entertainment business "teach us all sorts of things" then doesn't this suggest that this extends to the violence the movies display?
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The ubiquitous, pervasive violence in movies and TV is the elephant in the room no one talks about after a mass shooting.
3
Let's face it. Hollywood has always been about objectification -- and that includes sexualizing women and girls (and men at time as well). I don't look to the movie industry to be very evolved. Yes, I know in recent times more women have agency, but the truth is that it is largely about youth, beauty and the gaze of men. I -- for the most part/yes some exceptions -- have stopped watching what comes out of Hollywood, the image it paints of women is tiring. And that goes for the violence too.
4
What does #metoo- the hashtag of sexual harassment really mean? Is it a call out to protect victims of violence or has the movement evolved to become a call for a reconsideration of how we view women?
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Every woman I've ever discussed it with preferred Leslie Howard to Clark Gable.
2
Not true in my experience. Leslie Howard’s character was weak, vasilating and unreliable. He was really the worse of men. I found him despicable.
2
Me. tpp. Theresa. Me, too.
Ewwww. Not this woman.
2
Get a life. Movies are the last place people should look to get a hint about how to act or think. Look closer to home at the people right around you.
12
First of all, movies do not reflect reality; they are an escape from reality which is kind of the point. The feminist analysis of movies reduces everything to the transactional and offers an especially glib solution: a woman should be represented in the cinema exactly as a man would. No difference. Women complain about women not being seen as sufficiently self-empowered, as too influenced or in awe (romantic or otherwise) or otherwise not the image they want to see in that narcissistic mirror we call the movies. In other words if a particular movie does not leave the (female) movie goer feeling good about themselves, the movie is obviously in thrall to male hegemony. Movies are in thrall to only one thing: making money. Perhaps the author or any other feminist movie goer should remember one thing the next time they see a movie which disappoints: it’s only a movie.
10
You say that "it's only a movie" and that movies "do not reflect reality." And yet, in the same breath, you acknowledge movies as being narcissistic and there to make money. Well, they can't make money unless they reflect a certain reality back to the audience, a reality that audience can relate to. And audiences' realities change every decade and every generation. If you don't believe it with the #metoo movement, then look at movies that depict(ed) the Twin Towers or school shootings. Movies DO depict reality and that is why we place so much importance upon them.
Movies! I loved them growing up in the 50s-60s. TV stations ran old movies because they were cheap and very, very good. I liked the actresses who defied men. Who were strong. Who were in control. Certainly Mae West. Yep, Barbara Stanwick. Yo, Hedy Lamarr. They were icons and they still are for seven-year old girls like I was.
5
I'm 37 and am thankful to have come of age during a terrific time for leading parts for women. Check out the Best Actress & Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominees from 92-97. You will be floored at the variety and scope of roles. When people ask me about my favorite movies, I tell them that for the romance of the cinema, I love "Out of Africa" for Meryl Streep's artistic performance of Isak Dinesen and how the film charts her growth from a bored, wealthy and naive city girl to a wise, compassionate and trustworthy woman who learned from her mistakes with men, was humbled by nature and respected her native neighbors.
But if I get a second word in, I tell people that my triumvirate of female empowerment movies is "The Silence of the Lambs," "The Piano," and "Breaking the Waves," which all came out within five years of each other. They portray ordinary women who face extraordinary circumstances imposed by the people surrounding them. Clarice is initially used by Jack Crawford to seek Lecter's help, Ada is sold by her father to a stranger and Bess' capacity to think for herself is constantly questioned. Each rises above her doubters and realizes her potential by following instincts and surprising others, if not themselves. I think about the passion that Jodie Foster, Holly Hunter and Emily Watson put into their roles, which were all so unusual and risky for their time. Thanks ladies, you remain my gold standards for women's roles in the movies.
6
It is not just misdirection on being a woman but also on family life. In order for a movie to be successful there has to be conflict, often times rudeness and often one of the actors or actresses has to do something that would make no sense in real life. We make a lot of fun of "leave it to beaver" but there does need to be examples and better examples of how to love your family and how to make the people around you feel good. Unfortunately, the studio gods will tell you that conflict free is boring.
5
Dargis doesn't view these films of the past as an anthropologist or archaeologist might, which is too bad, since the medium is a kind of time machine. The author's psyche and the stories of the films are permanently entwined by her lifelong love of the medium; there isn't a place for her where real life ends and the film begins.
I abstained from television and movies from the ages of 14 to 34 (am now 65), so I have an easy separation between the lives that parade across a screen and those in my unscripted life. For example, in the 1960s movie The Time Machine, the paternalistic hero meets a young (pretty) woman who doesn't speak. I wonder: Did the male producer/director inadvertently or on purpose show the injustice of the oppression of women without sacrificing box office draw?
Dargis may not be an archaeologist, but this article is itself a bit of an archaeological find, as it preserves the view of yesteryear in the light of today, even if it does not separate them.
2
Let us not forget about how romantic comedies until only a few years ago *still* treated stalker behavior as romantic, and taught young men that if they were just persistent and stalked enough, the woman would give in to their "charm".
Ugh.
11
Sorry, but I know too many happily married couples where one or the other in essence stalked their future spouse. Nothing supper-creepy, but a bit of dedication.
My grandfather was in the Air Force. He said it didn't seem to matter where he was being stationed next, my grandmother would write him and say she just happened to have a cousin or something nearby and she was coming out that way to visit.
Before social media, it was absolutely required that if you met someone you liked at a party but just didn't have enough time or excuse to ask that person on date (or get asked), you quizzed anyone you could about where you might run into them again.
And if you don't think most women don't cyber-stalk guys they like these days, well, you are misinformed.
5
My, aren't you confident in speaking for all humans? If you think that knowing "too many"* examples of one type of human means you can speak for all, well, you are misinformed.
*"too many" is how many? 100? 500? Hmmm... 500/7,000,000,000 = ?
1
John Wayne a romantic lead? He was the most awkward clumsy actor around. Sheesh!
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Yes Viola, a romantic lead....Apparently you never saw The Quiet Man. Educate yourself. Wayne was wonderful and the chemistry between O'Hara and Wayne was magical.
3
I saw it and have to agree with Viola on this one, O’Hara was great but John Wayne, not so much. To each her own:
6
Yeah! John Wayne really just didn't have much of a career because he was so awkward and clumsy. It was a shame. If only he had managed to pull off some kind of screen presence, maybe he would be remembered today, right?
C'mon, Viola.
Yes, it's terrible that women and girls were taught that "rapey" behavior was okay and they should passively accept it. But also terrible that men were taught that the same behavior was not only okay but desirable and sexy.
9
Thankfully, women no longer support films that show female characters not only taking physical abuse but embracing it willingly.
I seem to remember long lines of women outside of showings of 50 Shades of Gray silently protesting.
Oh. They were waiting to see the film?
Hmmm. Really?
Gosh.
1
Why do we refer to men by their last names but women always by their first names?
5
Basically because older American men were taught that it was grossly impolite
to refer to a female by her last name, unless we also included her title, be it
"Miss", "Mrs", "Dr." etc.
Oh, I'm sorry ........ "manners" were a social convention by which ..........
1
Men very rarely change their last names sometime in their 20s or 30s. A lot of women still do.
1
I don't know, Terri, why?
Women in all societies prefer pursuit - and men to do the pursuing. If not, why over 7 billion of us?
6
All I have to say is, Thank you for acknowledging Lesson 7.
2
Pretty deplorable record for the most part. I've always despised "The Quiet Man".
4
The parlor game of judging social norms, gender relationships and mores from decades ago by today's standards is a humorless and fruitless one.
The Graduate is arguably the seminal movie of the 60s, an enormous commercial and critical hit, yet today it would be decried as a stalker film. It's not.
I am a highly-paid professional screenwriter who writes a lot of humor, it's incredibly difficult when everything has to be vetted through the lens of possibly offending someone somewhere. Perhaps it's why there have been so few successful film comedies in the last few years.
25
Yeesh. If screenwriters can’t write comedy without relying on worn-out offensive stereotypes, they 1) are being creatively lazy, 2) aren’t keeping up with the times and want to use “PC” as an excuse.
1
Hey Sparky!
Got any good "butter" jokes? My friend David E. wants to know.
Some humor questions: I enjoy jokes where late-night comedians often compare older men's head and necks to male anatomy. Can you fathom what would happen if even a female comedian made a similar kind of joke comparing a woman's looks to genitalia?
On Late Night with Seth Meyers, they did a joke about how when Denzel Washington appears on Broadway in The Iceman Cometh, that the last word would describe the reaction of many of the women in the audience. Can you give me a read on how that joke would play today if, say, the actor was Scarlett Johansson?
Not too many years ago, Some Like It Hot topped AFI's list of comedies. If we did a shot by shot line-by-line remake today, how many careers do you think the well-meaning social justice warriors would end?
Best to you. Keep real humor alive in these dark times.
Or as rapey Gomer Pyle would say, "Surprise, surprise, surprise! That's not my finger!"
1
Dear Highly Paid Writer, Adverbial modifying clauses do not take a hyphen, as incorrectly done in “highly-paid”. Writing tip: if it ends in “ly” it doesn’t take a hyphen, Signed, a poorly paid professional writer.
1
This article succinctly articulates how popular culture can influence personal development. I wonder how the current use of media and technology is influencing the development of our younger generations?
9
apart from the obvious-for-4yos US movie style of telegraphing by background music the emotion you are expected to feel next ('let American experts live your emotions for your tonight !'), the hero gets punched first, but then destroys his opponent, etc., I noticed the typical female sex siren in US movies spoke in a breathy voice 'ooh !' - a la Marilyn Monroe
in reality most women I know speak in a hard edge amongst their peers, so the breathy voice is a fantasy for young males to imagine themselves in that hero position, with a beautiful actress swooning in their arms - 'take me!'
now - get out of my movie theatre - and come again next week - and pay again !
1
"Rapey" not at all, O'Hara's character was fighting her own religion where women didn't dare see a man without a chaperone case in point their entire courtship.
6
Um...it’s not “rapey” for a man to rough up and grab a woman, and twist her arm behind her back so he can assault — oops — “kiss” her? Wow.
Bette Davis would be furious over your co-opting her character’s name to promote such an idea.
6
I think The Quiet Man is a great film to watch today because it is a clear illustration of how much society has changed. I love Ford's films, but The Quiet Man is Taming of the Shrew.
Please, everyone, watch the off-to-the-church scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm9MEBPZkcU
You knew Bette?
No?
Okay, because if you did, you wouldn't post such drivel.
Meanwhile back on the front page of the NYT's....male heads of murderous sates, power-hungry egotist dominate and will dominate headlines for as long as we become fascinated by these corrupt individuals.
3
Ironic that the Times is using this article to show spanking on its web cover page...
I am grateful that I grew up in Europe. There may be as many stereotypes, but at least films there don't have to end with a kiss.
3
One of my favorite heroines in film is Margot Channing (played by Bette Davis in the film "All About Eve"). She struggled with "aging" in the business of theater and the things she and every woman at some point has to concede. "Funny business, a woman's career, the things you drop on the way up the ladder so you can move faster. You forget you'll need them again when you get back to being a woman." The film also deals with the "backstabbing" some women will do to get ahead. Margot Channing survives all of it. She is truly the heroine of this movie.
9
That’s what you got from it? She throws it all away for a man. So she can be a “real” woman. Married and domesticated. A little wifey. Fixing dinner for him and doing the dishes instead of being a star of the stage. Ugh.
4
Above, Passion for Peaches, you state: "Wow. Bette Davis would be furious over your co-opting her character’s name to promote such an idea." I imagine that Bette Davis/Margot Channing would be just as "furious" at your remarks here. If one knows Davis's history well, with her fierce standing up against studio executives, one knows equally well Davis's characters--as she would understand them-- would not end up "fixing dinner and doing dishes." Take careful note of Bette's/Margot's campy fluttering of her eyelashes as she expresses her commitment to her man. (Translation: yeah, yeah, I love you...see you later . . .I have things to do...) It is your prerogative to see the end of the film the way you wish. For me, Bette's life-narrative suggests otherwise.
1
I am really happy about this article and am very glad that it led-off with John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara in "The Quiet Man".
Unfortunately, to too many young men or other misogynists, they don't think that #MeToo applies to them. "Oh, that's just men in power abusing their position. That's not me."
But then I have to explain to them that it is much more to #MeToo than that that women are upset about a lot of other male behavior that was looked at as "boys will be boys" when I was young (I am almost 56, white, male). Many of these young men do not realize what life was like and they cannot imagine it. Furthermore, it's almost as if, to them, it's all a vast feminist conspiracy and they are oblivious to their own current behavior.
At this point, I resort to video and the iconic scenes to me are that kissing scene from "The Quiet Man" and the spanking to Maureen O'Hara that John Wayne administers near the end of "McClintock!". What was not shocking almost 60 years ago should be shocking today and that men need to understand that this is unacceptable behavior. I wish Maureen O'Hara was alive today to comment.
When I was young, I paid no attention to these scenes although they did bother me a bit. But, I did not having anything akin to #MeToo in mind. This is why #MeToo is such a pivotal moment in our culture alerting men as to what many women everywhere go through by "boys being boys". We males truly can be oblivious to our own actions and mindset.
10
That screenwriter was my grandfather and I am totally embarrassed to see 2 films here to represent spanking women.
4
Which screenwriter?
The Quiet Man goes well beyond spanking. At one point a helpful old woman comes up to John Wayne and says, "Here's a good stick to beat the lovely lady."
Actual line in the movie, played for laughs.
The movie was a huge hit with women when it was released.
1
You like Stella Dallas? That insipid, sappy, melodramatic story with over-the-top acting by the otherwise superb Barbara Stanwyck? THE ultimate movie about "mother sacrifice" wherein she lets the snobs in town alienate her equally snobby daughter? THAT film?
Instead of Stella saying, hey, take me or leave me, reminding her daughter, ex-husband and everyone else that she, and she alone, raised a beautiful young daughter, they all condemn her for her loudness, her wild clothes, and her friends, who drink too much but are otherwise nice, harmless people.
You want women to let others boss her around, be abandoned, and beg a cop to let you stand in the rain watching your only child, your daughter, kiss her new husband and then be shoved away, as if you are a peeping tom?
What kind of message does that judgmental, repressive movie tell women? You think Stella comes across as strong as Ripley?
Did you see the same film as I have, repeatedly? Really? Really?
What are you telling women? That if you clean a man's house you have an itchin' for, and he kisses you, somehow that's rapey? If you don't wanna be kissed, don't clean the cottage of a newly arrived American former boxer, now in Ireland. At night. (He was a boxer with a strong punch, ok?)
THAT kiss is one of THE most erotic in all of filmdom.
What the movies taught me: be careful of reviewers.
"A Woman's View" by esteemed film historian, Jeanine Basinger, is also very illuminating.
2
There is another reading available for this film. Note the knowing-bit-of-a-smile that Stella leaves the audience at the end of the film. It's a smile of relief. Stella makes a choice. Sure, sad, but also liberating. In short, she chooses. She is free of the banality of all the middle-class trappings to which her daughter subscribes.
Ms. Dargos sticks to American films. Tant pis
Try French cinema, s'il vous plaît
"Baise moi" shows both that women can be dangerous and in charge
3
on the other hand, there are a lot of coming of age movies with adolescent boys having sex with their mothers. always struck me as weird.
1
Tiresome, revisionist, academic garbage.. who knew that feminism would devolve into a re-education camp for all cultural media that doesn't meet the current bar for political correctness. Never mind all the positive stereotypes portraying females in media.. oh we'll keep them as 'accurate.'
7
That's a pretty stupid, short-sighted, clueless remark that attempts to remove all historical context from the issue and reduce it to something as simple minded as a ball score.
9
Manohla overlooks the most colossal one of all that has the most serious ramifications: Women are taught to play hard to get.
7
How any woman can stand, let alone be attracted to, John Wayne is beyond me. He is a caricature of manliness that makes me cringe.
19
Cannot abide THE QUIET MAN.
8
we need more women writing articles about other things, not just themselves, women and fashion
4
I"m impressed that so many people here feel immune to the social norms represented in the movies. I know I was affected and now, in my 50s, these scenes make me angry or disgusted. It's not just the older movies, it's movies that came out over the last 5, 10, 20 years. For example, when I first saw Love Actually, I thought it was a charming romance. The second time I saw it, years later, I hated that the women got failed love stories while the men got sexy new girlfriends with women half their age. Think Emma Thompson and Laura Linney vs Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Alan Rickman, Colin Firth etc.
Even so-called empowering movies. For me, it was hard to see Thelma and Louise in a positive light, given the ending. Or Mean Girls, where a critical part of the happy ending is the heroine Cady snagging the cute guy; or Wonder Woman where the heroine is powerful but also naive. She walks around wide eyed asking 'what is this?... what is that?". I'm glad more and more movies are breaking the sexist mold but there's still a lot out there, and I know it took a toll on me.
10
Yeah, boy—Love, Actually was particularly awful in this regard.
2
@SAM: thank you! I didn't even think of that. I never liked "Love, Actually" for those very reasons, yet i recall critics just swooning over how cute and romantic it is....but all the strong female characters are treated badly, and end up ALONE....the male characters get rejuvenated with wonderful new (YOUNGER) romantic partners. There is not one example in it of a woman over 35 ending up with a partner!
Nor did I ever find "Thelma & Louise" empowering -- what the heck is "empowering" about a suicide pact?
1
I love TCM. Hollywood is America plus producers.
1
You don't mention several of the most important movies and actresses, to me:
Wizard of Oz (sure, lots of things happen to Dorothy, but a) she makes a lot of them happen, and b) saved in the end by a female witch and her own wishes! Plus, the very best depiction of a helpless male pseudo-authority ever!);
Working Girl -- Lots of stereotyping but I still found it inspirational to my own early working life;
Katharine Hepburn!
As for all the spanking, I'm sure you could get another whole essay out of men's desire to infantilize women simply because they, or their demands, are inconvenient! I would say this is an obsolete concern, except for Senators telling women to "Grow Up!" simply because they are protesting the appointment of a lying, arrogant would-be rapist to a lifetime position on the Supreme Court.
4
I think the more relevant scene in The Quiet Man is when John Wayne busts down the bedroom door that Maureen O'Hara has slammed and locked in response to his indifference to the dispute over her dowry and says, "There'll be no locks or bolts between us, Mary Kate, except those in your own mercenary little heart!", picks her up and throws her on the bed in a manner that foreshadows sexual aggression, and then leaves to sleep on the floor in the outer room. A fine and timeless lesson for men and women, methinks.
3
But she is treating him deplorably at that moment -- and IS putting money ahead of their marriage (he does not care for nor want her "dowry") -- he does not rape her or hurt her in any way. It's not the Scarlett/Rhett scene in GWTW at all.
In fact, he lives her alone in the bedroom and goes out to sleep on the floor in the living room -- alone. That's not sexual aggression in my book.
Oh gosh, what about Seven Brides for Seven Brothers? It's one of my favorite movies and the dancing is just awesome and so is the singing. But, I haven't seen it for years and I have this sinking feeling because the "boys" kidnap their town "girls" and bring them up to their home in the hills where they are snowed-in for the winter after an avalanche; not exactly PC. The women folk do have total control over the situation, however, so it's actually kind of fun. Still, a lot of people are not going to watch it anymore and they will miss "I'm a lonesome polecat," and a lot of great scenes, the dancing here is just the best, as good or better than West Side Story. Personally, I think Milly and the girls have a lot of power. Milly is the true hero of this movie. Petite Jane Powell may have to tilt her head to look up at her husband but she simply towers over this bear of a man Howard Keel, and has everything well in hand. So, I hope this movie is not lost to future generations because it is, in a simplistic look, going to be considered rapey. It is not.
1
As a woman who is afraid to make the first move, I have sometimes (but not always) welcomed a forced kiss. Some of the most pleasurable and most erotic memories of my life have been men seducing me by making the first move and where I was happy to "submit". This may not be a PC thing to say, but I believe it to be true for many women. If men try to kiss you and you don't want it, just push them away and say no. If they persist, only then does it become harassment! By making it taboo for men to do this, you are missing out on so much!!
11
Hollywood shapes our perceptions in ways we don't always realize. When I was a kid, I wore glasses. In eighth grade my parents *finally* allowed me to get contacts and I immediately became extremely averse to wearing glasses at any time to give my eyes a break from the contacts. Eventually I realized it was because in the movies (and television), putting glasses on an actress was always code for "This girl is ugly and undesirable" and having her ditch the glasses partway through the film was the symbol for "Now she's hot and about to become successful and start dating her crush." That was so strongly internalized that putting on a pair of glasses felt like I was sliding back into being the ugly girl everyone makes fun of or ignores.
12
I am afraid a lot of this merely that glasses do not photograph well; the glass in the lenses is reflective and shows the camera lights -- and hides the actor's EYES, which are so important to acting and communication.
I think anyone would observe that nearly NOBODY wears glasses in films (except unimportant minor characters, the old folks and yes, those determined to be "homely") but in REAL LIFE....maybe half of all people wear glasses (or should be wearing them, except for vanity!).
You could also observe that almost everybody in movies is good looking, youngish and slender, but in real life....well, you know.
Many of the actors who do not wear eyeglasses onscreen, do in deed wear them in real life (or have contacts, or Lasik or similar).
BTW: this is just as true for men, so it's not sexist. What MALE ACTORS do roles wearing eye glasses?
1
These observations are solid. But, I would argue, only half the story. Male stereotypes run rampant in film. Physically strong, domineering, emotionally stilted. That, or physically weak, cowering and a blubbering mess. Archetypes are part of any tradition of storytelling. The male/female dynamic represented in American movies is not new. It's thousands of years old with origins in Greek myth. Penelope faithfully waits decades for Odysseus' return. Olympian Gods, overcome by lust, trick and rape women. Men are fierce warriors. Women, like land, are made to conquered. These dynamics aren't relegated to film. Read any romance novel (most of which are written by women) and 99% of the time you'll find the same dynamic. Warrior men and the women they must have. There is something about the idea of this dynamic that is appealing to both men and women. If it weren't, it would have died out long ago. The problem comes when the stories bleed into questionable behavior in real life. It's one thing to be captured by a passionate kiss and another to be slapped around beforehand. Hopefully, as more women write and direct film there will be a broader exploration of the male/female dynamic. However, I think these stereotypes are too ingrained in our collective consciousness to disappear completely. The truth is most woman like to be the object of blind desire. It's just the question of consent. Just like life, how the "yes" makes it on to the screen is the tricky thing.
5
Good point. I would gladly read an analogous article written by a man.
Interesting and thought-provoking article and yes, it's a nice idea to look back once in a while at what Hollywood hath wrought.
I would have to hotly disagree with Lesson 7, however. Racism had little to nothing to do with either the book or film version of "Gone With the Wind" and looking at it through the lens of "Twelver Years a Slave" is to entirely misunderstand what the author intended. Also, when I last looked, the entitled, spolied brat Scarlett O'Hara loses.
2
If you are learning from movies you need a new teacher. They are not real and it's not even close. One might consider that they may actually be a type of brainwash and designed to control people who are easily lead to slavery. I like movies, the more comical, absurd and over the top the better because I am not expecting a portrayal of reality, or a lesson in anything.
3
Movies led me to believe I could be anything I wanted, as sexual as men, as capable as men. It was a surprise to me to encounter men who had not seen the same movies as me.
2
If I were a NYT movie reviewer, I would write an article about what movies taught me, as a boy growing up in the 80s. Americans today are shocked at Brett Kavanaugh's supposed behavior in the 80s. But go back and watch Porkys, Stripes, Animal House, 16 Candles -- you name it really -- and tell me what it says about what men can/should be, and think about what that told a 6th grader at the time. Like the women in this article, these movies taught a generation of men how act around and to treat women. How'd that work out?
15
My favorite thing was a sitcom called "I Dream of Genie." Barbara Eden's character called Larry Hagman's character 'master' while she made his life a living hell week after week. It was great.
Movies, TV? I thought all that stuff was fun-fantasy until I grew up and realized men thought this is how life really is. Men conquer, women submit. Well, that's not how it is. Women may like to play slap and tickle, or whatever, but in the real world there are jobs to hold down, bills to pay, projects to complete, parents to take care of, children to see to, food to put on the table, sickness and old age to contend with, axes to grind, whatever.
I wish people could just treat each other decently regardless of sex, regardless of race, regardless of sexual orientation, regardless of religion. If you like to spank your wife, and she likes it? Good for you both--but that should stay in the bedroom. Why? Because it's just a few minutes of sex play, not real life. In real life, there's partnership. That ought to be Lesson 9, but there are pitifully few movies about Lesson 9.
Let's face it, when people watch movies they don't want real life. I applaud any effort to portray women as real people instead of a cartoon version of what some man thinks of women. I guess we just need more female movie makers.
4
An enjoyable and thought-provoking piece. But where are Charlize Theron, Frances McDormand, Penelope Cruz, Emily Blunt, Natalie Portman, and others? All strong women in strong roles.
5
Many movies made through the 1960s onward--about the time so-called women's lib took hold--show women as hyper sexualized objects through the male lens/gaze. The male leads, whatever their age, get to be action figures rewarded by access to naked women and sex. And when the lead take takes his object(s), he either overpowers her to get sex or she can't strip fast enough to fall into bed. Forget about foreplay. What's sad for me is that with the magnification of this message through advertising, we're teaching girls they are nothing: 1) unless they are beautiful and rail thin, 2) get male attention, 3) and are only desirable/acceptable/worthy if boys/men find them so.
These messages easy to internalize and I suspect millions of us have morphing into hook-up sex, sex by force, women as less than enshrined from rap culture to today's movies where 8 men have roles and only 1 or 2 women to the bizarro buffoon in the WH. Sadly these distortions that pass for true relating harm everyone.
2
For a startling look at our casual racism and sexism, 1953 action/adventure film City Beneath the Sea (on Netflix) is hard to beat. Actually painful to watch now for it's offhand offensiveness. That was us, our culture, our standard model of behavior. Twenty minutes will give you the idea.
3
Further to Dargis’ points, read Walsh’s "The Quiet Man," which the film claims to re-tell. There, Sean falls for Ellen but claims no love prior to consent—even after, in a coincidence he's given her in marriage by her brother, Liam, who rids her as property to further his own convenience. Sean accepts the bargain without joy; he lacks in the transaction not his conjugal rights but her desire.
And so, without exercising any claim, he wins her love on her own terms, perceived through respect. "Deeply, subtly, away out of sight, with gentleness, with restraint, with a consideration beyond kenning" he allows her to know him; and only hopes to deserve her love.
It is a telling opposite of Hollywood’s "forced kiss."
And when the story switches to Ellen’s point of view we see Ellen’s distinctly non-male path toward her love for him: "She, for reason piled on reason, presently found herself admiring Shawn Kelvin; and with or without reason, a quiet liking came to her for this quiet man who was so gentle and considerate; and then, one great heart stirring dark o' night, she found herself fallen head and heels in love with her own husband."
Even the film’s culminating fistfight, a risible male-bonding romp between Sean and Ellen's brother corrupts the story's brief, decisive fight & its necessity in re-positioning Ellen beyond a property of either man—an independent woman distinct from dowry & others’ choices as to where she sleeps & with whom.
5
I am reminded yet again of the "Bechdel Test," which asks if a movie (a) contains two female characters, who (b) talk to each other, (c) about something besides a man. (A more stringent version of the test asks whether the female characters have names.)
23
Movies and video in general shape cultural attitudes all day long. My biggest peeve is the appropriation by commercial interests (ads) of statuesque women who are slotted into the roles of pitchmen. Fortunately, we are coming to recognize sexual relations as the basis of politics. They ought to be egalitarian, free and not coerced, as well as frank. Suppression of the frankness has given men the tool to make these relations about power rather than getting what both parties desire.
1
Methinks one should not take the movies too seriously. I would say of all the films produced, probably 1 or 2% can be learned from, and those are very likely based on books that are far more substantial and rewarding. Not to denigrate your profession, but if you want to learn something, read a book.
7
I think Dargis was using "learned" tongue-in-cheek.
1
For my 70th birthday party, I had a drawing for my guests. I picked a favorite movie from each decade my of life and purchased those movies. I drew one name per movie, and gave them their draw.
I searched through many a movie trying to decide my favorites. Of course many were about women’s lives and I gave a lot of thought and maybe own personal take during that research - I mean 70 years? That’s a lot of movie scanning and picking and choosing.
But - as far as what do movies teach us about women? Not anything about categorizing. Sorry, author here. In fact, the opposite of categorizing. Movies give us the freedom to learn every woman is different from each other, even though some seem alike. Movies take us on women’s journeys - some are adventurous, some not at all that way. Movies give us stories that sometimes we can personally relate to those women, and sometimes we cannot relate at all. Movies give us opportunities to pretend in the short while we’re watching we might be like the character, other times wishing we were, and others just glad we’re not like the character at all.
I’ve been very temporarily disabled recently. Friends ask me what I miss, or what I’d like to do when I’m released from this status. Really? They should know - it’s Oscar choosing season! The first thing I’ll do when “let go” will be heading to a movie theater!
Will it teach me something about women? No, but it will give me a new experience to think about. Can’t wait.
6
Or how about the classic, "The Red Shoes," in which a world-class ballerina punishes herself with death for having chosen career over wifely domesticity? And yet it is one of my all-time favorite films. You cast aside the anachronisms and enjoy what's there to enjoy, and in many old classics, there's a lot. As for a role model, I think of Barbara Stanwyck running a ranch, an image that has encouraged me when I feel overwhelmed with home and property maintenance.
6
I took my young daughters (probably. 11 and 12 now 50's) to see "The Red Shoes".
As we left the theater they both said that "of course you would choose your career". Times have changed.
4
And so, queenbvick, what did they choose?
1
And sometimes we have to accept that the social norms were different in different time periods. Hindsight definitely comes 20 years later. I would add that as a boy who grew up in the 70's and 80's, I never thought the "forced kiss" was legitimate, real or acceptable and no adult ever taught me this while watching an "old movie" with me. This was something that I decided completely on my own. It didn't matter if it was Bogart, Wayne, Mitchum, etc. It always seemed like fake drama to me so I never tried to kiss a woman without looking into her eyes first, to see what her answer was, before I asked a question with a pass. Isn't that what gentlemen do?
21
I've always been very selective in movies that I was willing to see. Therefore, I don't see many movies because I'd rather not be subjected to insults. The only exception is when I was a youth and had to watch what my parents watched, which is what taught me to be selective.
4
I'm confused with the following assertions in this article: "“And while sometimes a kiss is just a rough kiss and an overture to a fade to black, at other times it also evokes the sexualized violence and rape that Production Code censors policed from the 1930s through the 1960s" . . . and, then, "“This hasn’t led me to reject certain films and filmmakers. Policing desire isn’t of interest to me, understanding film is.”
But does the former statement contradict the latter? Are you saying that the Production Code was a good thing and that new forms of censorship are required to prevent images of sexualized violence and rape? Was not the Production Code the apogee of "policing desire"?
The final paragraph by the author states: “Here is what else movies have taught me: They rarely get women right.” Indeed. But do the movies get men “right”? And, what does it mean to ask the question this way when, as so much film criticism has shown, representation is never quite so simple.
10
As regards Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, the late and beloved former governor of Texas Ann Richards was fond of pointing out that Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did, but she did it on high heels and backwards.
40
The movies should teach you nothing about being a woman or a human being. They are fiction mostly and if they serve any purpose they need to be carefully evaluated. Propaganda even if not intended can be in any form of entertainment, or even in education if not properly evaluated.
8
At least in the case of GWTW....it is idiotic to discuss the film without acknowledging it was made from an immensely popular NOVEL. Everybody in 1939 knew the plot and the romance and the details. There was no possible way to make the film and CHANGE all of that.
My mom, who was a teenager at the time, said the copy of GWTW (the book) at her school library was so well worn, it literally FELL OPEN to the scene where Rhett Butler forcibly drags Scarlett (who is his wife at the time) up the stairs....really, a very modest scene by today's graphic standards. But it was considering smokin' hot in 1937, I assure you!
Propaganda in films or books, is above all other things BORING IN THE EXTREME. It is pretty sad that a film critic at the NYT seriously wants even classic old films from 70-80 years ago to be "PC" in keeping with 2018 #metoo standards.
I'm a woman and a feminist, and frankly I can't WAIT for #metoo to finally disappear.
2
I'm so glad that Ms. Dargis mentioned Molly Haskell's profound and still utterly relevant history of women in film, "From Reverance to Rape." I first read it as a film student in the 70s and still think of it often when watching the wretched mess that most films (especially American ones) make of portraying women.
For younger people who've never or rarely watched films made in the first half of the 20th century, it may come as a great shock that actresses had far, far greater and more realistic roles 70+ years ago than they do in most movies today. And they had a lot of roles, because so many (much lower budget) movies were made and women were the prime moviegoing audience that the studios tried to please.
Even the best actresses today in the best roles are often reduced to playing girly versions of femaleness, something you'd never catch the likes of Bette Davis or Joan Crawford or Barbara Stanwyck doing. It's surpassingly rare that I see a film that portrays a complex female character that I resonate with, especially one over 40. TV does it better these days, but we still have a very long way to go for parity in terms of both breadth and depth of female roles in entertainment. As Dargis notes, even wonderful and award-winning actresses are still too often reduced to sidecar roles as the supportive wife or girlfriend with few lines and no real character development.
21
So agree. A lot of U.S. films also have women looking like, acting, and sounding like young girls. Cringeworthy. Reasons why I watch almost entirely foreign films and TV series on Netflix. So much more substance, plot development, truly interesting and distinctive female roles and supporting casts. No 40-year gaps between love interests to insult us; doesn't happen.
4
With the internet, YouTube, small cheap video cameras....250 channels of cable TV....streaming video....
Pretty much ANYONE can make a movie today. This is not the studio system of the 1930s -- not for over 80 years. That was my GRANDMOTHER'S heyday!
So....explain again why more women don't make more movies that are in keeping with these feminist ideals?
Is it possible that PC movies made to be rigidly feminist and approved by liberals are just boring and nobody wants to see them?
Whereas The Quiet Man and Gone With The Wind have endured for more than 3 generations?
2
Which is why we all miss Nora Ephron. Which is why I am a Cher fan. Hooray for Meryl Streep, Sigourney Weaver (Is that just not the most perfect name for a story teller?). There are men who can write or direct movies about who women are and what they may choose to do. Coming to mind is M. Night Shyamalan.
The fact of the matter is that while men were away doing manly things, since the beginning of time, there were women who carried the entire responsibility for the missing man. It seems odd to me that now our culture has defined the term to be 'Single Mother', when the reality is that up until recently all women without powerful alliances in aristocratic societies were single mothers, husbands would come and go and often never really enter into the family mode of living, i.e. Snowflower and The Secret Fan.
I apologize. I don't have the slightest idea of what living like a man is like. I don't want to. I'm content being a woman who has struggle against the bounds of patriarchy most of my life. I know there are men who honestly believe that they are the cogs that move the world. They are not. It is the hand that rocks the cradle who decides what the future will be.
4
We have the same four heroines. Throw in Judi Dench, Katherine Hepburn and Maggie Smith too.
4
When I was younger, I thought the movie "Woman of the Year" was an wonderful story about two head-strong people who fall in love and get married. Tess, as played by Katharine Hepburn, was one of the most sophisticated and brilliant female characters of the time that I'd ever seen from that era. As an adult, I easily recognized many missteps the movie makes in its second half, but none as egregious as in its last scene. I look at the ending for Tess's character and cringe, wondering what Kate (and Spencer Tracy, for that matter) really thought about the moment in which Tess is humiliated by her inability to make either coffee, a waffle, or a piece of toast for her husband's breakfast. This is a woman who knows several languages, who knows the ins and outs of the political spectrum-- not to mention a supremely talented writer--reduced to a failure unable to fulfill one of her primary "wifely" duties. What a way to ruin a film.
30
Lesson #9: Watching too many movies will distort your perception of reality.
As part of the baby-boomer generation, I watched a lot of TV, and went to the movies quite frequently. Can't say as I learned a darn thing from the movies, other than 1) they were expensive; 2) the sound was way too loud; 3) anything looks good on a big screen; and 4) walking out of the theater into the parking lot always brought you right back to reality. Nothing in the movies taught me anything about how to be a boy, a man, how to date a girl, or live a married life.
Ditto for TV. Anything with an On/Off switch isn't real. People are missing a reality chip in their brains, if made-up plots and hired actors and imaginary venues speak to them about how they should live their lives.
27
as a baby boomer my childhood experience of cinema movies was the Saturday Matinee - with a series of superhero episodes like Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, the Green Flash (I forget exactly) - all with thrilling soundtracks and ending with the hero's life in imminent threat - cut off with 'watch for the next exciting episode of ... !'
so I'd have to come again next week - what was it - ten cents or something ?
Missing a chip, or perhaps have a sensibility with which creative work resonates that others lack.
1
Hmmm. Ever tried any Shakespeare?
What movies taught me about being a man:
Lesson One: Women are only attracted to stoic, aloof, muscular men who are not losing their hair.
Lesson Two: Men must make all the moves in initiating romantic relationships. If they don't, they aren't man enough. Too timid to be worthy of a woman's affection.
Lesson Three: Men must remain stoic and unemotional when being verbally and emotionally abused by women, whose behavior isn't really the same as male abusive behavior.
Lesson Four: If a man cheats, he is a bad person. If a woman cheats, it's because her boyfriend/husband is a bad person not meeting her needs.
Lesson Five: If the genders were reversed in Thelma and Louise, the film would have been protested as medieval fascism.
Because of these lessons, I wound up in years of therapy after years of abuse from a female partner, who I had been taught was incapable of abusive behavior because only men abuse. It's not a black-and-white world; the knife cuts both ways.
37
American society is only interested in, and sympathetic of, the suffering and sacrifices of women. There is an underlying belief that men deserve what's coming to them, or are responsible for creating their own problems, or at the very least don't deserve any sympathy because of the general "privilege" of men. Only women and girls suffer, and they suffer because of how terrible men are. That's the only narrative you'll find in these pages.
Thank you for bravely telling your story. I hope for a day when stories like yours are not dismissed or ignored simply because the victims are men, but don't expect the NY Times to be at the forefront.
4
I just don't believe abuse and harassment, etc., is a one-way street. I think men and women take turns oppressing each other. I believe what the present article is saying, and I see it with my own eyes. But to me it's only half the story. The unrecognized half is the thing that caused me so much trouble. I will never forget how beaten down I was, and how much I hurt. The worst part of it all was that no one believed me. I just wasn't being man enough. I needed to man up. A real man wouldn't be so sensitive.
1
Here are some titles to consider: "The Sweet Hereafter," "Coming Home," "The Grapes of Wrath," "Moonlight,' "Leaving Las Vegas," "Tree of Life," "Twelve Years a Slave," "The Squid and the Whale," "Mystic River," "Life is Beautiful," "My Left Foot," "Good Will Hunting," "Manchester by the Sea," "Of Mice and Men," "The Kite Runner," "The Shawshank Redemption," "Ordinary People," "Kramer vs. Kramer," "Born on the Fourth of July," "The Elephant Man," "Fences," "The Prince of Tides," "Big Fish," "Rabbit Hole," "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close," "Up," "The Imitation Game," "The Pursuit of Happyness," "American Beauty" and so many more.
Please do not miss these brilliant movies with incredible performances exploring themes of pain, loss, and emotion centering on male characters. Many of these titles are newer and reflect our changing appreciation of the price that men pay in what we ask them to do and how we expect them to endure at any cost.
Be well.
2
I was so excited to see the title of this piece and had hoped it would talk more of empowerment and less of how that power is usurped. I think a movie like Barbarella would be a great place to start ( recognizing how love, sex and power are related and ok to be related). David Lynch's Twin Peaks seems to also speak of sexual power, and how it can consume men. Quinton Tarantino seems to have made the perfect action womens flick with Kill Bill volume 1 and 2. ... I think its important to come to understand how Meryl Streep for instance has managed to with-hold power and remain feminine with-out wielding a gun or sword much like Cyd Charise did ... and how that understanding will evolve into more women being given roles of power in our movies and in our world.
6
Thank you so, so much for this! I am a male with two grown daughters to whom I've managed to pass on my absolute love of movies. I, too, adore the Astaire-Rogers movies, the Quiet Man, Gone With the Wind and many others which send questionable messages to my girls (and me, too, come to think about it). But we've come out ok and have been able to observe these, and the many other films you mention, with nuanced eyes. And we know that often what we see on the screen is not something that we should expect to have replicated in real life.
That clip from The Quiet Man that keeps running above the byline has got me thinking about how Maureen O'Hara's character was portrayed. Right after this forced kiss, she gives John Wayne a roundhouse slap on the face. Not only did this say 'you went a bit far there' (even though, clearly, she liked it), it also told us much about her sense of self. That was made evident in her relationship with her brother, who she threatened severely more than once. And it was clear in how she dealt with her wedding night and the absence of her 'fortune'; she would cook for her husband and clean his house, but he could not have 'her'. That John Wayne honored her stance spoke unspoken volumes about their relationship.
I, and my daughters, are not going to stop watching film, especially these classics, because they violate norms we see now as inviolable. But we will watch them with greater understanding of what they do and do not tell us.
31
It's notable the Nick-Nora spanking scene takes place in one of the later, lesser Thin Man films following the departure from the series of married screenwriters Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, who had modeled that relationship on their own in the first three films. There's a reason the first three are the best and most representative of the appeal of the couple, since Goodrich and Hackett were equal partners in their decades-long collaboration. I just don't want the mention of this scene to think that was the appeal of the whole series. By The Thin Man Goes Home, the original screenwriters had gone on to other things and the original director had died, and MGM was on a steep decline.
16
And that last film was made during the Hayes Production Code.
1
Great! Many thanks for this exquisite article. The writing and the graphics are simply wonderful. Looks that a lot of effort was dedicated to make it happen.
5
Can't wait until someone takes on 19th- and 20th-century novels. To this former lit major, the estimable canon feels like a long exercise in female masochism. Except for a notable few female authors (mostly with male pseudonyms), women were written by men. Their roles and attitudes were determined by "society" (ie, men), and that set us up for movies about destitute, pathetic, "yielding," or just plain crazy ("hysterical") women. Media, along with religious writings, has always determined how we are perceived in life. It's truly terrifying, once you examine it all.
10
Your comment is timely for this reader who was enchanted by watching Elizabeth Gaskell's 'North and South', a PBS series showing on Netflix. The cast is brilliant, and the content is profound in addressing how The Industrial Revolution came about, with the power of The Union, all men, and the role of a young woman from Southern England showing tremendous courage. She is able to block the rage of the men by protecting their 'master', at a price.
When romance turns from dislike into love, it is tender enough to make this weathered eye mist with joy. The alliance between North and South takes place while the man and woman remain in their mutual 'social' code.
3
I'm so happy to have read Pippi Longstocking books as a child. She was a great role model.
3
One thing I notice is what happens to a woman's presence as a movie narrative develops.
Too often, female characters lose all or most of their power after they fall in love/go to bed/otherwise secure or establish a relationship/ with a man.
AMC's recent limited series The Little Drummer Girl is a good example of this, where the female lead, who exhibits energy and independence before falling in love with a terrorist, becomes a China doll figure after that.
Atomic Blonde is an interesting exception to this rule, where the female lead passes on a chance to couple with the male lead, partners instead with a female French spy, and maintains her character's strength. Of course, she is ridiculously hyper-sexualized in this film, but that's another can or worms.
6
I thought the woman in Little Drummer Girl (actress Florence Pugh) was portrayed less as an assertive and independent woman, before falling for that guy, than as a manipulative narcissist who blustered to hide her insecurity. That’s why she was so easily led into the trap.
But that transformation you speak of is the precise reason I loved the series “Killing Eve.” No y-chromosome kryptonite there.
2
Thank you for another intelligent and thoughtful analysis of gender roles in movies. It is anything but tiresome; we are now approaching a new level of understanding of gender issues and it's important that we mine our history and culture for perspective.
25
It's mind numbingly tiresome, yet predictable.
1
I grew up watching Tarzan movies and mild horror (like Creature From the Black Lagoon) on Saturday afternoon TV as a kid. In all the movies, if a woman was being chased by a monster or a wild animal, she always, ALWAYS, fell down to be picked up either by a man or the monster. Fortunately, I didn't learn that I needed to fall down. My friends and I laughed at the way women fell down on a regular basis when chased by beasts or monsters.
33
One of the funniest seduction scenes of a woman taming a beast or monster is to be found in the release of 'King Kong' in the 90s, where she is fighting for her life, and Kong is having a case of sulks. All-male and lonely, he ignores her attempts to amuse and distract him, until he caves in, and gets an earful. Lots of laughs are to be found in this version, along with a sorrowful ending.
2
Which is why "Alien" was so revolutionary. Am I the only one who noted that this was the first sci-fi film with a smart, brave female protagonist?
5
Maureen O'Hara does slug John Wayne right after that kiss. Nonetheless, there is dreadful misogyny in that film; I think its origin is mainly John Ford (he had a minor character helpfully abetting wife-beating as a comic trope in more than one movie, including that one). As a depiction of the mores of an Irish village in that era, The Quiet Man may be accurate (the main theme of the movie is that of an American-raised man adapting to the culture of his ancestral town), but the film does not lack powerful women. Ford often cast Mildred Natwick as a woman who managed grown men effortlessly. I grew up admiring Mae West too, but I wanted to *be* Dame Edith Evans as Lady Bracknell. That's authority.
6
I always like the plucky, intrepid Ginger Rogers in her non-dancing roles. In "Kitty Foyle” she was her own person, but not domineering or didactic. Very much the modern women, of her time.
8
Maybe you have not seen "The Quiet Man" recently, but it is NOT "McClintock" -- an awful later John Wayne film, also with Maureen O'Hara -- in "The Quiet Man", he does NOT beat her, nor spank her at all. The only scene that comes close is when she demands her "dowry" and he drags her to her brother's farm, gets the gold coins -- and she proudly throws them into a furnace to prove that the money itself was never the point at all... It is funny, charming and delightful and very true to the spirit of both characters.
2
Gone With the Wind has, despite its many problems, been my favorite film since I was 8. It's really refreshing to read an article that, rather than dismissing it because of those problems, embraces its holistic complexity. I love what you say about Scarlett - "just because a woman is a victim doesn't mean she isn't culpable." Thank you for putting into words what has long made her one of my favorite characters: she's fascinating precisely because she is flawed in many areas and inspirational in others (as many of us no doubt are in real life).
19
Excellent article. I was brought up on English war movies (Sink the Bismark, Battle of the River Plate, Guns of Navarone) as I was educated in UK Boarding Schools. Very limited roles for women on board battleships. But to my surprise my wonderful wife of 50 years has been really enjoying seeing these , not just to understand me I think! So look forward to the next article on what Movies taught me about men. Also please can Manohla Dargis review the recent two films we have seen "The Favourite" and "Colette" which both emphasise women as very interesting main (or essentially only) characters. For Movie fans I might also mention that both of them link with the lovely West Oxfordshire countryside (one historically with the link to Blenheim Palace albeit this is not shown) the other with the gorgeous Cogges Manor walled garden and kitchen in Witney (also used in Downtown) (Ok this is a shameless plug - my wife volunteers there!).
Movies represent social relationships at a point in time. We shouldn't judge them with our 21st century ethics.
If anything, the fact that we can't see these old movies anymore, suggests that maybe society is not a tyranical patriarchy, because it allowed us all to continually change and develop into what we consider now "normal" will be seen as barbaric in 50 or 100 years (like eating meat, working 40hs/week, etc.)
23
Thank you for this... for a more comprehensive and nuanced look at the messages women received from movies, Jeanine Basinger's "A Woman’s View: How Hollywood Spoke to Women 1930-1960" is a masterpiece.
8
Many films I once considered to be romantic now make me so angry I can no longer enjoy them. GWTW is one — not just forced kisses and galling racism, but the “a good rape will fix her” scene where Rhett drag-carries Scarlett up to bed. She awakes happy and grinning — fulfilled after being “taken.” Even “All About Eve,” one of my favorites, is tainted by the trope that a woman at the top of her profession is not truly a woman if she can’t look up every evening and see her husband across the dining table. Eating food she prepared, of course. Stroppy, brilliant Kathryn Hepburn could be “Woman of the Year” for her professional accomplishments, but as long as she’s a failure at domesticity and parenting, she’s a terrible, selfish, unlovable person. Sigourney Weaver might be a brave, smart hero in “Alien,” but she still has to do a too-long scene in her underwear. This is what movies taught me. A woman must be desirable, compliant and deferential. And she has no agency where sex is concerned.
Before I was old enough to understand what the sexualization of violence and domination meant for women, the slapping, spanking and grabbing of actresses bothered me deeply. I was slapped and spanked at home: I knew how that went. I now mute the tv when male actors are verbally abusing women. I have a visceral reaction because I have been on the receiving end of that. When women are physically harmed (too often), I can’t watch. Oddly, my husband can. And I hate him a little for that. Truly.
121
I'm so tired of people misunderstanding that GWTW scene. If you actually watch the scene, you can see Scarlett setting it up. She is not taken by surprise. The whole thing is her idea. Watch it again and watch Scarlett.
5
If you haven't tried already, maybe just ask your husband to count the number of times women are harmed, and how significantly, in things he watches. For bonus points, you could mention that it always makes you unhappy. Hopefully, he will care. Sometimes just having to notice something makes you start to see it differently.
1
Same here. I used to love GWTW, but it's now hard for me to watch with 21st century eyes. I recently had to turn off "Rear Window" - another favorite - because the blatant sexism was just so irritating. I get that for the time it was normal, but - ugh!
3
This is tiresome. Isn't there something else to talk about?
Are masculinity and femininity totally fake, made up concepts, or do they have some root in biology?
Can't we just try to be happy with what we have, biological/psychological endowments and all?
30
says the man
7
And yet you read it. Or did you bother?
2
Nowadays in the movies with just one look and naked straight into bed, there's little left to imagination as was once demanded of older film inducements to audiences. As with video games and electronic toys, it's all done now for us right before our eyes and no wonder we're all bored not having to think.
9
As to straight-into bed, I've regretfully seen films where the seduction played more like a rape scene--forget foreplay just violently force her or the decades older male star(s) had improvable liaisons with women young enough to be their daughters. Lots of gratuitous boob exposure scenes. Sigh. Movie-making through some skewed male fantasy lenses.
2
You could literally never make a film like "The Quiet Man" today, which is probably why I love it so much -- no couple would ever be permitted to "court and spark" that long, while the sexual tension builds up and their characters are explored and defined both individually and in the context of their romance.
It's just "wham bam thank ma'am (or sir)" today. Very boring IMHO.
2
Whoa, Blade Runner?! No way. The whole premise of Blade Runner is to analyze what is humanity in CONTRAST with the replicants. It's a forced kiss - just like every other aspect of the replicants' forced existence off planet. I've never thought of it as a romantic scene, but a scene that shows just how hard it is to treat someone/something differently, even if you believe they should be treated differently.
10
It was wonderful to finally read an article on this subject.
The golden age of Hollywood is not always so golden when you look closely.
There are two movies mentioned in the article, Blade Runner and Contact that I absolutely love and yet have always found problematic.
I have always found the 'forced kiss' scene in Blade Runner troublesome mostly because it was completely unnecessary. The only purpose of that scene, in my opinion was to prove that Deckard was actually the bad guy in the film, while Roy Batty was the traditional hero. Deckard was an alcoholic shoot-in-the-back gunslinger who abused women. (Seriously, watch the movie again.)
In Contact, it was frustrating to watch a strong character like Ellie have to perpetually ask white men permission to follow up on her own discovery. It was frustrating because Jodie Foster played her as weak and submissive, where in the book, Ellie was the strong one. (Again, watch the movie and see.)
There would be outrage of these characters were portrayed in the same way today, and it's outrage long overdue.
19
In Blade Runner, Rachel wanted Deckard from her first smoldering glance. But as a replicant, she was quite literally programmed to say no. Look at the way she played the piano, the way she let down her tightly-bound hair. She knew she had become more than a blank slate. Is she afraid of smashing through it? Of course. I know I was. This is the context of a love scene that, if it had not been cut short by the censor, was clearly consensual. (Google it.)
Perhaps some of this energy can go to rehabilitating the reputation of this brilliant actress, Sean Young. As a neighbor in NY, I saw her navigating her new fame with a snarky irony that was three decades before its time. But she was, in words that could have and maybe did come from Harvey Weinstein, 'difficult.' Work dried up. Young did not take this well. Right now she is mainly known for going crazy in the end. It turns out she was right all along to not go along. #metoo should say so.
1
"It's too bad she won't live, but then again who does?"
- Gaff
Its the movies honey, Hollywood, not real life. Don't take them so seriously. They were made by men, no woman thinks she is inferior to man. There are a lot of movies that do show how strong women can be. Look at all the strong women in real life, look at our mothers. Women also ruled England and other places. We come in all varieties, soft and strong and everything in between. Sometimes staying home, supporting your husband and bringing up children, every day, takes more courage, strength and resilience than going to the moon.
40
And you'd sure be welcome there, Steph.
4
Stephanie, I'll buy your ticket. Why are you disparaging housewives and mothers?
3
Reconsider.
But if you do go, dress conservatively. Very conservatively. Stay in your lane. Your very narrow lane. You probably will end up staying home anyway. But yes: you won't have children to raise.
1
Ginger Rogers' characters didn't always gaze worshipfully up at Fred Astaire. In several films, she was indifferent to him, or feigned indifference, and a few of their dances are even a bit combative. True, their films always end with the two of them dancing off into the sunset, but I never felt she'd subjugated herself to him. They certainly seemed more like equals than a number of his later dance partners, several of who were so much younger it seemed a bit creepy. (Funny Face comes to mind.)
53
I love the clothes and charm and songs in "Funny Face" and Audrey Hepburn at her peak....but yeah, the romance is creepy. Astaire seriously looks like Audrey's grandfather.
Well, at least Asta enjoyed Myrna Loy's spanking.
The roles that Hattie McDaniel accepted did not inhibit her from participating in a notorious women's society called the "Sewing Circle."
3
By the time I saw many of the movies you mentioned, my parents had seen them many times. At the "right time" in a movie scene - war movie, love story, history, adventure - I'd hear a "Key-Rap!" from one of my parents and, believe me, it was a "cue" to notice the silliness of what was being presented. As we grew up, my siblings and I would watch the TV and you'd hear, "Oh, sure... Like that would happen" as the show went on. Today, I won't watch anything where guns are pulled in the last five minutes to "solve" the case, anything with super-natural powers, or, "super-powers" - and so on... I wind up watching a lot of clever stories, while looking for hints in people's behavior, and things like that... Much more like real life and much more useful. So, some guy is going to "transform" from a little car to a giant robot, some witch is going to move a house with an few words, "the hero" is going to fire a magic bullet that never misses the bad guy to hit the store clerk behind him? "Oh, sure... Like that would really happen." Saves a lot of time and stupidness. What did I learn watching the movies? To watch very few of them. Try it. You'll like it.
9
Your prerogative of course, but most of us do not watch movies to see real reality crawl across the screen in all its boring splendor.
We want to see adventure, romance and action, not necessarily in that order.
2
As much as I love "The Quiet Man", I always thought the scenes at the end where Wayne drags O'Hara back to her brother were unnecessarily drawn out. The kiss scene seems to encapsulate the sexual tension between the two main characters, so I didn't think it implied anything misogynisitic. The spanking scenes in "McLintock!" and "Donovan's Reef" were simply unnecessary. They would have been better movies without the scenes.
4
Here's the thing about how the movies portray both women and men: it's "Hollywood". It's not real. And you know what, no where even close. It's fake. Really fake. As Cary Grant once famously said, Even I wanted to be Cary Grant.
52
Agreed, the Cary Grant quote, one of the greatest of all time for a celeb.
Also there is a complete disconnect between the sexes in movies and at work.
In movies women are either treated as sexed starved nymphos or the opposite, sex objects to be used as desired.
At work, any hint of a sexual advance in thought, word or did will result in the man getting fired.
2
Unfortunately, it doesn't always reflect culture; it shapes culture and has had some detrimental affects vis a vis females.
3
JAWS, what do you have against the Cary Grant personona? Women loved him then and today and men also.
Would you rather have the situation now where if a man makes a pass at a woman at work no matter how benign, he gets fired but our present day culture portrays women in entertainment as either sex starved nymphs or sex objects to be abused.
2
Maybe it is just me too, but...men, tell us the last time a women made a pass at you, tell us the last time any woman would do anything unless you first behaved exactly how this article portrays men.
11
Well, not to brag but, actually, . . . See my prior comment. But it took a woman educating me on how to kiss to change me, instantly. I was still lacking finesse, but no longer uncertain as to advance.
4
Jim, that is it - about 90% of the time.
Women don't want Harvey Weinstein predation or gaucherie. But the majority of women prefer aggressive and have disdain for passive.
One just has to be cool about it.
3
Lovely, thought-provoking, resonating piece. Thank you.
36
OMG I'd love to get spanked by William Powell.
24
It shows you the double standard in our society. If I said I would love to be William Powell spanking the woman, not only would my comment probably not be printed, the feminists here would accuse me of being a wife beater.
No such reaction about you saying it.
5
It's a matter of opinion Stephanie ie you have to separate the truly bad from the truly evil.
Cheney wanted to bring us back to the 1930s but he believed in democracy.
Trump wants to bring us back to the 1930s but does not believe in democracy.
Believe it or not there is a big difference.
2
To be successful in your career you need to be mean? Maybe the word to use is tough, as in making tough decisions. Having a career in life where you are mean to people to move up in a career is sad.
5
Interesting that movies quoted all date to a time prior to our current PC environment, the most recent is Thelma and Louise from 1991.
The critique is mostly about how women are tender things that are abused all the time by males on and off screen who are awful, sexists and icky. Then you go an quote Shades of gray, a movie exactly about abusing women, which is super popular with women. So hitting women bad, unless they like a movie about it? I personally think that hitting or hurting a woman at all should be illegal, but when I see the Shades movies being some popular amongst females, you have to forgive me for being confused.
Yes, if you look at real old movies, then you see a very different world than we live in now. Should we look back and be critical of the past as viewed through the lenses of our current PC fad? No.
Maybe you should concentrate more on how to be a young successful actress all you have to do is be skinny and look pretty, no skill required, like Megan Fox, or Kristen Stewart. Pretty, skinny and bare skin and you got a movie deal. That’s bad.
Elle and Dakota Fanning, as so many others, never had to bare their skin to prove they are some of the most talented actors out there ever.
Movies are movies, what was entertaining in John Wayne’s days, is passe today.
10
The column was about how movies shaped her views while growing up. So yeah, not a lot of contemporary films.
4
The forced kiss has its value. And it goes both ways. (I am male.)
I was abysmally shy, still a virgin a year after entering college. My first "deep kiss" occurred when the woman turned my normally chaste, nervous kiss into her tongue in my mouth. Over 60 years later, i still remember every detail. It was, "WOW!"
We won't dwell on detains And I kissed -- no force -- many more before finding The One. But that totally unexpected event was an education, and a revelation.
So I'm not sure the classic moviedom portrayal of the event deserves such a scathing critique. Can a woman, naive and innocent, not experience what I did, in an identical -- but role-reversed -- encounter?
Thank you Ann, wherever you may be.
46
A folow-on: At a singles greet and assemble party a few years later, I moved in on a woman with who I'd been chatting and who seemed receptive. As I leaned in, she turned her head and said, "Between the desire and the act, Monsieur, there is room for respect."
Being turned down with a quote from de Maupassant . . . we married two years later.
64
WOW! That's great. Sometimes if we're lucky life is like a movie!
6
that sounds totally the same as a woman's experience of a "forced kiss" while experiencing a lifetime of feeling threatened and in danger from men.
not.
1
Thanks for an excellent, thought-provoking article that leaves judgement to your readers.
62
Yes, to recap women can be just as good or bad or indifferent as men if they want too.
They can also do whatever men can do if they are qualified and want too.
What a great majority of women don't want is to be socially engineered either by the extreme right (ie tied to the bedroom and kitchen) or the extreme left, asexual, damaged goods that have to be given special treatment, 50% of what men get whether they want it or deserve it and condemn present day men for all their troubles.
17